I don't feel the same when I am away from your smile...

Happy Birthday woman, and thank you for the following fond memories of my childhood:

• When we would hold hands, and you would pull yours away far enough to tickle my palm with your thumb.
  
• Letting us watch Victor Victoria ad nauseum.
  
• 31 Birthday cakes: shaped like tic-tac-toe boards, with licorice and icing balloons, and probably at least 13 plain white ones made with egg whites only, with white frosting.
  
• Letting me drive to the Olney Shopper's Food Warehouse in your fast car, on my learner's permit, through all of the road-work, clutching the Jesus-strap the entire way.
  
• Letting me watch MTV while you ironed. (Now that I have to iron, there is no way I'd let someone else choose the programming while I perform that chore.)
  
• Lifting me out into the backyard through the kitchen window in my bright pink turtleneck.
  
• Not getting mad at me when you came home early from a Jimmy Buffet concert to find me and my boyfriend making out in my bed; instead you simply said, "Get him out of here before your father sees."
  
• After a fight, driving me around so we could talk it out, and not going home until we were both happy again.
  
• Telling me, "I hope that you have a daughter that is just like you," and meaning it for the good reasons.
  
• Teaching me to swim.
  
• My wonderful wedding (especially the part when you covered Scott B. in sparkles).
  
• Making fence-tents in the backyard with old tablecloths.
  
• The singing and dancing, all of the time, which I've never stopped doing.
  

If anyone wants to know where my heart is, tell everyone that it's wrapped around yours. (Song for Susan; Nash, Graham)