Am I Past My Expiration Date?

So today is my mumble-something birthday.  Happy birthday to me – right?  Yeah, whatever. 

I’m not feeling really jazzed about my birthday this year.  Not sure why.  Maybe it’s because I’m one year closer to death? 

Ooh, I’m feeling maudlin.  That’s not good.  I need to snap out of it.  (But whenever I tell myself to snap out of it, I hear Cher in my head from the movie, Moonstruck. And then that sort of makes me laugh.)

What’s that?  You’ve never seen Moonstruck because it came out when you were five?  Oh, you… just…hush. (You thought I was going to say something else?  Nah, I’m too old to be mean and in-your-face. Besides, I was never allowed to say “Shut up!” when I was young.  Back in the Stone Age. And those rules are still a little hard to break all these many decades later.)

Vince thinks we should act like we’re not grown up.  Be silly.  Behave crazy sometimes.  And, okay, so there is some wisdom in that. If we act like we’re old and “over the hill,” we’ll truly start to believe it – and to behave like it.

So on the drive to work, I listened to the Jamie Foxx show on Sirius XM. For the most part, it’s a comedy station, but in between bits or interviews, they’ll play music.  Usually, it’s music I don’t normally listen to – so I decided to stick with it to today see whether or not I could stand it. 

Coincidentally, the song that played next was by Rihanna – and the name of the tune was “Birthday Cake.”  Apropos, no? 

Um.  Not so much.  If you’re anywhere near my age, you would probably be shocked by the lyrics.  They are definitely NOT the sort of lyrics that would be sung by the servers at Applebee’s when your friends embarrass you by having servers at Applebee’s sing Happy Birthday to you.

So I had to laugh.  Here I am trying to not act like my age.  Be silly.  Behave crazy sometimes.  And it’s not working.  Instead of being entertained and singing along, I was like a prudish old lady holding my hand over my open mouth and saying, “Oh, my!” in a shocked whisper.

Yikes.  If I’d been wearing a pair of white lace gloves with granny spectacles perched on my nose and my hair up in a bun, I could complete that mental picture for you.

When did this happen?  I swear, I was young and cool about a minute and a half ago. 

Vince and I started watching a new series on Netflix, Orange is the New Black.  It’s by the same creators as Weeds, which we just finished watching.  There are definitely scenes in these shows that I have been a little shocked to see on TV.  Even if it IS Netflix. Seeing people with their drawers pooled around their ankles as they sit on the toilet is perhaps a little too graphic for my old-ish sensibilities. And, yeah, so it’s merely depicting what people do in real-life – but do I really need to see it on TV? 

Whatever happened to leaving things to the imagination?

I’m not sure, but I really do think that ship has sailed. And I blame reality television. (I blame reality television for a lot of things, including my sore left elbow. I don’t know why my left elbow is sore, so blaming reality television is as good a reason as any.) 

It’s not like I want things to go back to unreality TV.  Back to the early days of television when married couples were shown sleeping in separate twin beds so as not to offend public sensibilities.  Back to the days of early television when women wore pearls and stockings and pumps and aprons over their dresses while they vacuumed the living room. 

I mean, who did that? I don’t remember my mom ever wearing pearls. Or even vacuuming the living room, for that matter, although I know she surely must have done it a time or two.  I clearly recall, however, inheriting that little chore when I was old enough and tall enough to push the Hoover around without the handle smacking me in the forehead.

So it’s not like I’m completely yearning for the good ol’ days.  But – I admit – I really would like to wake up in the morning without some new mysterious ache or pain.  Like my sore left elbow.   

Maybe I should follow Vince’s advice. I should go out today and buy myself a helium-filled balloon and tie it around my wrist and look up at it in wonderment and awe. I should buy myself a birthday cake and gleefully plant my face in the middle of it and get frosting up my nose and in my ears and on my eyebrows. 

And maybe I should tell myself that age is just mind over matter. And if I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Yeah, right.  Besides, do you know how difficult it is to get frosting out of your nose and ears?

So instead, I think I’ll be a grown-up and look at this birthday as one more year to experience life. One more year to learn something new. And one more year to love my family and friends.

Hmmm. Now that sounds like a grown-up solution to combat my maudlin thoughts. 

