A rose a day keeps distance away! In this edition, read how roses make their voices heard in a teenager’s heart. What happens when a friend dates a guy shorter than her? A new initiative to make communication bonds stronger and finally, my birthday update! I almost forgot that! But you can make sure that you don’t, with birthday reminders for your friends and family through our new launch: 123greetings Connect!

I must confess something here. I was really thinking of keeping my birthday updates away from the newsletters! The reason is that I was feeling a way bit narcissistic talking about my own birthday here. But then your birthday wishes poured in and I felt obliged to let you all know what I did on my birthday. This time around I had to do nothing! I just sat there and watched. There was Adrian and Cathy, Megan, Steve and Kate. Irina came in with her boyfriend Alex in tow. Liz came in with Rachael and Donna arrived a little late with her children Ethan and Emily. Frank and Eleanor were the first guests on the birthday evening. Unless you count Sarah! I am so happy everyone remembered it’s my birthday! Thanks to the new and free Connect service, you can also ensure that you will never forget to remember!

Thanks to them, my day was fabulous! Sarah was there with me all day. The birthday decorations, from the cake to the food to the drinks, everything had her stamp of approval. Sarah arranged for a sort of chocolate fountain for my birthday! It was right there on an improvised dessert table. Cut fruits, nuts, pretzels and marshmallows encircled the very delicious fountain. You could dip any of the goodies in the fountain! Sarah arranged for fresh flowers all over my place, with balloons thrown in abundance. You wouldn’t believe it, Sarah even got some funny-print toilet paper for the guests! Everyone present was gushing about the decor. Sarah beamed graciously, never once speaking out how tough it was for her to arrange all of these. I have a feeling Sarah had planned everything well in advance! What a girl! What Sarah gave me will remain a secret, though!

There could be a love triangle in the making! A classmate of Rachael has taken an instant liking to her. Rachael told me that this guy is new to her school. If you guys remember, Rachael is dating Charlie for about an year now. This new guy on the block looks like a persistent lover! He’s placing a rose on Rachael’s desk every single day! There’s no note, there’s no love message, there’s no love-lorn looks thrown her way. Just this silent, fresh rose speaking volumes about the sender. Obviously Charlie is not taking too kindly to it. But this guy has not done anything offensive as yet and he’s hugely popular in school too. Charlie is a hopeless bystander as of now. But the main reason why Charlie is not doing anything seems to be Rachael. I don’t know for sure in so many words, but this is my inference. Here’s why.

Rachael loves being appreciated and complimented. That’s second nature to her. Since Rachael was a child, I have noted that the only way to get her do something was to encourage her positively. if you rebuked or behaved gruffly, Rachael would dig in her heels and flatly refuse to budge. Plus, Rachael makes her displeasure known in clear, vocal terms. In the rose incident, Rachael is not reacting that way. So much so, Rachael shared it with a hint of playful joy in her voice. I have a feeling that the roses have succeeded in conveying their message. Liz confided her worry. I reminded her that Rachael was a teenager! If she doesn’t have crushes and more than just a passing interest in guys now, when is the right time? Let’s keep our nose up for this!

Kate has landed with an unusual problem! Henry, her boyfriend, is shorter than her. It’s not that Kate found that out all of a sudden after dating for months! It’s just that Kate went out for a dinner date with Henry. Things were moving along fine. There was nice music in the air, there was delicious food on the table and there were lots of romance in the heart. Just then, tragedy struck! A comment flew in from a side table. A girl was telling her boyfriend, “I would never date a guy shorter than me!” Kate didn’t want to invest any attention to the flying comment, but you know how these things stick to you, you want it or not. The bubble of romance burst open, scattering the debris all over an otherwise pleasant evening.

That was not the end of the matter. The idea kept gnawing on Kate’s mind. It distracted her at work. Kate tried her best not to share her thoughts with Henry. Kate didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But finally her resolve snapped. The comment at the restaurant had not missed Henry. As it turned out, he was paying a great amount of thought to it as well! They realized how silly they have been in attaching so much importance to such a comment despite being so much in love. They laughed it off and moved on. Think you heard the last? Not when it’s Kate! I got a call from Megan now. Kate had called her to ask, “Would you date a guy shorter than you?”

I was working late into the night. Suddenly my phone started vibrating. I peered into the display. It was from a teacher from high school. There’s some sad news there. Mrs. Harrison, my teacher, had a bad accident. The recovery process is still on. Mrs. Harrison spoke about the good times at school. Talking to her after so many days was a revelation in itself. We spoke of my friends from school. Mrs. Harrison remembers every one of them. I was surprised at her memory. I couldn’t give faces to many names, but Mrs. Harrison had no such problems. She rattled off names and their silly deeds like it all happened yesterday. Such mettle teachers are made off! Mrs. Harrison rejuvinated a lot of memories which were getting buried under the ashes of time.

After talking to Mrs. Harrison, I was thinking aloud to Adrian how we don’t call up half the numbers on our contact list. There are so many of them waiting to hear from us. We have old friends from back school, we have our extended family spread out over the world. How many of us do even send across a message from a social networking site? It all boils down to the fact that our touch with our very own is on the wane. I appealed to you in an earlier newsletter to start touching base with all those frozen contacts on your online profile pages. Here’s another initiative that I want all of you to be part of. Pick up the phone and call those friends you have lost touch with. There’s nothing like talking to an old friend or teacher. Trust me on this. It’s good enough for the time and effort.

Let’s round off this edition with a sleek birthday quote from Chili Davis: “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”