Awkwardly Social

This morning when she walked into the office, I yelled, “Happy Birthday!” And she glared at me, “Goddamnit, I told you not to say anything.”

“Oh shit, I forgot. No one’s here yet anyway.”

“God, I asked for one thing on my birthday, not to make a big deal of it, and look what you did.”

I just laughed.

Happy Birthday, Tara!

Long time readers of the blog will recognize my old partner in crime, the A to my T, Miss Allie.

It’s her birthday today. And normally I’d wax poetic and end with a promise of drunken debauchery, but tonight, I just want to tell her that it’s ok that she’s now completely ancient and probably at risk of breaking her leg just walking to her car because of her advanced osteoporosis. It’s ok because of Barack Obama. Now that Barack is our President, women will not have to worry about cosmetic surgery before they’re 37. He mentioned that in his acceptance speech. He also said old ladies are sexy, and told me when I reminded him of Allie’s birthday that he’d “still hit that.”

My sister turns the big three five today. Which means she’s been putting up with me for 32 years. In honor of this momentous occasion, I have uploaded a series of pictures of the two of us for your delight and our embarrassment.

Like sands through the hour glass, these are the days of our lives. /sap

This one is my favorite because I can kind of hear my parents off screen telling my sister to move closer to me. I can’t figure out what exactly I’m wearing, especially since it seems like we’re at Tuzigoot, which is not exactly the place you want to be wearing an ill fitting sun dress, socks and clogs. I don’t blame her for not wanting to stand close.

Here are a couple to wet your appetite for the awkward years.

And finally, conclusive proof that we were indeed a little bit white trash.

Happy birthday, Tavia. I hope to embarrass you for at least another 35 years.

I share a birthday with a lot of friends of friends and siblings of friends, which makes those people awesome, because January 20th is a good day. It’s Inauguration Day every four years, and how can you beat that?

I can’t wait to blow out a candle, or maybe I’ll set my martini on fire tonight and blow that out. You know, whatever is easiest.

Louie turns 30 today.

He is officially old like me.

I am no longer dating someone in their 2os, that makes me feel younger for some reason.  Or at least, less old.

Happy birthday, Baby.

My family spent a lot of time in cars driving to destinations mid-West in my childhood. I feel sorry for kids who have never had to pass the time on a three day road trip by reading books and eye-spying with their little eyes, playing the alphabet game hoping to reach x y z just in time for the exit in New Mexico for Highway 666 to Ziateca. I feel even sorrier for kids who get car sick. I’ve seen a lot of the U.S. from the way back of a big blue Chevy van, from the tiny backseat of a Ford Fiesta, and from the comfortable shotgun position of a Nissan Maxima.

We got so used to driving around in cars that sometimes we would just take a drive up Oak Creek Canyon for fun. Or down to Phoenix to watch 6 movies in a weekend. Driving for us was no big deal. I hated it when the sun went down and I couldn’t finish the latest Babysitter’s Club book or read what was going to happen next to one of Jude Deveraux’s slutty heroines.

One summer we were tooling our way up to Colorado for a wedding and in a rare moment, all Blaich eyes were peeking out the windows at the psychotic pod beings that were covering a stand of trees several miles long. I think it was me who asked, “What is all over those trees?” but it might have been my arachnophobic sister who posed the question first. The trees were drooping with these amazing pod shaped web like structures. It looked like a cotton candy version of what would happen if the aliens in Sigourney Weaver’s nightmares decided to build their nests in trees instead of drippy dank caverns on mostly deserted planets.

My dad examined them for a while from his superior position in the driver’s seat and turned to us and said, “Bag worms.” And because he said it with such authority, we all began to ask him about why we had never seen these ‘bag worms’ before (we had been on this road many a time). He then launched into a long treatise on how it was the rare bag worm season, brought on by a rainy season following a long drought, an El Niño condition.

I don’t know how he kept a straight face for as long as he did. He had their whole life cycle plotted out by the time he slipped into a giggle. And that was when we knew he had smoked us. My dad loved to shoot the moon in Hearts and so we should have guessed what he was up to, but we were enthralled by the way these mysterious worms lived and died.

And so that is how, in a family full of inquisitors and need to have the answer-ists, our answer for any question we didn’t know became ‘bag worms.’ I think that made him supremely happy, that his tall tale made it into the repertoire of our tall tale telling.

It’s been several years since I’ve seen my dad. We talk on the phone occasionally, but it isn’t often enough. I don’t know if it was because his birthday was on Friday and he was fresh in my mind, but this morning I was looking for some answer to something and Bag Worms popped into my mind.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Last night I went to my book club and started to feel really bad about myself. All of the women in the group seem to have everything together. They drive nice cars, they have fancy jobs, they have regular doctors, they don’t worry about whether or not their next paycheck is going to pay for rent or their student loan and if they’ll have enough left over for food. They ask me questions about what I do, and when I answer I feel like a little kid. Like I might be joking. I feel like they don’t understand it’s not just what I do it’s who I am. I drove home in my beat up little car with my $22.00 in my checking account and my pain in my kidneys and my crappy health insurance that I pay for entirely on my own and thought how 31 had to be joking. Especially since even though today is Saturday, I had to work. On my birthday. And I’m 31.

I guess I thought I would have given it up by now. I thought I would be in a job at a desk with clients. I thought I would have a nice car and jeans that cost more than my grocery budget. I thought I would eat out whenever I wanted. I thought I would be soulless and hopeless and that would make me happy. I never thought I would be happy about writing things down for free that made people say, thank you or that was nice. I never thought that would be enough. I wonder if it will continue to be enough. I wonder if 31 is serious. I wonder if I have a kidney stone.

I’m not sure this is how it’s supposed to be, but this is how it is, so I guess that’s all I can say.

Is it too early to start drinking?

Waller used to have this joke about Allie because there were times when she would just seem so infernally mature, whenever age would be brought up he would point to Allie and ask what it’s like to be in your 40s.  Allie being the good sport that she is would maturely tell us to “fuck off.”

Today is her birthday, 11/11 make a wish, and I know that things are bad and hard and she’s maturely dealing with something I’m guessing none of us have considered dealing with until we at least own homes or have a job with full medical and dental.  But she’s dealing with it with grace and maturity and I want her to know that I’m thinking about her and her family.

Happy Birthday, lady.  There’s nacho cheese dip and Scoops with your name on them for when you get home.

Happy Birthday, Fiona.

Someday you’ll understand why having one’s niece turn five makes aunties feel very, very old.  I hope you have a great day with zero cupcake melt downs, a million presents and 5 easy spanks for good luck.