But still. I may just have to stop on my way home from work and pick up a  helium-filled balloon.

Wonderment and awe should never have an expiration date.

This 'n' That

So life has been fairly hectic the past few weeks and I’ve sadly neglected my little blog here. We’ve been through the Labor Day holiday, our second wedding anniversary, a couple days' getaway in a little 1-room cabin with no phone or Internet service, my birthday, and a wedding that we were (okay, I was) probably overly involved with. I figured I’d come back this week relieved to merely have “work” on the schedule with nothing else planned except to catch up on life and catch my breath.

Instead, life seems to be even more hectic. I have dinner plans with three friends in the next week and lunch plans with two more. The weekend is going to be busy with get-togethers with various friends Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And Sunday afternoon we’re also supposed to go bowling with Vince’s son, whose primary focus is to see how many miles per hour he can heave the ball down the lane. (His record so far? 20 MPH. Mine? Oh, maybe somethin’ like 8.2…if I’m lucky.) He evidently doesn’t care so much about his final score, although I’m sure he doesn’t want it to be less than three digits.

So while I’m looking forward to this weekend and getting together with folks we haven’t seen in a while, I’m not finding a lot of spare time in the schedule to either write blogs – or catch up on the dusting. This means that you’ll be starting out on Monday without a pithy observation of life from me and Vince and I will be starting out on Monday with the same ol’ dust bunnies under the bed.

To the former I apologize, but I trust that you will have something of interest to read other than those “Please copy & paste this to your status if…’ notices on Facebook. And to the latter, I say it’s a good thing I never look under the bed.

I suppose I could tackle a chore or two early in the morning on Saturday, but I’ve been informed by my darling husband that we’re going to the doctor’s office before dawn’s early light to get our ‘flu shots. What happened to stopping by the Kroger pharmacy at a more civilized time – like, say, noon-ish? Oh well. I suppose it’s a good idea to get those ‘flu shots as early as possible so hopefully we can avoid catching any cooties this winter.

By the by, ask me if I have seen or plan to see that new movie, Contagion. Go on – ask me. (Aw, Thanks so much for asking.) My answer? Noooo, not on your life! I have a tendency or two toward hypochondria and I don’t want to ever think that the scratchy throat I wake up with some morning is the start of some evil quick-acting disease that will ravage me and my loved ones and turn us into zombie-like creatures who turn to dust as soon as we’re exposed to sunlight.

Well, okay, so perhaps I’ve rolled the plots of several different movies into one, but you catch my drift. I’d rather watch just about any chick flick out there than to watch Gwyneth Paltrow flop around on a gurney and then die a swift, ugly death quickly followed by legions of other folks so that the world’s population is reduced to a lucky few.

Not my kinda film, thank you.

Not that we’ll have time this weekend to watch any movies. Unless we plan to stay up until 3AM, which doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. If I find any spare moments, I’d probably spend them reading “The Help” that I’ve handily downloaded to my new iPad. Which I love. Both the book and the iPad.

If I find any other spare moments, I’ll probably shovel out my car. It is once again looking like a landfill. And Vince wants someone to fix the dent in the passenger door next week. Egads. There’s a whole lot more wrong with the vehicle than that little dent. Like I suspect that the number of blonde hairs that have fallen off my head and onto the floor mats would be just about enough to fashion a decent wig.

Yeah, I pretty much think that if the “Dent Doctor” were to take a gander at the inside of my car in its current state, he’d be shaking his head and wondering why the heck we were bothering with a little dent on the outside of the vehicle.

And I’m thinking that I should probably mop up that bit of barbecue sauce that leaked out of a take-home bag one night last February. I hadn’t realized it until maybe March and I tried to clean it up then, but barbecue sauce in its frozen state is not easy to clean up without a pickaxe. In June – the next time I tried to clean it up – it was gummy and nasty – and I got only a little bit up before I gave up.

Wonder if a straight edge razor would work? Sure the carpet might be a little thin in that area, but I suspect it’d be better than looking at a blob of Sweet Baby Ray’s.

So, you can clearly see I’m all over the map. I need to find a few minutes and center myself and possibly come up with a single subject to write about. Sure, I’ll get right on that centering thing. Right after I clear out those dust bunnies under the bed.

Have a good weekend everyone!

