November 19

1979: I am told that on my first birthday, I try to grab the flame of the candle on my cake and burn my hand.

1984: My sixth birthday is the first I really seem to remember. I had a big party and there was a clown. 

1987: For my ninth birthday I get a new scooter. It's lavender with handbrakes. After school, Grandma Ruth comes over and we take turns riding the scooter up and down the sidewalk in front of the house before dinner. The next day at school when I tell people what I did for my birthday I am told that "grandmas don't ride scooters."

1989: I have a slumber party with a few other girls to celebrate my eleventh birthday, and my new friend, Cyndi, and I have a jumping contest: who can keep jumping the longest. Too much sugar anyone? It was the last time I had a slumber party on a Saturday night, because Cyndi and I become best friends, and she has to go to church every Sunday morning, which means that even after being up all night literally bouncing off the walls, she has to get up early and leave. We start having sleepovers on Friday nights instead. 

1990: For my twelfth birthday, my mom takes me to get a second set of piercings in my ear. My mom already has one in one ear and two in the other. She gets her ears pierced at the same time. I don't remember if she gets one more in each, or just one, in order to even them out.

1993: I celebrate my fifteenth birthday by having girlfriends over for a fondue dinner.

1994: The evening of my sixteenth birthday is spent babysitting, because money = good, and I can go out with friends the following night. 

1997: When I turn nineteen, my friends Jeff, Mica, and Tara take me out for mud pies at the Saturn Cafe. I am trying to convince myself that I have a crush on Jeff, failing miserably, and flirting anyhow. He claims later (perhaps only out of politeness) that I didn't make a fool of myself and didn't even notice the flirting.

1998: I get a group of friends together to go bowling on my twentieth birthday. I make sure I am in the same lane as Brian, who I have a terrible crush on, but who is still recovering from his own crush on my friend Christie, whose new boyfriend is occasionally managing to buy drinks for those of us not old enough to buy our own.

1999: I make tacos and sangria at Brian's apartment, so I can celebrate with friends who aren't yet 21, and then those of us who are go out to drink some more. I throw up after my third drink at the Red Room. My friend Christie brings me a birthday card she made, with my name spelled out on the front in pictures of vibrators cut out of a Good Vibrations catalog. Jeff brings me a stuffed monkey that I name Weed, in honor of Jeff's girlfriend, Mary Jane. My friend Rachel's boyfriend brings me a sock monkey that he made. At some point in the evening I realize that he must be drunk because he keeps hugging me. Then I realize that I must be drunk too, because I am rather enjoying it. 

2000: Brian makes reservations to celebrate my twenty-second birthday at Pearl Alley Bistro, but they are terribly crowded, so we say we'll walk around downtown and come back in a bit. We go try on hats in a store down the street, and when we return they are still not ready for us, but they give us nice glasses of wine on the house while we wait. Our dessert that night, a flaming chocolate souffle, is also free because of the wait, and I am amused because just wandering Pacific Avenue, hanging out in the crowded restaurant, and enjoying a late dinner after the restaurant quiets down a bit is actually a great deal more fun than if we'd been seated on time.

2003: I spend my twenty-fifth birthday in California, attending the APHA's annual research meeting, while Brian is in Boston for work. My dad takes me and a couple of friends out to a fantastic Italian place on College Avenue in Berkeley. I can never remember the name. 

2004: Brian takes me out for my favorite pumpkin ravioli when I turn twenty-six. The waiter keeps pouring more wine into my glass and I completely lose track of how much I've had until I stand up to go find the restroom a nearly wander (fine, stagger) into the kitchen instead. Afterwards, we contemplate skating at the rink right outside the restaurant but somehow have the good sense not to.

2007: When I turn twenty-nine, I joke that I should just tell people that I am thirty, since no one believes people who say they are twenty-nine and I have no objection to being thirty anyhow. I don't expect to do anything on my actual birthday, because we had dinner with my family to celebrate the weekend before. But Brian comes home from work and suggests take out from Amber India, and we open a bottle of wine from our trip to Italy, and it's a nice little celebration. The baby even goes to bed at a decent hour.

2008: Today I am 30. I have a dentist appointment in the morning, playgroup in the afternoon, and my second knitting class tonight. Do I know how to party, or what? But I think it will be a good day. Once the dentist stuff is over.

29

Today is my birthday.

Unimaginable

Adriana Ruth
January 11, 2007
9:10 AM
9 pounds, 11 ounces
22 inches






i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e.e. cummings

The big two-seven

My birthday was absolutely fantastic. After all, what can be bad about a day that starts with presents and brioche French toast, and ends with tamales and sangria? Thanks to everyone who called and emailed. Just one question: who was it that sent the yummy saltwater taffy?

November miscellany

I love November.

