I tried to share my feelings about birthdays with my husband. Of course, any discussion about feelings with a man is a short discussion, but I told him the birthdays of people we love should be special days for us too. We should celebrate having these people in our lives. So far so good; but when I suggested we should celebrate by going out to dinner, John lost touch with his feelings.

I discovered the hard way that giving a surprise party for someone who's stopped celebrating birthdays isn't a good idea. It was like adding fuel to the fire. Worse, it was like adding crow's feet to her eyes.

Having the guests wear black, giving a mortuary gift certificate as a present and putting her cake through the blender weren't good ideas either. Maybe when she said she didn't want cake because she was dieting - again, I shouldn't have reminded her that it's better to give than receive - especially when the cake is chocolate.

Then there was the gift. I'd bought a hand mirror and loosely covered the glass part with plastic wrap. "See", I said, "it's the mirror that's wrinkled - not you".

No more surprise parties, but some people say they don't want presents. John said that once. When he opened his present and saw earrings, he was speechless. I had to explain that since he didn't want anything, I'd thought he'd want me to have something I wanted. Later he was happy with cuff links.

My mother is one of those people who says she has everything she wants, but I figured out she said that to test me. No matter what a mother says, she wants a present. One year I gave her a lovely, large box. I explained since she had everything she wanted, she must need a place to put some of it.

I'll never be one of those people. I squeeze every minute out of my birthday. If my birthday's on a weekend, I want to celebrate all weekend. Unfortunately, fireworks and planes with banners aren't in the budget; but when the car turns from a lemon back into a pumpkin, I know there's only three hundred and sixty-four days until my next, not-yet-national celebration.