Earlier this week and the tail end of last weekend, I celebrated my Birthdays.
If you’re confused about the word Birthdays being the plural version then you should check out my previous blahg, LAUNCHING AND RELAUNCHING where I detail how I found out I’d been celebrating my birthday on the wrong date for 61 years. Well, maybe not the first day, which was the day I was born, and maybe not the first year because I was too young to celebrate, but sometime since then I’ve been touting the wrong day. I always thought I was born on September 23rd but my actual date of birth was September 22nd. This was the first year where I could possibly, knowingly, celebrate it on the correct date. Do you want to know how that went? Read on.
Last week I was sick. That’s as good a place to start as possible. On September 17th I had booked off the day from work to go to a Doctor’s appointment an hour away and then to take my mother to her Doctor in the afternoon. My appointment was at 8:15 in the morning and, like I said, an hour’s drive away. That meant I had to get up early and I also did not sleep well the night before. I was tired in the morning and after my appointment I drove home and had a two hour nap. I got up tired. I was up for about an hour and then I lay down for another nap; lasting about an hour. 
I took my Mother to her appointment then came home and then slept for another couple of hours. I woke up and was still tired and had a slight headache and just a general feeling of fuzziness in my head. The next two days I was off work with the tiredness and fuzziness. I’d get up late in the morning and then be up for an hour then sleep for two or three hours then up for an hour then sleep for two or three. For two days it was lather, rinse, and repeat like that in terms of waking and sleeping. I went to work on Friday feeling about 75 percent but fading. Saturday I was still feeling about 75 percent and after some running around and shopping at mid-day, I came home and slept for three hours. Then the cycle started again. Up for an hour then sleeping for two or three.
That brings me to Sunday, September 22, my new actual real birthday. Sunday I was down to zero percent. The tired and fuzziness and headache were holding me down and I had a small fever of 99.6 The problem was that I had been taking flu medication but when I went back to work on the Friday, I had stopped taking it. That’s when the relapse happened. So my actual factual Birthday was a bust. When I got up that morning my wife just looked at me and said nothing. I asked her if she had anything to so to me. She said no, nothing she could think of. Happy Birthday or I Love You at least? When I reminded her it was my Birthday she replied well you normally celebrate it on September 23rd so I didn’t think of it. I let her off. I was too sick to argue. Besides, I had said I was still going to celebrate the 23rd as my Birthday as I always had. Pick your fights. I was fighting with the flu. I chose to concentrate on that.
Now for the 23rd. I was 75 percent again and back at work. I got to open one present before I left for work. 
It was a box of tea. Granted, it was one of my favourite kinds but it wasn’t the kick-start I wanted for the Birthday I was choosing to honour. I lasted a half day at work before I had to come home and have a nap. I think I had two. 
My wife and I had planned that we would go out to dinner at Wimpy’s in Belleville. If you haven’t been to a Wimpy’s, I highly recommend it. It’s got a nice 1950s vibe and the food is good and the prices are reasonable. Of course I wasn’t feeling well enough for that. I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast and my diet for the days before that had been toast, orange juice, and ginger-ale. I felt well enough around 6pm to think about food so we ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut and drove into Picton and picked it up. I was able to eat two slices because my wife had made me a Birthday cake and there was Butter Pecan ice-cream so I wanted to leave room for that. Then came the presents.
I want to divert for a moment about something that will be relevant to my Birthday and the presents. I’ve been wanting to post for a while about my Micronauts collection. In fact, I hinted in a previous blahg, WHAT PRICE HOLIDAYS?, that I was planning on writing a Micronauts blahg and I even posted a picture of the Battle Cruiser that I had picked up at the Transformers convention I went to on my holidays. I had also written a blahg in 2016 called IT’S NEVER TOO LATE, in which I talked about finally getting the Micronauts Rocket Tubes set I had wanted since I was a teenager. I have a shelf of Micronauts item in my home. Here’s a couple of pictures with a partial view of what’s on that shelf:
These are by no means all of my Micronauts items but I want to highlight three figures on the left in both photos. These figures are Baron Karza, Karza’s horse Andromeda, and the white figure of Force Commander. Here’s a photo of what Baron Karza and Andromeda look like close up (not my photo):
All of the parts for both of these are interchangeable and you can combine them into a cool centaur version like the one below:
I have had Baron Karza for over 30 years having bought him at a Toy Show in Toronto complete in a clear plastic bag. I can’t remember when I bought Andromeda but it’s been more than ten years. Now, Force Commander, I remember was purchased in the last decade. Here’s a close up view of Force Commander and his horse counterpart Oberon:
They also combine like Baron Karza and Andromeda. My Force Commander is a little yellowed from age and when I bought him, he didn’t have his white fists but someone had substituted black Baron Karza fists instead. I painted those white to match. Unfortunately, I never had Oberon and I’ve been on the look-out for that figure. I saw him at that Transformers convention I went to this summer, still with his box, but they wanted around $150. Too pricey for me.