The Birthday Celebration That Almost Wasn't

We had a great weekend celebrating Vince’s birthday with friends on Friday night and with family and friends on Saturday evening. Only it didn’t start out quite so promising.

When I spoke to Vince at lunchtime on Friday, I told him that I had to make one stop after work and wasn’t sure when I’d be home. I knew I wasn’t going on a major shopping spree, so I assumed it would be within a half hour or so of my normal arrival time.

You know what they say when you assume – right? Yeah, well, that’s pretty much true.

Vince, on the other hand, assumed that when he heard “shopping” and “Jane” in the same sentence that it would be several hours before I arrived home tired, flushed and loaded down with enough shopping bags that required his brute strength assistance to carry them all in from the car.

Sure, if I’d uttered the words “retail therapy,” he may have been correct in assuming that I was going on a mall hopping frenzy – but I was only planning a quick run to the store to pick up his birthday cake.

And then, as life is wont to do, plans changed.

During the afternoon, some friends told me they were going to Bob’s Bar after work. Neither of them, by the way, is named “Bob.” But I asked if we could join them – and then perhaps we could all head to the movie theater afterwards to see Due Date, which I’d heard was pretty funny. They agreed and we made plans to meet up around 6PM.

And then, because I like complications, I sent out a last-second invite to some of our other friends to see if any of them might be available to meet us at Bob’s Bar for a drink in honor of Vince’s birthday. Normally, I’m the Queen of Preparation and Special Events, but because I’d been sick earlier in the week, I hadn’t done any advance planning. My bad.

At 4PM I sent a quick text to Vince to alert him to our change of plans.

At 5PM on my commute home, I called him and left him a voicemail reiterating our change of plans.

At 5:45PM, coiffed and ready for our evening out, I sat at the dining room table semi-patiently waiting for the birthday boy.

At 6:20PM, I sent him a text in capital letters, “WHERE ARE YOU?” (For the sake of decorum, I won’t tell you what I was doing/thinking/saying/cursing between 5:45 and 6:20!)

And, finally, at 7PM, he showed up. You should know that I was standing in the open doorway with my purse in one hand, tapping my foot so vigorously I got a cramp in my toes. In my other hand, I held a fresh shirt for Vince to change into, along with his deodorant (in case he’d had a sweaty day at work). He wasn’t even allowed in past the kitchen – he had to change in the doorway, swipe on a little Rite Guard and immediately head back out.

What a GREAT way to start a birthday weekend, eh?! Poor Vince.

Turns out that he hadn’t checked his phone for messages and, figuring that I wasn’t t going to be home immediately after work, he offered to fill in for an absent coworker after his regular shift had ended.

By the time we arrived at Bob’s Bar, the original couple we’d agreed to meet up with had already left for the movie. Another couple had stopped in at the bar and when they didn’t see any of us firmly planted on Bob’s barstools, headed back out to their car. We were only able to catch them because they’d flipped on the interior dome light to peruse the movie section of the newspaper to find out what else was playing.

We convinced them to head back to Bob’s with us. And then another couple of friends joined us shortly thereafter. Once I’d had a beer and settled down a bit, we all enjoyed ourselves and toasted both the start of the weekend and Vince’s birthday.

We were having so much fun together that we left Bob’s and headed to our friends’ house where we got the fire pit going and we sat around laughing and telling stories, some perhaps a little more long-winded than others. But it was all good.

On Saturday (Vince’s actual birthday), we decided to go shopping together – so nobody had to assume nothin’! We picked up Vince’s birthday cake. And then we came home to get ready for a fun dinner out with Vince’s family and a couple friends. It was another great evening and we laughed and told more stories.

Vince’s dad had also gone shopping and bought birthday cake. Not one – but two birthday cakes – one for Vince and one for Vince’s brother who had celebrated his birthday earlier in the week. Egad. We had three flippin’ birthday cakes and there were only five of us gathered together after dinner to eat them!

Despite sending cake home with everyone, and despite having cake for breakfast yesterday morning (hey, it’s got eggs in it), we still have plenty of leftovers. If cake doesn’t freeze well, I may be eating cake for breakfast for the next month!

But I think the Birthday Boy had a good birthday weekend, the questionable start notwithstanding.

