Day Of The Dead Birthday Celebration, detail of Halloween bouquet, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
We went out to dinner at Mysore Cafe in Uptown to celebrate a friend’s birthday last night. It was All Souls’ Day, day after All Saints’ Day, and both days following the Celtic rooted celebration of Halloween. The Indian vegetarian buffet was hearty and we stayed until closing, laughing, singing, telling stories, and chanting. (Yes, chanting.)
The highlight of the celebration was when we broke into Happy Birthday To You a total of 9 times over the course of the evening. There was the Traditional melody (1) when we picked the birthday girl up at her house. (She slipped into the car, and we slipped into harmony.)
Then there was the celebratory, we-found-a-parking-spot-right-in-front-of-the-restaurant Happy Birthday (2). Followed by the Marilyn Monroe to JFK, soft-puckered-lips Happy Birthday (3) before we got out of the car. We sang the Traditional version again after dinner (4), and (at the special request of the birthday girl), the low toned, Gregorian Chant Happy Birthday (5) filled the room right before we left the restaurant.
We spontaneously broke into Happy Birthday four more times on the drive home. The first was the Beatles Birthday (song) (6) when we got into the car after dinner. Then the Traditional Happy Birthday To You (7) when we pulled up in front of our friend’s house to drop her off.
There was the Johnny Depp pirate version for Halloween (8) when she got out of the car, and, as she stepped around the corner to go up to her apartment, we rolled down the windows and sang one more Traditional Happy Birthday in 4 part harmony (9). Let’s see, yeah, I think that’s 9.
We had a blast. But what I really want to say is that today, November 3rd, is the 1 Year Birthday of our first post for red Ravine. Though our blog didn’t yet have a formal name, ybonesy and I started planning and writing for red Ravine well over a year ago.
Our WordPress launch date is April 7th, 2007 (and our stats only go back to April), but we’ve been at this labor-intensive, sometimes crazy, most times supportive, endeavor for well over a year. And though we have those days when it seems like too much, for the most part, after over 50,000 hits, we are going strong!
So Happy Birthday, ybonesy! It’s the one year anniversary of our formal writing for red Ravine. And if you’d like, I can see if my friends would join me across the miles in the Happy Birthday melody of your choice. (Too bad we can’t do a podcast!)
Happy Birthday, red Ravine. Long may you rock!
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, November 3rd, 2007
-related to posts, Back Of The Napkin & 100 Year Old Bones – The BoneWriters & RE: 100 Year Old Bones
redravine.wordpress.com 