Yes, It’s true. Today is my birthday!

I awoke in my own home, my own bed, with my fuzzy-headed kit­tens, Piazza and Bellini “mak­ing bis­cuits” on my feet. *sigh* this is La Dolce Vita.

For the last 20 years I have spent most of my birth­days in Europe. OOOOOH, poor lit­tle Diva, you say. As glam­orous and che bella as that sounds, I was actu­ally work­ing. My job as a fash­ion designer took me to Europe a cou­ple times a year, in the Spring and Fall. Sev­eral times I was with co-workers, who were friends but most of the time I was by myself. Okay, you say, you were still in Europe. True. And it was great, I won’t deny it.

There is some­thing spe­cial about your birth­day that you enjoy being home receiv­ing the birth­day phone calls. Maybe men­tion­ing it to peo­ple a few times a day in order to hear Happy Birth­day! a few extra times. Per­haps gar­ner your­self a free latte at Star­bucks (like I did this morn­ing.) It’s funny that birth­days seem to be a uni­ver­sal bond that even com­plete strangers are happy — just for you — when they real­ize it is your birth­day. A smile usu­ally comes to their face and they light up a bit. “Happy Birth­day!” they say, even though every­one has one, it’s YOUR day today.

Through­out my trav­els I have had hotel clerks review­ing my pass­port sud­denly look up and say “It’s your birth­day!” and had pros­ecco and kumquats sent to my room. Immi­gra­tion con­trol has even smiled and wished me a happy day. Pretty much any time I showed my pass­port– which is a lot in Europe– my birth­day was acknowl­edged with gen­uine warm wishes. For a split sec­ond, that child­hood imprint of excite­ment of our “own” spe­cial day seems wash over each of us and “Happy Birth­day!” is auto­mat­i­cally exclaimed.

Because of shop­ping hours and travel sched­ules, I was usu­ally in Paris on my birth­day. I spent the evening sip­ping Kir Royales in the beau­ti­ful lobby of  Hotel Con­cord St. Lazare observ­ing the passersby bus­tle along the rue Saint-Lazare. Trés Parisi­enne! Some­times, I was lucky enough to stay over a Sun­day in Flo­rence and wan­der the cob­ble­stone streets of my adopted city. I would grab a pas­try sev­eral times through­out the day as mini birth­day cakes. A time or two, I have  stopped on the Ponte Vec­chio to acquire a birthay bauble. Each time I would mur­mur to my inner Diva how lucky I was to be able to spend my birth­days in Europe.

Now, I don’t go to Europe as often. When I do go, I am able to sched­ule the dates as I want. Even though it seems trés chic et trés bon to have spent birth­days in Europe, I am happy to be home today. With my kit­tens. Plan­ning a din­ner with one of my BFF’s and my Diva Mom.

It’s my birth­day, I must be home. La Dolce Vita.