And next year? Well, I think I’ll send out engraved invitations at least six weeks prior to Vince’s birthday. That way, we’ll both be prepared and in-the-know about our plans. Even if it’s just to head to Bob’s Bar for a quick birthday drink!

Hmmm…I don’t have any engraved invitations sitting around at home. Maybe I should go shopping?

The Birthday Girl and the Washing Machine

So the last time I wrote I discussed a big black cloud that seemed to be hovering over our heads. Fortunately, it’s been nothin’ but blue skies ever since. This makes me happy (and relieved). However, seein’ as how I have been known to experience the occasional pessimistic moment, I’m afraid to make that pronouncement any too loud.

After all, you never know what might come falling out of the sky. And we all know for a fact that stuff does. Take bird, uh, “doo-doo,” for instance. It doesn’t only hit your freshly washed vehicle. It hits people, too. Landed on a friend’s head one time. Made him late for a meeting.

But I digress.

Friday was my birthday. And a very good birthday it was. We had a party and everything. Only I was so flippin’ tired from getting up early and staying up late preparing for the party that I didn’t get an opportunity to truly enjoy myself. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I had a good time. And I loved seeing friends and family gathered together. But I was in sort of a “fog” the entire evening.

And, no, it wasn’t due to the beer goggles I was wearing. I was actually drinking wine. Except that I kept putting my wine glass down somewhere and forgetting it – so I think I had about a glass and a half all told.

Not enough to get me dancing on any tables, thank goodness! But certainly not enough to get me out of cleaning up afterwards either.

I don’t know why I take party planning to such a degree that the napkins have to match the wine glasses (which also, you should know, match my shoes…), but I do. And, since I’ve only had two actual birthday parties for myself throughout my very long life, I figured I’d go all out.

So stuff matched. And there were door prizes.

Fortunately, we ordered sandwich trays and the cake from Costco – so it’s not like I was up late the night before the party trying to perfect the piping around the perimeter of my own birthday cake. No, instead, I was cutting up veggies for the pasta salad and vegetable pizza I prepared.

Who knew cutting up veggies took so darn long? It’s not like on those cooking shows where the ingredients are all cut up and in little containers ready to be plopped into the mixing bowl by the host of the show who acts like cooking is a breeze.

Well, sure it is – if you’re not the one doing all the prep work! I mean, how hard is it to dump a bunch of premeasured ingredients into a bowl and smile into the camera?

Nevertheless, I managed to do all my own prep work and around 10:30 I was washing up the last of the dishes. I was kind of smugly congratulating myself for getting everything done so early – when Vince showed up. He had left several hours earlier to bring some of the provisions over to the party house. Apparently he had made other stops.

So I followed him outside and saw a buddy’s truck in the driveway. In the bed of the truck was the used washing machine that we were given to replace my washing machine that had leaked all over the floor the night before.

I searched – believe me I did – but there was no buddy in the truck with Vince to help him cart the washing machine off the truck. I stood there for a moment with my mouth hanging open because I knew there was no way Vince could haul that washing machine off the truck by himself.

I desperately looked around for a studly neighbor with bulging biceps who might be able to offer some assistance, but (a) anyone who was still outside had apparently fled indoors when they saw there might be heavy lifting involved and, more importantly, (b) we have no studly neighbors with bulging biceps.

So I sighed and tried to come up with any possible alternative solution to my getting up into the truck to give him a hand. I couldn’t. So I gamely climbed up.

Believe it or not, between the two of us, we managed to get that washing machine off the truck and onto the dolley without losing any fingers or toes. We didn’t even put a dent or a scratch on the truck. I, for one, am pretty proud of that little feat!

After the machine was off the truck, Vince immediately left to go back to his buddy’s house and swap the truck for his Honda while I stared at the washing machine that was now sitting in the middle of our driveway.

Still not spying any studly neighbors with bulging biceps, I sighed again (this time rather dramatically), and then awkwardly wheeled the thing into the garage praying the whole time that Vince would not come back home to find me pinned under the machine.

Once my prayers were answered and the washing machine was tucked safely in the garage, I went inside and collapsed on the living room floor.

So anyway, that’s one of the reasons I was tired and in sort of a foggy mood the next evening for my birthday party.

