Happy Birthday to me

Yesterday I turned 40.

Or, as my friend Melanie put it, I entered my fifth decade of life. Thanks, Mel. I needed that.

I like my mom's philosophy better: she says I'm just 39 years and 366 days old. In other words, it's just another day. Big freakin' deal. And it beats the alternative -- at least I'm still on top of the grass instead of under it.

So far I don't think I mind being 40. I'm a little confused as to how I got to be this old -- I don't remember 40 years passing. But I think there are some advantages to being a woman of a certain age. Like being comfortable in my own skin. And enjoying my own company. And not having anything to prove to anyone anymore. And not having to shave my legs on any sort of regular basis. After all, it's not like anyone besides me is likely to see or touch them anytime soon.

As I get older I find I'm appreciating my girlfriends more. Like, for instance, the ones who took me out for pizza and ice cream on Friday night. These girls make me laugh on a daily basis. Their emails, phone calls, text messages and IMs are the highlights of my day. On Friday they proved they know me well: their birthday gifts included margarita mix, peanut butter cookies, and a button that said "Sarcasm: Now Served Daily!"

They also bought me a vibrator. Shaped like the Easter Bunny. But that's a story for another day.

Another set of girlfriends made breakfast for me on Sunday, fussed over my daughter, and listened while I bitched about my employment status and getting old, among other things.

A college friend saw this photo and named us the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse. I decided I must be Death -- my friend Emily (second from left) claimed Pestilence, I'm too non-confrontational to be War, and I weigh too much to be Famine.

I've known two of these girls for 17 years, and one of them for 22 years. They've seen me through a lot. And now they've helped me brave 40 -- the next frontier. What would I do without them?

So this post is a little birthday card to all my girls from all the different eras of my life. Some of you have shared this milestone birthday with me in person, and others have participated through the mail, Facebook, Twitter and the phone. All of you have enabled me to face turning 40 with laughter and gratitude. You're the best gift I could have ever given myself.

Happy birthday to me.
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Check out yesterday's post by moi over at the Ohio Moms Blog!

She wake up!

I talk to myself.

I also talk to the TV, the radio and other drivers on the road.

Ellie, it seems, has adopted my habits.

We watch Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White at our house until our eyes cross. I've seen all three about 47 times this week alone.

Lately I've noticed that Ellie routinely holds conversations with the princesses.

"No, Snow White! No eat apple!"

"NO! No touch pinnin' wheel!"

Inevitably the princess in question does not listen to Ellie's sage advice. She eats the apple, she touches the spinning wheel. And she dies. Every damn time.

This irritates Ellie to no end. And I have to admit I encourage it.

"That silly Snow White. She never does what you tell her, does she? Why doesn't she listen to you?"

I find the whole thing hilarious.

But my favorite part happens at the end of the movie, when Prince Charming arrives to solve every problem with a kiss. Ellie, of course, knows what's about to happen. She's seen this flick a few times. But no matter how many times she's seen it, no matter how many times she's watched the dead princess open her eyes and bat her eyelashes gratefully at the prince, she still gets excited about it every time.

"Mama! She wake up!"

I love that she can still find the energy to jump up and down about this small fact, even though she's known it was coming all along.

My friend Arti, who is Indian, says Ellie has an Eastern soul. She says Indians watch their great epics this way, too -- even though they know the story inside and out, they still jeer at the villain and cheer wildly when the hero saves the day. If that's the case, Ellie is evidently Indian at heart.

Next time I find myself drifting through life, treating small miracles as though they're mundane, I hope I can remember Ellie's enthusiasm and find it in my heart to shout "She wake up!"

Wordless Wednesday: A cookie is just an excuse to lick frosting.

Valentine's Day: What Not to Buy

Last night I was reflecting on Valentine's Day gifts I've received in the past, and realized that the list is pretty short. I've never had a tremendous amount of use for Valentine's Day and other Hallmark holidays, even when I was in a relationship. And God knows Dr. Wonderful and I had been together long enough that we felt pretty comfortable ignoring everything but Christmas and birthdays.

