I have worked through and ignored a large portion of my birthdays.

A month-long festival celebrating Teppy sounds good to me.

I actually hate my birthday and don't want to talk about it- I have a new coworker who is really insistent on treats and cards and stuff for birthdays, and I refused to give her mine!

Ok, I had another consultation with the online doctor. She prescribed Lexapro for me. I think I will wait until morning to start it. I think the consequences of finding out that it causes me to be drowsy if I take it in the morning will be easier to handle than if the side effect is insomnia and I take it at night.

It definitely made me drowsy, but people have really different reactions. That's a good plan.

How do I send flowers to a funeral home? Er, what I mean is, do I have to find a florist in the small town where the funeral will be and call them, or can I use Teleflora and they'll have a local affiliate that can deliver? I've never done this before, and googling "how do I send flowers to a funeral home" yielded a lot of sites telling me the etiquette around sending flowers, but not literally how to do it. (Please take mercy on me; I've never done this before and I am painfully literal and about 2 seconds from a breakdown.)

You can use Teleflora. It's just like sending flowers anywhere else. Make sure you have the name of the deceased, and the name, address and number of the funeral home, as well as the times of any viewing/visitation and service.

I'm sorry, Teppy. It's been a rough few weeks for you. No hugs, but lots of hairpats.

Can you call the funeral home and ask for their procedure?

When my Nana (in New Jersey) passed, I just went to the nearest florist and placed the order. There must be some sort of florists' network, and they all work from the same catalog; you pick the arrangement at this end, someone at that end creates and delivers it.

And Steph, I get it. In this as in so many things, we are twinsies; I am a HUGE birthday ho. My birthday is tomorrow (in case you hadn't heard), and I would be so upset if I were facing the weekend that you are. I think Zen makes an excellent point, it's because you're not an asshole that these other obligations are a problem. If you were an asshole, you'd say "Screw 'em" and do exactly what you want to do. Because you are a good and thoughtful human person, your birthday is being unfortunately preempted this year. I really hope that when it's celebrated at another time, or that whatever you end up doing Friday evening returns you all the JOY you missed, with interest.

Call the funeral home. Or if you want, I can call for you.