Called Off Due To Snow

I turned 32 Saturday. I’ve had better birthdays.

The plan had been to play two gigs on the weekend. Friday, SugarSmaX was scheduled at Wild Wings Café in Winston Salem. It’s been a month since we’ve done a gig and I was really looking forward to playing again. Saturday, I was going to do play with Marble Alley, a band I play in from time to time, at the High Rock Boat and Ski Club. It’s a beach, soul, and R& B band that I’ve played in for five or six years now, so I was looking forward to playing that one, too.

The fact that my birthday was going to be mixed in on the weekend worked nicely. The better partiers are in SugarSmaX, but Nicole said she’d drive home Saturday (with the club only a few minutes from the house), so I figured that we would have fun both nights. That’s the really cool thing about playing in a band. You have a extra job and extra money, but you always have a place ready for you and your friends to celebrate.

A family gathering was scheduled for Sunday at my parents’ house to finish up a weekend’s worth of celebrating.

“The best laid plans of mice and men…”

The forecast looked daunting from about Tuesday. It improved a little Wednesday and then went to hell Thursday. Friday, it was just a matter of watching what I didn’t want to happen, happen. Snow, ice, etc. And the forecasters, despite the way everyone complains that they never get it right, got it just right.

So, the gigs were cancelled. Money was lost. Nicole and I were stuck at home. Nicole was just as disappointed as I was, because she’s not able to get out of the house that much. Even my parents and Nicole’s dad and stepmother were disappointed, because all of these plans had been contingent on the baby staying with her grandparents over the weekend.

It made me think how strange it is that we celebrate birthdays at all. I suppose someone, somewhere, decided that they needed an excuse for a party. The inventor of the birthday party was fairly self-centered one, I guess. Think about it. It would have been easy to come up with a reason for everyone to celebrate—the fall harvest or Christmas or New Year’s or Halloween or St. Paddy’s Day or Columbus Day or even freakin’ Arbor Day. \

But this inventor of the birthday party didn’t want everyone to just celebrate. He wanted everyone to celebrate him.

Or her. Either way, it was brilliant. And I suppose it’s nice for everyone to have a day dedicated to himself or herself, even if the concept itself is, by definition, wholly self-centered.

So, instead of focusing on the fact that my birthday, like our gigs, was essentially cancelled this year due to snow, we’ll find a way to stretch the celebration into next week. The fact that we’re celebrating is an arbitrary thing. The day on which we celebrate doesn’t have to be any less arbitrary.

So, pick a day. Let’s have some fun.