And given the fact that Dr. Wonderful was not a great gift-giver, it would have been okay with me to ignore those, too.

I really enjoy picking out gifts for people. I like to spend time looking for something they'll like, imagining the look on their faces when they open it, and knowing that they'll know I put some thought into it. Dr. Wonderful? Not so much.

Christmas for him usually involved a trip to the mall on Christmas Eve, where he purchased the first few things he saw that looked good. This resulted in a hodge-podge of stuff that said quite clearly, "I MAY HAVE SPENT A LOT OF MONEY, BUT I PUT NO THOUGHT INTO THIS WHATSOEVER."

The only alternative was to tell him very specifically what I wanted and where to get it, or to pick it out myself. I still have a couple of very nice pieces of jewelry that I chose for his money to buy me. Most women might want to get rid of gifts bought for them by an ex, but for me, there's no emotional baggage attached to these things at all. After all, his only connection to the process was signing the credit card slip. I could run into him tomorrow wearing a necklace he bought me and he'd never recognize it.

So then I started thinking about what he might have purchased if left to his own devices. If I had insisted that he buy me a Valentine's Day gift, and if I had refused to help him, what might he have given me?

I think these trinkets are pretty close to what he would have come up with:

Duct tape roses.

Dr. Wonderful was never big on sending me flowers (until we broke up) because he was notoriously cheap and thought flowers were a waste of money. These, though -- these would have been DURABLE! They would have LASTED!

The ever-popular edible undies.

Not because he would have had any intention of using them -- he was too much of a prude for that. He would have bought them because he had no idea what else to buy and the sales clerk at Spencer's thought they were a good idea.

Me. On a diet.

I think this one speaks for itself, don't you?

But THIS one -- THIS would have been his absolute favorite.

No, it's not an engagement ring. God knows he would never have bought one of those. It's a key chain. That looks like a ring. That comes in a little ring box. Great joke, huh?

This says, "I have no intention of marrying you. But for just a few seconds, I'm going to let you think I do."

Yup, he would have LOVED that.

I wonder how he would have felt if I had given him this:

Wordless Wednesday: Snow Day

A Crisis Averted

Last week I learned that I had a near miss with catastrophe, and I didn't even know it. I shudder to think how close I was to disaster.

My sister, who has apparently never met me, was planning the dreaded 40th birthday surprise party.

Thank God she abandoned her efforts before calamity could strike.

To say I don't like surprises would be an understatement. If there is anything I like less than being surprised, it is being surprised while a roomful of people watches me. I hate to be the center of attention, or to have people looking at me. Turning 40 is alarming enough in and of itself -- I don't need to do it with an audience.

I know what you're thinking: if I hate to be the center of attention, why do I put the details of my life out there on the interwebz for total strangers to read? That's TOTALLY different. I would argue, in fact, that writing is the perfect hobby for an attention-phobe like me. I can put my carefully edited and polished thoughts out there for you to read while I hide safely behind my computer screen. But those of you who have suggested that I should turn some of this stuff into a stand-up comedy routine? Fugeddaboudit.

I vividly remember trying out for the drill team in high school. At that point I was unaware of just how uncoordinated and dorky I am, so I didn't realize what a bad idea this was. In practice I did fine. But when the time came to perform my little routine in front of judges, I froze. Totally forgot what I was doing and screwed it up worse than even I could have imagined. It's a good thing I didn't make the team -- I guess I hadn't figured out that if I did, an entire football stadium full of people would be looking at me every Friday night.

The year my oldest niece was born, I was Mary in our church's Christmas play. This was mostly because it made sense to have my four-week-old niece play the part of Baby Jesus, and my sister, who was our music director and would be otherwise occupied, wouldn't let anyone else hold her for the duration of the show.

All I had to do was walk down the aisle with Joseph, sit down and hold the baby. No acting required. No lines to memorize. In fact, once the music started up again, no one would be looking at me anyway. How tough could it be?

I was a nervous wreck.

You should have seen the look on my face when my high school principal told me I was the class salutatorian and would be making a speech at graduation. I didn't sleep for a week.

