Lordy, Lordy

Look who's Forty!

I showed great restraint tonight when I took Zirpu out to dinner. I did not tell the host or the waitress that it was Zirpu's birthday. Later, when the waitress asked if we wanted dessert and Zirpu declined, I did not say, "It is someone's birthday today" to him, which obviously she would have heard.

A Birthday Story

I come out looking bad in this. The only defense I have is that I was raised that birthdays are a big deal. When we were kids, there would be streamers hanging from the pot-hanger over the table, and all the cereals on the table. Often at school there were cupcakes. On your birthday you chose where the family went out to dinner that evening.


Phil turned 21 the day before I turned 20. At 1130 the night before (on the 13th), people arrived to take him on his "twenty-one run," so he could order his first legal beer at midnight on the 14th. Jujubi, whose 20th birthday had been a few days before, and I stayed home. The next day was my birthday. Phil insisted that we go to wash our cars that afternoon, which I thought a really strange thing to do, though it turned out the purpose was to get me out of the house so Jujubi could hang up a sign.


We often ate together, which is how I got through college without learning to cook. I had a padded envelope from my mom; Phil's gift from his mother had arrived a day late and was a 3'x2' box. As we finished dinner Phil put his box on the table and said something like, "Time to open presents." Jujubi reminded Phil that they had to sing "Happy Birthday" to me first, and as it was actually my birthday I should open my present first. They did, and I did, receiving two books by Rita Dove, with whom I had taken two writing workshops, books I still have. Mom had included a happy birthday note on a "While You Were Out" memo. Phil brought this big box onto the table and after opening it pulled out clothes, coffee, a new coffeemaker carafe, some art supplies, and several other things, plus a birthday card with "To My Son On His Birthday" written on the front in a cheesy font.


The next thing I remember Jujubi and Phil were heading off to the library to study (I always studied at home). I don't remember what specific thing triggered it but I remember standing on the walkway leading to the front door yelling at them for not celebrating my birthday with me. I remember very clearly that I was furious, even knowing that it wasn't their fault that his package arrived late, even knowing that Mom's gift was perfect and probably mailed on the fly while she was at work so it would arrive on time. After they left, I carefully chose books I didn't care about from the shelf and threw them at the wall. I yelled and cried.


I don't know why I threw such a temper tantrum that night. I was really embarrassed about it afterwards and apologized to Phil and Jujubi. I even apologized in my heart to Phil's mom for thinking that she had sabotaged my birthday.


The next year everyone and their brother came out for my "twenty-one run" (also, the next year, many more people were 21; only Bink had to wait for another week). The September Birthdays Party we had that year seemed like it had an especially large turnout and I received birthday cards from all kinds of people. I ruefully enjoyed all the birthday greetings, as I suspected that a lot of my friends had heard about the tantrum the year before.

It's My Birthday Too, Yeah!

Shirts

One set of my parents-in-law sent Zirpu and me a couple t-shirts for our birthdays. They live in the mountains in New Mexico, near the kind of town that's so small that you wonder what the people there do for a living (they're retired; they run the post office/store/cafe; they're pastors; or they're ranchers).



One t-shirt has a picture of a dinosaur wearing winged sandals, advertising Bones Gasoline. The other shirt has a stylized picture of mountains that says "Weed, New Mexico" on the front and "High in the Sacramento Mountains" on the back.


I wonder if my mother-in-law gets the joke.

Our Friends!

Mom gave me this clipping today. It's from the college newspaper, in a little blurb about Anzanga, a marimba ensemble, playing on campus. I sent it to her almost (gasp!) eighteen years ago. Anzanga played on campus often, and I still have the cassette ("Anzanga") I purchased at this show, though I haven't listened to it since I've been without a tape player for some time.


It's a very weird picture of me, and I'm sure the friend in the photo with me would think it was a strange one of her too.

Ukuleles

I go many years without thinkong much about ukuleles and suddenly I'm hearing or seeing them everywhere.

First of all, Saipan Writer posts a video of uke master Jake Shimabukuru playing "The Star Spangled Banner" for the Fourth of July and Liberation Day. It's worthy of Jimi Hendrix. Then Shimabukuru appears on KFOG's Morning Show on the 7th and plays "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." I know who he is because of a blog! And on Saturday, the Killer Lady, Mah, and I go to the British Invasion Hoot and Ukulele Ray is there selling his boxaleles.

Seeing It

I walk on the elliptical trainer at the gym because I know I should do some aerobic exercise, but it's the weight training that I really like. Not only do I feel strong, but I feel like I'm doing something unladylike. It's a feeling like "No one who sees these shoulders is going to call me 'girl'." I am woman, see my bicep curls!


I'm pretty good about not lifting things that I know will challenge my back too much. I bend from my knees, tighten my abdominal muscles, try to avoid lift-and-twist and bend-and-reach, and ask for help. However, I've noticed that working at the food bank is making me stronger. It's quantifiable because the weights are specific, so I know that I am lifting or pulling or pushing ten pounds or thirty pounds or 110 pounds. I go to work five days a week, and the gym two or three, so I think the two are reinforcing the effect each has.


In the past, I've always asked someone else to put the fifty pound boxes of apples or oranges in the refrigerator for me, or asked someone to help me pick them up. It's not just the weight that's been the challenge, but the shape, and the fact that these boxes do not have handles. I have to get my hands under them and lift them up, and with my short arms that has always been hard, with the weight pulling on my shoulders.


This evening there wasn't anyone around to help me with the boxes, so I thought I would try picking one of them up and seeing how it went. After all, each weights machine has a sign on it saying "Do not exceed your known weight level" or something like that, and I've always wondered how one would know what her weight level was if she's never tried that machine before, or tried a heavier weight? So I knew what I was doing.


So I wrapped my arms around an apple box, stuck my fingers under, tightened my core muscles, bent my knees slightly, and lifted up. Not only could I get the apple box off the table, but it didn't feel as heavy as they always have. I walked over to the fridge and shoved the box in, and did the same with the other apple box and the box of oranges.


ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!