Happy Birthday to Me

Just Outside of Phoenix

Today is my birthday, and damn if it doesn’t feel a lot different from what I imagined it would when I was 35. It feels wonderful. I woke up feeling super energized, came out to find all my beautiful pink roses with their heads bowed in supplication to my advanced age, made a pot of perfect coffee and opened my computer and went to Facebook in my pj’s.

There, thanks to modern technology, hundreds of friends I haven’t seen in 20 years were wishing many happy returns and letting me know that they were thinking of me. How great for the ego is that.

The people I love most in my life all called, all except my brother Pat, who is not a caller but is a wonderful writer, so I’m sure I’ll hear from him before the day is out. My son Jeff called me twice, emailed me once, sent me a gift online and put a fabulous tribute to my mothering abilities on Facebook for all to see. He is a perfect son, and I shall justly take all the credit, with a small bow to my husband, who did participate.

John gave me a Nook, which is not what you think, but is the Barnes and Noble version of Kindl, the e-book. It was partly because I wanted it, and partly a move in his own self-defense, since I made him to carry all the books I took to Mexico because my luggage was full. Now I can take 12 books with me and it will weigh no more than my hair dryer, which I should have left home but also dragged along.

We took off and went from California to Arizona, and Mr. Gotta Get There made the ultimate sacrifice for my birthday and stopped for over an hour in Quartzsite, AZ, where I bought a ton of jewelry making supplies. I loaded my basket with every wonderful rock, gem or mineral I could imagine in a piece of jewelry, then took them up to the little lady at the register.

“You may remember me,” I said. “I was the woman that old guy with the no teeth and hair in his ears insulted about a month ago.”

“Oh!” she said, recognition dawning and fresh anger lighting up her face. “Do me a favor. Tell that story to George. He needs to know that that guy is insulting people. It’s not the first time.”

So I called the young Chinese-American guapo (good looking guy) aside and told him my story. Basically the old guy had made a bad a pun on the concept of picking on a person – a lot of you to pick on or something like that -- and I had really forgotten the lame attempt at humor at my expense. But Barbara hadn’t, and she embellished the insult so artistically that I barely recognized myself. According to her, I was “shakin’ and almost cryin’.”

Not true, but it sounded so compelling, I was tearing up just thinking about myself being royally strafed in public, humiliated beyond anything I’d ever experienced, and put down lower than a slug in the Garden of Good and Evil. By the end of her tale, I almost handed myself a spa weekend to recover.

The bottom line was, not only did George give me a 10% dealer discount, he cut the total in HALF, and if that weren’t enough, little Barbara, who said her birthday was next week so we were soul sisters, began putting two and three strands of stones into the bag and charging me for one. “This,” she whispered, “is $32 a strand, reduced to $16 less 10%, so you can have both of these for $3.”

My kind of shopping.

Later, as I exited, three guys working on the roof of the Flying J across the street, stopped to watch me cross the street with my haul – so big I had to buy a basket for it all($15, but you can have it for $5).

I was wearing my go-to birthday outfit – nice jeans, my white Easy Spirit slip-on sneaks, the new ones, not the old dirty ones, and a white tank top that I probably should have worn a jacket over but didn’t. I wasn’t exactly Dolly Parton, but neither was I Totie Fields. I still had it. I felt great.

They hooted, whistled and yelled at me. I waved back. After all, they were only being kind. And it was my birthday, so what the heck. Just then, a big section of roof hit the ground. One of them yelled, “Hope you weren’t startled.”

Now you can take what you will from that tale. Were they appreciating my total togetherness at such an advanced age, or were they just convinced I was about to walk under the falling roof.

You already know what I think. Please don’t tell me any different. Unless, of course, you’re planning on giving me at least 50% off.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Betty