The weather here has been erratic this fall. Yesterday we had a high around 70 degrees, but by the time I left my office it was pouring rain, and I shivered as I waited for the bus in my zip-up fleece. Today we are set for a high of 45, which to me sounded like a great excuse to stop for a caramel apple cider on the way to the office. To The Husband, it sounds like a great excuse to work from home. The Husband spent the majority of his life in Los Angeles County. The Husband doesn’t cope so well with the coming of winter.

But I am just relieved that it’s not hot and sticky anymore. We probably have until about mid-January before I start complaining about the weather again. I’m also distracted from the cold by all the other lovely parts of late fall. There are, of course, apple cider and pumpkin treats. The ground is covered in leaves. They are mostly brown, but there are still a few shiny spot of bright red and yellow. They make a lovely noise as I shuffle through them on my way to and from the bus. However, I have also been looking forward to November for some time now, ticking off on my fingers the many good things about this particular month, to pretty much anyone willing to listen:

1. Two great concerts that I got to go to
2. A new Harry Potter movie
3. My birthday
4. Thanksgiving
5. A trip to London
6. Getting to see friends that I haven’t seen in months

We shall address each item in order.

1. The concerts have already happened. We saw Joan Baez at the Birchmere the first week of November. She was absolutely wonderful, telling funny stories and singing pretty much all the songs I wanted to hear. “Forty years ago, I bought you some cufflinks,” she sang on “Diamonds and Rust” during her encore, interrupting herself to say that she’d better not be singing that at fifty years. She did, however, hum the last few lines of the last verse of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” after missing the words. We sat at one of the front tables, and Julian Bond was at the next table. Actually, after the show, Brian went to find the restroom, and came back quickly.

“Long line?” I asked

“Not too bad. But I would have been right behind Julian Bond and that made me nervous.”

I laughed at him. And told him I would tell the internet.

1b. On Monday night, we went to see Dar Williams, also at the Birchmere. This time, we were not among the youngest in the audience (Nobody was buying that I just looked really good for a 52-year-old at the Joan Baez show), which was kind of nice. Our seats weren’t quite as good, but it was still a fabulous show. I love seeing musicians enjoying themselves on stage, and Dar and her band seemed to be having a lot of fun. Girlyman opened. I’d never heard of them before, but you should definitely check them out if you’re into new folk music. We ended up buying two albums after their set. Of course, I may have been biased by the fact that they started their set with “Born at the Right Time.” I am a big sucker for Paul Simon songs.

2. Not much to say about Harry Potter. The Chron gave it a good review yesterday, and I’m excited. I need to Fandango some tickets for tomorrow night.

3. I am oddly excited about my birthday this year. The Father-in-law asked last weekend what was such a big deal about turning 27. I couldn’t come up with an answer. The Husband point out that I am like this every year. I think it amuses him, and he certainly does his best to go along with my celebratory attitude, letting me celebrate all week long. My actual birthday is on Saturday, but The Husband had flowers delivered to my office yesterday, which got me plenty of attention at work, especially as they were at first delivered to the wrong Elizabeth. In some ways I would love to be surprised by something wildly romantic for my birthday, but I am a bit of a control freak, so I take care to plan my birthday myself. Saturday I have a full day planned: we’re going out to brunch in the morning, so I can have some birthday French toast, then I am going to get a facial and pedicure, and we will go out for Mexican tapas and perhaps a pomegranate margarita or four that night with friends.

4-6. The last three are all going to happen simultaneously, so I will write about them all together, but each one is a good thing in and of itself, so I’m counting them all separately. First of all, I think Thanksgiving is a fabulous holiday. What’s not to like about a special day set aside to eat a lot and think about all the good things that are going on? Last year we spent Thanksgiving in London. My very good friend Becca from grad school married a wonderful Englishman and moved to London after we graduated. I would have objected, except she was engaged and had these plans before we got to know each other, so I didn’t really have any say in the matter. Besides, now I have a free place to stay in London. Thanksgiving seemed like a great time to go visit: she would have Americans to celebrate with, and we could use the vacation days from work. We had such a grand time that we decided we ought to go back this year. This year will be even better. Becca has been doing her best to avoid getting strep throat (she apologized for the fact that it slowed her down last year. All I could think was “That was slow? Thank god for that fever, then.), and I am going to try not to get drunk in front of her in-laws (I spent a good part of our Thanksgiving dinner giggling and saying “That was so British!” every time any of them said anything. Then I passed out on the couch and didn’t help with dishes.). As an added bonus for this year, Christie will be joining us from India. It will be a busy few days, trying to fit in plenty of sightseeing and prepare our Thanksgiving dinner, but it will be fun. We have a trip to Oxford planned, which I am very excited about.

I am looking forward to my birthday this weekend and the upcoming trip, but for now I must go try to understand price index theory. I took three semesters of economics in graduate school, so you’d think I would have some glimmer of understanding, but I got a B+ in each and every one of those classes (and was pretty proud). These things just don’t come naturally to me. I am, however, concerned that all these articles I am reading use ‘indexes’ as the plural instead of ‘indices.’ Why doesn’t that feel right to me?