My real birthday and catching up on the latest

Doc took the header photo for my birthday. He seems to have gotten worn out celebrating my birthday. He is still talking about a wonderful dessert but don't know if he has the oomph to go get it or not. I went up on FB and was surprised that everyone knew about my birthday up there, so that was nice. Connie made two beautiful greetings for it (one pictured here--thanks, Connie). My daughter Ronda remembered even though she is very busy studying for a big test. Dante's mom Angelina remembered. And other FB friends were on the ball.
I went on the family site and was greeted there with birthday wishes by my sister Ann who is on her way over to Boulder with members of her family to work on their mountain cabin. Now that my son Raymond is singing for his supper, I told them to ask him to sing a song and give him some supper! Gee, if I sang for my supper I might get rocks thrown at me! Most people would starve to death, so I am surprised he is still alive. But he called me up yesterday and we had a lot of great laughs, until I was convinced he was going to be okay. I guess that combined with him saying he was going to put on a play out in the wilds on Thompson's ledge caused me to get a little more nervous than usual. He has always made me nervous, learning to do double backs and such. Riding bulls in the 4th of July rodoes. He likes to live on the edge. Will somebody come to his play out in the wilds on Thompson's ledge? Would you? But he is probably going to have more fun doing it there than in a real theater in Los Angeles. It will be a first time experiment and then he can write about it.
But I just got through reading the story of a guy from Brazil who was determined to be a world famous writer. His name is Paul Coelho, and his parents didn't think he had a chance. His mother told him only one writer in all of Brazil made a living as a writer, so why did he think he could? In fact to try to knock some sense into him they even had him locked up not once but twice, and the last time even signed for electric shock therapy totally against his will! Why is it that people think young would be writers are crazy to want to be writers and need a good shock or two to bring them back to their senses? Talk about controlling parents.
But it could not help but remind me of my own experiences, so I could hardly wait to read the rest of the story. This guy also reminded me of Raymond in many ways. He started in theater, wrote lyrics for a singer and got semi-famous that way, but eventually guess what he wouldn't give up and eventually became one of the most famous and published writers in the world. The Alchemist is one of his most published books. I am going to look for it. So the lesson is don't ever give up. I know my son Raymond is a good writer and one of these days he will be world famous, somehow. He just does interesting stuff.
My son Dan is a little less flamboyant but he is a good writer, too. He is writing fantasy novels and I don't know what all. And I have to announce that now I will be writing the rest of my memoirs off line as putting them in my blog was distracting me too much and making me too nervous. I wrote until I was the age of 11 and now you will have to read the book off line once I get it done to see what else happened. So all the writers in the family may become famous, who knows. But not quite yet. We have things to do and places to go before that happens.