Friday Five: Birthday, Redux

Recycled theme, with new questions, courtesy Reverend Mother.

1. Favorite way to celebrate your birthday
   Favorite to date was the concert/party my friends and I had for my 50th, in 2005.


2. Do you share your birthday with someone famous?
   Scarlett Johansson, Hoagy Carmichael, Mariel Hemingway, and others. I'm most honored to share the date with Carmichael, who wrote "Stardust" (among many other fine popular songs) and appeared in the movie To Have and Have Not


3. Milestone birthdays:
   1. just like any other birthday – they're just numbers, people.
   2. a good opportunity to look back/take stock
   3. enjoy the black balloons – I'll be hiding under a pile of coats until the day is over
   4. some combination of the above, or something else entirely.
   
   A bit of each, actually. Though I wore black on my 50th b'day, the office did not decorate my work area in the traditional teasing fashion.


4. "Happy birthday, dear... Customer..."
   Have you ever been sung to in a restaurant? Fun or cringe-worthy?
   I can't recall that I have been sung to. If so, it was a long, long time ago. I really don't like the silly variants of the birthday song some restaurants have. I object to hearing it even as a fellow customer.
      A Mexican restaurant in Norman would comp your meal on your birthday. That was a tradition I did appreciate!


5. Tell me one advantage and one disadvantage about your particular birthday, or
   something you like/dislike about your birthday.
   Regular readers of this space know I've been haunted by the unfortunate coincidence that Pres. Kennedy was assinated on my birthday (11/22), so that's a disadvantage.
      I was born on the "cusp" of the astrological signs Sagitarius and Scorpio (though some astrology purists have told me there's no such thing as "cusp"). I like to think I combine the best qualities of the Archer and the Scorpion — that my sting has a sure aim.