And next year? Well, I’ve decided that next year’s birthday will be celebrated quietly – at a restaurant where someone else provides the food and drink – and cleans up afterwards. And if there are any heavy household appliances to be moved the night before, the birthday girl will unequivocally – and firmly – abstain.

After all, that’s what studly moving guys with bulging biceps are for.

A High-Tech Gizmo for the Birthday Boy

Today is my dad’s 84th birthday…so happy birthday to him! I think it’s okay to tell his age – I don’t guess that Dad is too vain about things like age. Personally, if I make it to my 80s, I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops. “Hey, look at me – I’m 84 and I’m still here, suckas!” Of course, that might tempt the Grim Reaper…so maybe I’ll rethink that strategy when the time comes.

For now, I’m okay with lying about my age. As I’ve said before, I pick a random number and that is the year I celebrate on my birthday, no matter what the “real” number is. This year I think it’s gonna be…um…37. Yeah, that’s a good one. I had fun that year! (And, no, I’m not going to tell you what I did back then that made it so fun!)

But it’s not my birthday today; it’s my dad’s – so I should stop talking about myself. (Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.)

Anyway, back to my dad. Usually I have a hard time figuring out what to give him on his birthday as he is not really a high-maintenance sort of man. Over the years, I’ve given him the inevitable ties to add to his collection, or polo shirts he doesn’t really need or high-tech gizmos he doesn’t know what to do with.

In desperation, I’ve even given him gift cards to places like Lowe’s. These are usually met with a little more enthusiasm than the ties or high-tech gizmos, which is gratifying. Dad doesn’t really need much from home improvement sorts of stores anymore, but he likes to look around.

This year, though, Vince and I sent him what we thought was a pretty cool gift. It’s another high-tech gizmo, but it serves a good purpose. It’s called TV Ears® and we got it at Costco. Vince’s aunt in Florida has a set and showed it to us when we were visiting recently. It hooks up to your television and the cordless earbuds fit into the listener’s ears. The TV can be practically on mute, but the television audio is clearly transmitted through the earbuds. Cool, huh?

As a half-deaf person myself (100% hearing loss in my left ear), I’m thinkin’ I might want to get a set for our household. I don’t think Vince would mind since I turn the television up pretty loudly in order to hear it. This is okay if we’re watching the news, but is perhaps a little annoying when I’m watching Desperate Housewives or Survivor ; two shows he doesn’t have much use for.

(Darn it. There I go – talking about myself again!)

Anyway, like many men his age, Dad is hard of hearing. He has hearing aids for both ears, but they sometimes don’t do him a whole lot of good. My mom would like to tell you that Dad suffers mostly from what she calls “spousal deafness” – he hears what he wants to hear unless it’s mom telling him to take out the trash or do something he doesn’t want to do.

I’m not sure why people go deaf when they get older. Maybe they just get tired of listening to stuff. I’ve heard a theory that a lot of men dad’s age were in WWII and they didn’t use ear protection back then against gunfire and bombs and tanks and other loud noises. I’d say it’s an entirely plausible theory, though I have heard no actual data to back it up.

I have a personal theory that there will be a whole lot more deaf folks in succeeding generations because of all our high-tech gizmos. We listened to loud music on ear phones hooked up to stereos, and then we had Walkmans and now we have iPods where we crank up the decibels so the music gets blasted directly into our ear canals. We’ve gone to rock concerts and stood next to ginormous speakers and then wondered why it took two days before our hearing returned to normal.

So in future generations, maybe we’ll all have TV Ears® – and maybe they can even be surgically implanted. Yeah, and wouldn’t it be great if all our high-tech gizmos could be routed through our TV Ears so we didn’t have separate earbuds and Bluetooth devices? Hmmm…maybe I’ll work on that idea. Who knows? I could be the next Bill Gates!

I’d have to work through some technical difficulties first, though. Like the TV Ears® we bought my dad? His TV is so old that there isn’t a port made in it for them to connect. Figures. Guess we should’ve bought him one of those newfangled flat screen TV’s first, huh? Nah. Probably we should’ve just stuck to the Lowe’s gift card.

Oh well. Happy birthday anyway, Dad! Here’s hoping you hear only the good stuff today like, “Have an extra slice of birthday cake, dear!” and none of the bad stuff like, “Time to take out the trash!”