well-behaved specters

It is my baby's 21st birthday.  The ancestral resemblance about him that has struck me the most lately is his slowness.  "Lord have mercy, you are as slow as Christmas," I can still hear my grandmother say to my grandfather.  Oh so methodical.  Precise.  Thorough.

And yet one of the things that I've remembered the most is my own 21st birthday, one of very few I remember specifically.  Just dinner.  The Inn's Tap Room.  Just my parents and Ron and Julia.  Most likely steak, potato, salad, rose Mateus.  I can't really tell you why, but it was one of the best birthdays ever.  Perhaps because it was exactly what I wanted, and in a time of terribly hyper awareness. A sweetness.

I baked the cake yesterday.  Blue with white icing.  I made it with egg whites so the blue was bluer.  I didn't have any cream cheese so the icing was pure buttercream.  I didn't have any blueberry flavoring so I soaked some dried blueberries and made something pie filling-ish, and added the few frozen berries we had (when did we use the gallons upon gallons we had?  Must refresh those this year!) and put that between the inside layers (my cake love based cakes are generally three layers).  It is pretty extraordinary, I must say.

I slept well, not a given at my age.  Which is interesting, and makes one oh so appreciative of those spates of really good sleep.  I woke to the alarm, after several dreams, some of which roused me but only the last stayed with me.  My uncle, after whom our son was named, just walked through the room we were in and into the next room looking for something.  It wasn't until after I was good and awake that I realized he'd visited on our son's birthday.  I appreciate that.  Ancestors always welcome.  Spectral visitor always welcome.  Well, if they are well behaved, but we operate very cooperatively so "well-behaved" is the norm.