TMI: Happy Birthday

It's been a while since I've done one of Sean's TMI Thursdays ... thanks, Sean!  The beautiful pics of sleeping, beautiful men are from /Resting and Sleeping Men.

1.  Do you enjoy celebrating your birthday?  (forgetting about getting older part).  No, I don't feel comfortable with people pampering me and giving me presents, even within my own family.

I don't mind the "year older" part.  At 19,  I was gravely ill with a metastatic malignant melanoma which had spread fairly widely and no one, including my doctors, thought in a million years that I would live to see 21. So every extra year that I live is a blessing.

2.  What is your sign and is it accurate?  I was born on the cusp of Cancer / Leo.  I believe in it very strongly:  love of home, family oriented, overly-sensitive, romantic, nurturing, love of food and cooking,  physical and courageous;  highly emotional but protected by a hard shell and "sometimes living in a fantasy world" ... that's me!

3. What is your Chinese zodiac sign and is it accurate?   I was born in the Year of the Tiger but don't believe in the Chinese zodiac at all.  

4.  What was you best birthday?  See #6, below, items A and C. 

5.  What was your worst birthday?  I turned 20 in the middle of my melanoma episode with a couple of recurrences and numerous surgeries.  We all thought that this would be my last birthday.   I was terrified and in physical pain from the surgeries.  It was a very bleak period.

6.  What has been your best age so far?  I would like to say "my present age" but that wouldn't be truthful. 

Although I'm enjoying myself now, there are numerous concerns such as my difficult financial situation, an emerging 'empty nest',  emerging health problems and the fact that I know exactly the qualities I need in the 'special man' in my life but fear that he will never materialize in my bed.

My "best age" happened during three periods: 
A:  My entire childhood from birth to adulthood, of golden summers living at the family cottage at a beautiful lake and winters doing all the winter sports that we loved.

B:  My 20s, when I had a wonderful adventure living in Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia for my career.

C:  Early parenthood:   The 8 to 10 year period starting when my oldest child was born was a wondrous, exciting time and better yet, I knew how special it was while I was living it.  I worked part-time and was fully immersed in raising my three beautiful, happy, healthy children. 

It was only when my youngest was about six that my wife's behaviour became really erratic and I was starting to notice my emerging gayness.  But I was at least ten years away from admitting that I was gay.

7:  Cake? My cake choices evolved over the years.  For my first two decades, my birthday cake was a chocolate layer cake (made from a Duncan Hines mix) iced with large quantities of real whipping cream, whipped with Nestle Quik chocolate drink powder.  I still love it!

For half of my 20s, I was usually living alone on my birthday in some major city. Overworked, underpaid and far from home.  I never had a birthday cake and it would have been too pathetic to bake your own.  Also, I never told any of my friends or colleagues that it was my birthday.  (See #1, above)

During my marriage, my wife made the cakes and I always requested some home-made, dense cake loaded with real chocolate.

Now, my oldest daughter (a chef-in-training) makes my birthday cakes and she has free reign to make a different one every year as a surprise.  Recent ones have been burnt butter almond cake, orange /orange liqueur cake, and cakes loaded with whipping cream, summer berries or fruit.  They're always very special.


BONUS:  Is birthday sex expected, a present or a rarity?  In the last 12+ years of my marriage, there was no sex of any description.  I did have sex on my birthday this year with a hot younger dude who wished me "Happy Birthday!" when I told him.  LOL
 
If I had a regular partner, I'd say "yes"... I'd want birthday sex as part of my present.   And no, I'm not into being spanked although many guys can't resist taking a whack at my "juicy" ass. LOL