today is your special day!

there is a man who is SO special. this man is my Zio Bepi who is visiting from Italy. he turns 75 today and I am planning on making it the best birthday he has ever had. why? cause this man made so many of my birthdays so special for me. whenever we were visiting in Italy which was every second year from the time I was eight I celebrated my birthday. he would strap an empty roaster to the back of his vespa and ride off to the restaurant to pick up a roast chicken for dinner. come to think of it I still love roast chicken to this day. maybe there is a connection? anyway! he would always have a spumone birthday cake for me which was my favorite and had little meringues on it. yum! he did this every single time. on the years that we were not there he would send me a birthday card. still have those! the year that I was in Italy for Christmas he came over with a turkey shaped panetone because he knew we were not having turkey for dinner and that I would probably miss it. just the kind of guy he is. he has never married. has no children. lived in Australia for ten years before going back to Italy to look after my grandparents. he looked after my grandma by himself until the day she died. don't ya think the man deserves a little "special" thrown into his birthday? yup, me too! so here is what we have done so far. took him for brunch on Sunday to the hotel macdonald. by far the best eggs benedict ever!

today on his special day we have arranged for a huge parrot and seventy five smiley faces and buzzards to be put on the front lawn. a message wishing him a happy birthday and I am picking up vietnamese food (his favorite) for supper and I have a carrot cake for dessert. I made a box which folds out with several messages and photos of all of us to give him in place of a birthday card. god I love this man! I was thinking about it when I woke up today and out of all the people I know he is the one person that I have no bad memories of. not one! I tend to remember bad over good so this thought made my day!

another thought that made my day was this bottle cap message from a bottle of Jones Soda that my son drank:

"your mind, being creative and original, will make you famous"

it's true Danny! go for it!