Despite my gloominess leading up to the day, my birthday celebrations ended up being really quite nice. The actual day was less than magical, comprising as it did my usual round of getting Sahsez off to school, dealing with M'hijo's myriad needs, laundry, cleaning, dishes, teaching music*, and Tae Kwon-Do, but after that, Tobias made a little party for two for us with the quesadillas that he used to make for me before we got married and a happy array of import beers. Then we watched The Lady in the Water, which was very flawed, but kind of got me anyway. I can't remember the last time we rented a movie and watched it together and it felt like a treat.
But the best was to come. On Friday night we had a raucous dinner at Sauce with three of my high school friends and their partners. My best friend from high school has a birthday just three days after mine and although she is ancient (turning thirty-one and not merely thirty, like me) we decided to celebrate together. It was a lot of fun and left me a bit wistful for my party days. I have to say that normally, when I think about how much some people go out and drink and go to bars and whatnot I tend to think "Oh how exhausting and boring!" but perhaps I could actually use a bit more of that in my life. I sure had a great time that night anway. Maybe the key is to only do it once in a blue moon and then you have an amazing time.
The next day, Saturday, was really a red-letter day for me. It started with me driving out to Island View beach to join a birding walk with a CRD interpreter. Just in case the previous paragraph gave the impression that my thirties are going to be all about reclaiming my youth, rest assured that my interest in the geriatric arts of knitting, birding, gardening, cooking, and opera will keep me firmly grounded, mentally speaking, in my old lady life.
It doesn't sound very exciting, I realize, but I was actually pretty intimidated by the prospect of meeting with with a bunch of strangers, who would definitely be much older than me, and probably know much more about birds than me, and most likely not be going alone to the event (I was right on all counts, though I was surprised and pleased to find that I wasn't as far behind on my bird knowledge as I expected). I almost didn't go. But I got an email from Chris Baty a few days prior to my birthday and it was very inspiring. It was all about the Year of Doing Big, Fun, Scary Things. Now going on a birding walk can no way be described as "big" and to most people, "fun" and "scary" would also be a stretch. But for me, it was fun and a little bit scary. So I did it. And it was very nice.
After that, I came home to find M'hijo ready for a nap. So I put him down. And Sahsez went off to play at a friend's house. And me and Tobias looked at each other, both of us wild-eyed, and realized that we were free. Abu was home downstairs and we could do whatever we wanted to. SWEET FREEDOM! At least until 5:30, when we had dinner reservations at Camille's.
There were many, many things that we should have done with those few, beautiful hours of freedom. Taking in the recycling would have been a smart move. Going to Home Depot and looking at wood for the new base boards we want to put in the bedroom and picking out the new paint colours for the bedroom have been on the to-do list for about three years. The lawn is crying out to be mowed and the branches that came down during the December windstorms still haven't been cleared. And even if we weren't going to do anything productive with our time, it was the first sunny day in ages and anyone with any morals would have planned an outdoor activity. A walk along Dallas Road, for instance. But no, we squandered our time in the completely unproductive and immoral act of going to see a film, in the middle of the day. And this after I had already done a fun activity that morning. The level of wanton pleasure-seeking was simply staggering.
The film was Pan's Labyrinth and it was great.
After that, we had just enough time to go home and get ready for dinner, then go all the way back downtown again and have a long, leisurely wonderful dinner at Camille's with our good friends the Haqs.
I mean, is that a birthday weekend, or is that a birthday weekend? And like I told Tobias, "You see, it's easy to keep me happy! Just provide me with a constant stream of fun activities, endless cash and childfree hours." And that, I've decided, is what my thirties are going to be all about. Hahahahaha!
*I always forget to mention it here, but I teach music to a group of preschoolers for 30 minutes every Thursday. I don't know why I do it, but I do. I will probably never blog about it.
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