On December 31 - a mere 42 days from today - I will
celebrate observe experience my 40th birthday. Despite my natural inclination to draw attention to myself and insist upon adoration and fealty from all who cross my path on that sacred day, I suspect that this year might be significantly quieter than past such events.
In my youth a New Year's Eve birthday was splendid. I
never had to go to school on my birthday and friends were almost always home to attend an afternoon party. When I grew up enough for sleepovers, my friends' parents were only too delighted to send their darlings to my house clearing their own out for duration. In still later years I enjoyed a surfeit of entertainment options and always had a date (or two) at the ready to assist with whatever celebrations came my way. I rarely had to organize anything because the world (well, my world) was only too happy to thrust merriment upon me and cook up outrageous fun on my behalf. This delightful truth held until recent years.
These days I have only one date in the form of Brainiac, a wonderful man who'd really rather not bother with the whole thing at all and in the process throws the baby of my birthday out with the New Year's Eve bathwater. If we go anywhere we're the couple that bugs out around 11 p.m. so that he can be home safe and sound and in pajamas before counting down of any kind begins. If we stay home he's zonked well before Barry Manilow ever takes the stage.
Getting together with friends can also be tricky. Some have established traditions, spending the holiday with other friends or family or a set combination of both. Others travel, making a point to be somewhere besides cold and grey southeast Pennsylvania. Many of my friends have children and there simply are not enough babysitters to go around while a kid-friendly party does little to thrill those friends who don't share their daily lives with younger folk. What to do?
I've decided that I need an
Official Birthday. You know, like Queen Elizabeth? She has a day for celebration - Trooping the Color? How fantastic is that? - entirely separate from the actual day on which she was born. I've long thought that if it's good (key word being "good") for Queen Elizabeth, it's good for me. So with that in mind, I need a day when 1) there is little chance of mass public drunkenness, thereby enticing Brainiac to activity, 2) the weather is likely to be good, 3) friends are inclined to be in town and available. Brainiac's birthday is in May and almost always coincides with the long Memorial Day weekend and my first thought was perhaps to tie my Official Birthday to Labor Day, thus book ending summer nicely. But darn near everyone we know locally takes off to the beach or the mountains for Labor Day, in clear violation of requirement number 3. So maybe the Saturday
after Labor Day? Or perhaps the one before? Mid-October is good, too.
This is going to require some thought. Although I am not really sad about turning 40 or finding it particularly problematic, buying myself another nine or ten months before the event is, well,
official is kind of nifty. I'll even make it easy by not demanding my very own
parade.
Haaaaa....what a crazy Saturday....Dina and I met up at Senayan City to have lunch, then the 2 of us spontaneously thought of just going to Puncak (some place on the highlands) afterwards to attend some gathering night till the (next) morning...ahahah...and there we were, freezing to death the whole night cuz of the totally wrong outfit for such a cold place hehehhehe...
