Happy Birthday to Brittany Spears and Chai Tea

Osso always brings the yummiest looking desserts to birthday threads! <drool>

So whadja do to celebrate, Chai? Fab dinner or anything?

Happy birthday!

I say she's perky, too.

And, she's got spunk! :wink:

happy bday from a fellow sag

13 more days for me

What does one give such a valued member of the A2K community for a birthday present?

That question tore at me for the better part of the day. Chai Tea deserved more for her birthday than a simple trinket or a mere birthday cake. But what?

I pondered.

And then it hit me like a lighting bolt. How could I have been so blind?

What has consumed the majority of Chai's time lately? What member has been the latest beneficiary of Chai's nurturing?

That's right.... toogood18.

I have watched Chai turn this this thirteen-year old street urchin into something resembling a human being.

When toogood first game here she was a dirty, foul-talking rapscallion who caused pain and discomfort wherever she went and left many an A2Ker shivering in her wake.

I will never forget the cruel things toogood said about kickycan, making subtle references to his advancing age and perceived inability to satisfy a woman, and how kicky left the thread a sobbing and broken man.

I was about to intervene. I wanted to yell something like, "You ungrateful child! How could you?!"

But then Chai came along. Chai nurtured that girl, turned her into a decent human. It wasn't easy, but Chai was patient and over the weeks we all witnessed a metamorphosis of sorts; a changing of a woman dealing with an unruly child to the beautiful imagery of a mother passing down sage advice to her daughter.

Toogood grew. And Chai grew. They fed off each other.

More than once I felt a tear trickling down my cheek as I read the exchanges between the virtual mother and daughter.

And that is why I am giving Chai Tea this photo for her birthday....



What is it? That is a photo of a young Chai with her mother.

That woman, Chai's mom, turned Chai into what she is today.

And that is why we are seeing Chai help toogood -- a direct result of her mother's influence.

Thanks, Chai. And thank you for being there for all of us.

I hope you have the best damned birthday you've ever had.

pm me your email addy and I'll send it along. This is no grainy shot, this is the real deal, but still just your run of the mill meat curtains. The c section scar is somehow perversely exciting though.

Happy Birthday Chai!

I'm a little late, but I hope you had a wonderful day!!!



BTW, remember our discussion about guys and images???

A day and a dollar.

Happy belated birthday Chai Tea.

I'll have a cuppa chai in your honour.

I hope you had a grand day.

Oh gus, what emotions you have brought up in me.

We were so poor my parents could only afford towels to clothe me.

In this picture you found, you see my mother presenting me with my one new towel each year, which I got on my b-day.

We could not afford shampoo, so you can see from the pic I was still waiting with greasy hair for Christmas to arrive. Each Christmas morn, all of us, including father, would stand at the bottem of the stairs, waiting for my mother to arrive with with a travel size bottle of Prel shampoo. Long ago, on their honeymoon, my mother and father had saved enough money to be able to afford one night in a place called a "motel" Actually, they had saved enough to put a deposit down on a room, with the promise to pay the balance in the morning. As they were making good the opportunity of leaving in the wee hours, before the office opened, my mother spied an unattended housekeeping cart.

My mother gasped! A legacy for her unborn children! "I will have 5 children." she vowed, "And each of them will know the joy of store bought cleansing products." She sent my father on head to hot-wire, I mean, start a car and pull around to the cart. By the time he arrived the pocket in her overalls were filled with 126 each of the following.....Prel shampoo, Cashmire Bouchet soap, dixie cups, and some papers strips with an unknown purpose. It was only noted that they had "sanitized" printed across them in an Italic font.

Each Christmas morn...for the first 21 year of our lives, we would EACH receive that precious 3oz bottle of shampoo, motel size bar of soap, and one of those mysterious paper strips.

You see us in this picture, me estactic in my new towel, knowing I only had to wait 23 more days to wash my hair.

In the background you see the family toaster oven, which we all fondly called "toasty" My birthday also signaled the time of year where my mother would turn it on, letting it get good and hot, then open it up so the warmth could spread throughout the house.

My birthday was always a time of hope for me, that we might make it to the New Year. Father could not always afford a shoat in the Spring, so there wasn't always a guarantee of fresh meat for the Winter.

Sorry I'm a day late. Hope it was a happy one.

I'm SO sorry that I missed your birthday, Chai.

A belated happy birthday, anyway.

My excuse is that I've been very busy, attending a detox weekend at a country retreat.

Three more of these "flushings", and I will be allowed to go home........... apparently.




























My morning flush. (so proud)

Happy Birthday Chai!

Happy Belated Birthday, Chai Tea!