Awwwwww Yeaaaaaa

I love my birthday. I love it just as much as I did when I was little. It smells like Strawberry Shortcake's hair. It looks like a butter yellow dress twirling around and it sounds like a pool party in one of those little plastic pools in your backyard. I have three birthday traditions or rituals that I carry out every year.

1. I listen to this mix of almost every single one of my favorite Panic songs that my brother made me about 8 years ago. It's a cassette tape if that tells you anything. The first song on the tape is one from Captain Zoom singing my birthday song. Please folks, get this song made for your kids. It makes me happy.

2. The second one is one that I need to weed out and it's the newest one to be inducted. But it's gotta go. I like to run across the bar at a bar as fast as I can without knocking anyone's drink over. I started this one on my 31st birthday and its fun but I think only to me.

3. This one is my favorite and I've done this one every year (without missing) since I moved to Charleston in 1994. I go to the beach at sometime during the day. I stick my feet in the water and I look for a shell that I'm pretty sure was placed on the beach just for me on my birthday. One year I found over 30 olive shells, another a conch shell. This year, Daddy Rucci found it for me. It was the thinnnest, clearest clam shell I've ever seen.

Speaking of this year, I took the celebration to a whole new level. I decided to use all my birthday money (Thank you Mom & Bob, Mom & Dad and Grandpa S.) and take Daddy Rucci with me to The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island. It was lovely ya'll. Not only is the hotel absolutely beautiful but they really work for you out there. They have the squishiest beach chairs with soft towel covers and their pools are heated or cooled to just the right temperature. They left a bottle of champagne in the room for us and they'll pretty much go out of their way to take care of anything you could possible want or need. We spent our whole day drinking at the pool looking out over the Atlantic Ocean and watching the dolphins and pelicans feed on schools of fish. It was perfect. Everyone should go.

So the next time that early soft summer breeze blows across your face, think of me and know that I'm doing what I always do in May. Thanking God for another year of health and family and friends, sticking my feet in the Ocean and saying it's my birthday.

Awwwwww Yeaaaaaaa