I think in some hidden room of my subconscious, my attention phobia is one of the reasons I've managed to avoid marriage, or at least a wedding. I can't imagine anything worse than having to kiss someone in front of church full of people.

The weirdest thing about all this is that I'm not exactly a wallflower. In the company of friends and family, I'm outspoken to the point of obnoxious. I crack jokes. I have a hellacious cackle of a laugh. It's not like I blend into the woodwork.

But put me on a stage, literal or figurative, and I can't handle it.

I wish I didn't suffer from perpetual stage fright. If I could overcome my fear of people looking at me, I would love to act. I'd give my right arm and possibly my left leg to be able to sing. But an ability to sing really wouldn't do me any good, because I'd be afraid to use it.

I actually DID sing, a little bit, once upon a time in a previous life. My church, back when I went to one, had a praise band that led Sunday morning worship. There were eight singers, and I was one of them. But I never got over feeling awkward and weird when I was on stage, even though I was considerably LESS weird than some of my fellow vocalists. Ultimately I volunteered to be the group's sound technician, which allowed me to hide in the back of the sanctuary throughout the service.

I sometimes think I would have been a much better performer if I had started my Sundays off with a nice glass of wine.

My sister tells me that surprise party plans have been abandoned, and for this I am grateful. There is still a surprise of some sort in the works, but she assures me it won't involve an audience.

My sister is only 33. If she's lying, I have seven years to plan my revenge.

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I'm excited to announce that I've been chosen to write for the Ohio Moms Blog, the latest addition to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog group. I'll be posting there twice a month, along with a group of very talented bloggers from across the state. My first post is up today -- I hope you'll read it and share your thoughts!

Weird Product Wednesday: Barbie Parts

I can always count on Cheryl over at Momblebee for a good Weird Product Wednesday tip.

Last week, she sent me a link to a line of jewelry she thought I'd like.

It's made from dismembered Barbie dolls.

Just in time for Valentine's Day.

Made by "artist" Margaux Lange (where's that sarcasm font when you need it?), the jewelry combines salvaged Barbie parts and sterling silver into what Lange calls "wearable art."

I call it "creepy."

Do severed forearms require little silver helmets?

This looks like it's from a bad episode of Star Trek:

Is this what android nipples look like?

I really just don't know what to say about these earrings.

If Jeffrey Dahmer had made jewelry, this is what it would have looked like.

Lange's site also contains a rather disturbing photo of her surrounded by dozens of bins filled with nude Barbie torsos, legs and headless bodies. If she has children, I hope they never see it.

Lange's blog has an entry that features a photo of a green-eyed vintage Barbie. The headline? "Can't wait to carve into these beauties!"

Ick.

So now that I've told you what I think of jewelry made from body parts, I have to admit I might buy this bracelet:

Bilingual Baby

When I first brought Ellie home, she was five months old. She had, of course, spent the first five months of her life hearing only Vietnamese, but she was a long way from talking, and her doctors assured me that her ability to learn and speak English probably wouldn't be delayed at all.

To me it seemed obvious that a baby who came home at the age of five months wouldn't remember any Vietnamese, much less speak it. But you'd be shocked at the number of people who asked me if she would be bilingual.

It happened a lot with strangers. They'd start by asking how old she was, how old she was when I brought her home, blah blah blah. Inevitably the next question would be "Does she speak Vietnamese?"

Um, what?

I just told you she's eight months old. No, she doesn't speak Vietnamese. She doesn't speak ANYTHING.

Eventually I found myself giving snarky answers (I know, hard to believe). I'd say things like "Well, *I* don't speak Vietnamese, so I'm guessing she won't either." And although I never said it to anyone, my favorite response in my head was, "Yes, she's going to be bilingual. I'm going to teach her Spanish."

It seems that my snark has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My little Dora-addicted baby now regularly responds to simple questions in Spanish.

Which I find hilarious.

Help me in Spanish is ayudame. Ellie often yells "AYOOD me!" when she needs my help with something. She also says abre, abajo and ariba, and counts to ten in Spanish.

So the next time some dimwit asks me if she's bilingual, I'm just going to say "yes" and keep walking.