The big 5 oy!

   It finally happened. I recently had THAT birthday. In the weeks leading up to it the question was to party or not to party. Truthfully, I felt funny asking my husband to throw a big bash when he is currently unemployed. We decided on a small gathering of some good friends at a nice diner. It wasn't easy since it was Father's Day weekend. The day I was born, my mother told me they had to call the doctor away from his family. I've been hearing "Couldn't you just get me a tie?", ever since. I was happy and grateful to see our friends were able to be there. They even ordered me a birthday cake, no gag candles included. I also received a wonderful wine basket from one friend and a pretty glass to drink it in from someone else.
    You could say though, (warning - mush alert!) the best gift I got was the reminder of family. Years ago I learned that you really can't define family by biology. People just don't live long enough or behave well enough for that. When I looked around the diner table, I felt slightly less scared of my own mortality or maybe just plain loved. The fun problem of turning my age is that cosmic reminder that "you could be next!" as the supply of older relatives dwindle. Oh well, I figured we had a nice dinner with a few good friends and that was enough. I had no idea I was wrong.
    The following week was spent preparing for vacation at the beach. My daughter finished school and I spent that week cleaning, packing, getting teacher thank yous together, and wrapping my brain around the idea that I am seriously fifty. Going away is like small scale version of the holidays. There's a lot of anticipation and work and then it flies by and you feel let down when it's all over.
   We were blessed with another great week at the beach and the worst thing we had to handle was a sunburn. The drive home was largely uneventful except for the GPS taking us off a wrong exit and we pulled into our driveway tired, loaded down and slightly carsick. Our garage doors hadn't been working for weeks so I thought nothing of it when I had to get out of the car to let us into our garage. As we pulled in though, I was wondering if there was something big or weird in our garage, although I Couldn't imagine what.
   During the vacation, we had talked to my mom who had said something odd. She asked my husband where his car keys were and said our friend Cindy needed his car out of our garage. Normal, intelligent humans would have put two and two together at that point but no, some of us are still sharp as a bowling ball. I asked my husband why my mom would ask such a thing and he said,"I have no idea why she said that, maybe she's just tired" - and I BOUGHT THAT! Dear reader, if you ever throw a surprise party for someone, choose an extremely dense victim and all will be well. That did have me scratching my head but rather than act on the impulse to investigate, for some reason, I just went back to my jigsaw puzzle.
   Later, on the trip home, my husband took the wrong exit and damn near had a cow! What's even funnier is that I flat out said "I'm not late for anything", not knowing I was dead wrong! Since our garage doors had not been working for weeks, it wasn't remotely odd when I had to get out to go in to hit the button for my side of the door. What was odd was seeing my mother's car on our street. I thought "She's watering our plants today??", but we're home now. See previous paragraph about dense victims.
    Not only was my house packed with people whose cars I did not see, the place was decorated, too! Surprise was an understatement! My girlfriend had great decorations that said Vintage Vixen on them and best of all, the biggest container of sangria I'd ever seen. If you have to get older I Couldn't have asked for better company to do it with, but next birthday, I think I'll go a little easier on the sangria.