Some of you know I had a birthday last week. It was raining hard, all day.

I remember my sixth birthday, when it rained hard all day. But believe it or not, I was thrilled.

My next door neighbor, Vicki, gave me a child size umbrella as a birthday gift. It was dark green and red plaid, and I was able to put it to immediate use. I ran outside with it and let it rain all around me.

I remember my tenth birthday because I got to have a party. I remember helping clean the house. We had pin the tail on the donkey and Bullwinkle ring toss. It was a very special day for me.

And my sixteenth must have been on a Wednesday or a Sunday, because my mother wasn't at work, and she fixed my favorite meal for supper and let me invite my boyfriend to eat with us.

I remember getting upset on my twenty-first birthday because I was really, truly an adult. It made me sad.

On my twenty-seventh birthday I got to see the Monkees (well, all but Mike) in a small club somewhere in the metro area. I was thrilled.

On my twenty-eighth birthday I was eating in a restaurant with another couple. I had only just met them, but they were very nice. He excused himself to the restroom, and in a few minutes all the guys from the bar came to the table and sang a loud, off key, somewhat drunken rendition of the Happy Birthday song to me.

I understand some of the other patrons complained.

No joke.

I coulda crawled under the table.

My fortieth birthday is well remembered because Brother of Many Surgeries and Other Brother did a "lordy, lordy Kathi's 40" in the paper with the worst childhood photo they could find. You know what I'm talking about; frizzy hair from a perm gone bad, big teeth that you could drive a Volkswagon between, that kind of photo.

You know you have at least one.

Oddly enough, I don't remember the big 5-0. Or much about any of the ones in between the ones I have talked about.

At least I remember this last one.

For now.