24 on the 24th!

Today is my son’s birthday. It’s not just any birthday either, it’s his golden birthday: he turned 24 on the 24th.

We have a long-standing tradition for James’ birthday. Every single year, I make his favourite meal, which is beer-batter chicken balls, and we invite his Dad for dinner. (His Dad and I split up 23 birthdays ago, but we’ve remained on pretty good terms, all things considered.)

Here’s the weird part: The birthday celebration is a smashing success on odd-numbered years, and it’s a bit of a disaster on even-numbered years.

Just to give you a couple of recent examples: In 2002, John showed up for James’ birthday dinner party an hour late, with eight of his buddies from the bar in tow. (Some of his buddies, to their credit, quickly realized they had inadvertently crashed a dinner party, and offered to leave, but instead I turned it into snacks for 12 instead of dinner for 4. Not because I’m so nice, but because if those uninvited guests had left, I’d have been left with the drunkest and most obnoxious of the uninvited guests, and John of course.)

The next year, 2003, John arrived on time and by himself, with a potted plant. We had a lovely dinner of beer batter chicken balls, and then the three of us looked at old photo albums of when James was growing up.

2004 was probably the worst of all the even-numbered birthday celebrations. James was feeling sick and couldn’t eat. John showed up late and jaw-droppingly drunk. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t coherent, he gave all his beer batter chicken balls to the dog, he put his feet on the table and knocked over his beer (and then he just sat there looking at it spilling over everything) and, as a birthday present, he gave our son all the loose change in his pocket. The next day he phoned James to apologize for not showing up. James assured him he had been there, and John was not only surprised but actually pleased with himself for not missing it. I suggested to James that we not invite John the following year, but James said, “Aww, it wouldn’t be the same without him.” And I said “That’s why I’m suggesting it.”

2005 rolled around, and of course John was invited. You don’t mess lightly with tradition. By this time, James was living in Toronto, and he and his girlfriend came down for the birthday weekend. While I was out shopping for ingredients for the beer batter chicken balls, I ran into Waffle. “Hey,” said Waffle, “It’s James’ birthday!” I was surpised he knew that. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I saw John this morning, and he was nursing a beer very slowly; he’s determined to stay sober for the birthday dinner. He hasn’t forgotten last year.”

The beer batter chicken balls were very good, everybody had an appetite, and we played board games after dinner. It was a lovely evening.

So here it is: another dreaded even-numbered year. But the tradition has changed this year. James and Tara are living in Ottawa again, and Tara wanted to have the dinner at their place this year. So that’s what we’re doing. It should be interesting to see if the pattern holds true now that the tradition has been altered. I’m about to head over there now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Update: It went well! The curse has been broken!