Over at RevGalBlogPals, the prompt for Friday Five is about Birthdays. Let’s play.

1) What is the first birthday you remember?
I have a lot of “snapshot” kind of memories  of early birthdays. Maybe my 4th or 5th would be the earliest I can really picture.

2) Do you recall a favorite gift?
For my 5th birthday, I received my cat Cleopatrick (the first family that had him thought he was a she. Cleopatra was adapted. We called him Cleo). He was a blue point siamese cat. I loved him with a fierce love. The corollary to this, is that my 15th birthday was my worst because Cleo died a few days before my 15th birthday.
And, my love of blue point siamese cats helped me snag my husband, because he also had a blue point siamese (it was a sign! He had to be a good guy, right?).

3) Has anyone ever tried to surprise you for your birthday? Did it work? Was it fun?
No. I’ve surprised other people for their birthdays, which is fun, but nobody has surprised me on mine. I have had a number of surprise baby showers. They all managed to keep the secret and it was a lot of fun.

4) Do you have a favorite birthday dessert?
I’m not really sure I could name an unfavorite dessert, but I do remember a delicious white cake my mom made for my birthday one year, over which red jello had been poured and allowed to gel, and then frosted with cool whip.

5) Describe what would be your ‘perfect birthday’.
It might be the one that is coming up. I am meeting four of my very dear friends from college in New York this year. It happens to be on my birthday weekend. These women have been good friends for a very long time. I don’t get to see any of them as often as I would like. I have no idea what we’re going to do. And I’m not sure I care. Any time with them is time well spent.
My last birthday was great too. I hosted my own party (which is really how things end up being done in my life) and it was a tacky sweater party. So much fun. People actually wore really ugly sweaters. Seeing my friends, who look so normal most of the time, wearing awful 80’s polyester sweaters, or bad Christmas vests was great.