Now getting back to my old Birthday which I was trying to salvage on September 23rd of this year. My daughter Abbie had purchased a gift for my Birthday and had sent it home with my wife when we visited her in Toronto last month. While we enjoying our cake on the 23rd, Abbie video called us and so I decided to open all presents while I had her on the call. The first was her present to me. Here’s what I received:
Oberon! Abbie wouldn’t say what she paid for it, the price tag on the box being the original one from the late 1970s, but she said it was really reasonable and she knew I wanted it. I don’t play favourites with my children but in that moment she was my favourite. Here’s a couple of other photos of the back of the box and the contents:
As you can see from the back of the box, Oberon and Force Commander can also combine into a centaur figure. Abbie’s score of Oberon actually came from the place where I purchased Force Commander. It’s a collectible shop in Toronto called “Tree House Collectibles.”
It’s a small but mighty shop and full to the brim. If you’re ever in Toronto, definitely pay them a visit.
Now back to the other gifts. The only gift from my wife I had opened that day before Oberon was the box of tea. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up but I was riding a high after opening Abbie’s gift. I won’t talk about clothes that I received but I will mention two cool gifts that also really made my day. Earlier this month I posted a blahg called DARKWING DUCK AND THE NFT CASH GRAB where I posted about some of my Funko Pop collection and mentioned a couple of rare Pops I was looking for. I had mentioned my Tailspin collection and how there had been a variant of the Wildcat figure where he had grease on his face and coveralls. Here’s a picture:
Jeanette was able to track one down and she gave that to me for my Birthday. I also had mentioned a Monterey Jack variant I also wanted. Here’s his photo:
I like the crazy eyes and am happy that Jeanette also gave that to me for my Birthday. Not a bad little haul! Oberon and those two Funkos definitely made me feel better and I didn’t puke up the pizza, cake, or ice-cream. So that’s something. The next day I went back to work and I’ve been feeling better ever since.
The last thing I will add about my old Birthday is the 23rd was a Monday and a mail delivery day. In the mail was a CD that I had ordered. It was Danny Polo and His Swing Stars, London 1937-1938 & Paris 1939 plus The Embassy Rhythm Eight 1933
I can’t remember how I got onto Danny Polo but I must have been intrigued enough to buy the CD. Here are a couple of tracks from YouTube from this set. The first is a swinger, “That’s A-Plenty”:
And here’s a previously unreleased version of the song “Jazz Me Blues”:
I’ve listened to most of the CD and I can highly recommend it. Unfortunately there’s nothing on there that says Birthday, Oberon, Pizza or even Cake. In a previous blahg, I know I’ve said that before, A BAKER’S DOZEN MORE FOUND VINYL RECORDS I presented three different versions of a jazz song called “Ice Cream” by the Omega Jazz Band, Frank Traynor’s Jazz Preachers, and The Climax Jazz Band. In a follow-up blahg, ANOTHER BAKER’S DOZEN MORE FOUND VINYL RECORDS, I presented another version by Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Those versions are all good but I think my favourite is by The Climax Jazz Band from here in Canada.
I think we can all agree, even if you’re feeling ill or it’s your Birthday, actual, factual, new, or old, this is the type of Ice Cream that goes down well and stays down.
Happy Birthday(s) to Me!
Tags: False Ducks, Funko Pops, Ice Cream, Oberon, Scott Henderson