Tuesday, August 31, 2010

40 and Fabulous.

Now we are 40. (Did AA Milne ever get that far in his series?)

Major birthday milestone in anyone's book. I am surprisingly ambivalent about the number. I mean obviously, I am not THRILLED about 40's arrival, but at least I'm here, right? Perspective people, the alternative is quite a bit worse!

I have blogged in the past about my horrendous birthday experiences. I have loathed my actual birth date for so many moons now that I am accustomed to dismissing the day entirely. n fact, my expectations for my birthday are exceedingly low.

Low expectations, combined with my apparent general dimwittedness, also make me very, very easy to fool. But I'll get to that...this time, I had not just a birthday party but an entire week lead up!

At the start of Birthday Week, we went to Cape Cod with my entire family (parents, siblings, nieces, nephews). Rented two gorgeous houses which I believe were as close to the beach as remotely possible in the area. The houses sit just a few hundred feet from a historic lighthouse and the location was quite stellar. What unfortunately wasn't perfect was the weather. I don't think I need to embellish anything about how having 17 people expecting a beach holiday and yet relegated instead to euchre and endless Weather Channel updates indoors was a bit disappointing. But we are a gamely bunch and were pretty much able to make the best of it. In fact, we had a very brief reprieve on the night my sister-in-law had arranged for fire permit on the beach. My Eagle Scout nephews (and I'm telling you, every family needs to have one or two of these in their ranks) managed to keep a roaring blaze going on the beach for several hours, the rain held off and it looked like things were turn around. The next day it poured for yet another 24 hours though.


Eric and I had the hardest time with the weather since our kids are the youngest and, therefore, make anything like sightseeing and shopping in glass-filled souvenir shops, slightly less than enjoyable. But the day before before we were scheduled to leave, the sun finally came out with a vengeance and we headed down the dunes for a perfectly stellar day on the seashore.

Due to Eric's band commitments...we were leaving the Cape earlier than everyone else, so Friday were packing up (on schedule! early even!) when, insert giant sigh here, Eric backed up the van into a tree and smashed the back window. So, since a 12 hour drive with the noise and wind and theft issues that an exposed window posed, seemed like a poor option, we found a same-day glass repair place that could fix it later that afternoon. On the upside, this allowed us a few extra hours at the beach as well as an unexpected day trip to Hyannis where we had lovely lunch on a sunny patio. Window fixed we left Hyannis around 3:30pm, we didn't arrive home until 3:20am, but we made it!

On Saturday, as a birthday gift, a couple of my friends had booked me a hotel room downtown for some much needed R&R. The plan was for the three of us to have a lovely dinner and then I would retire to a quiet hotel room with no kids, husband or worries.

I am not even unpacked from Cape Cod and I'm cramming new clothes into another bag, stop to purchase a new book and a frothy coffee and turn up at the hotel. My one friend had been the one who made the reservation for me, and I knew she was actually checking in first. I arrived, walked into the room all sweaty and loaded down with Eric's duffle bag and something seemed off. I realized there are all these people crammed, giggling, into the corner of the room. Turns out 4 friends (3 high school, 1 university) had flown into from various locales as a giant birthday surprise! Yes, I was quite surprised, but as soon as I saw them I realized that I should have known. There were many clues (what? I can't check in until 5:15pm?) but I'm apparently old to put them all together apparently.

Anyway, we had a great night. Lovely dinner, much wine etc.

The next day, my university friend (who was the only one that I knew was in town ahead of time) was coming out to the burbs with me for brunch. She had never met Kaya and had seen Kieran only as a baby. Eric was bringing the kids to a restaurant and her and I were heading straight there from downtown. When we arrived at the restaurant, he was waiting in the lobby and told the waitress we were ready for our table of 5. She leads us into the restaurant where suddenly there were 25-odd people singing happy birthday. NOW I was beyond surprised. While the night before I had realized quite quickly what had gone on, the Sunday brunch was a shocker. More people from out of town, friends that I haven't seen in ages etc. It took me a really long time to wrap my head around what was going on. But we had a great afternoon.

I can officially no longer complain that no one is ever around for my birthday, but I probably will anyway. Its kind of my thing.