It’s Still Alive!

So, I guess I should start with the fact that today is my birthday. For those keeping score, I am forty-seven.

It is also my blog’s birthday. Big Numero Uno!

I didn’t actually make it public until September of last year, but I started publishing posts on my birthday so there would be a few offerings for people to read when I did make it public. In case you’re wondering, here is a screenshot of my very first post, which was sort of my tongue-in-cheek nod to The Husband Dude’s love affair with all of the old Universal Monster Movies of the 30’s and 40’s:

If you want to go to the actual post, you can follow this link.

Anyway, I don’t usually do much to mark my birthday. We usually try to have the kids and grandkids over for dinner then cake and ice cream. Nothing fancy.

But occasionally The Husband Dude gets a wild hair up his ass and decides he wants to surprise me. He actually threw me a surprise party for my 35th birthday, but I sort of caught on when my mother started cleaning things in the house that she normally only cleaned when we were expecting company, which was never.

Still, it was fun to have my doorbell ring, open it up, and see twenty of my friends all standing there yelling “Surprise!”

What I probably remember most, though, is that Shane was really little then and he absolutely hated anybody singing the Happy Birthday song. I don’t know what it was about that song, but any time he heard it he would freak out and start screaming and crying. He even threw a toy at someone’s head one time in protest.

Thus, we were not allowed to sing “Happy Birthday” around him until he was about eight or nine years old. My good friend, Melanie, was aware of this. Always the on-her-feet-thinker, she brought the cake out for me to blow out my thirty-five candles, singing “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet. She later said it was the only song she could remember the words to at that moment.

Most of my birthdays are not this eventful, though, which is why I was somewhat blindsided when I woke up last Thursday morning to this text from The Husband Dude:

First of all, no questions? When you say no questions, then I’ve got a million questions.

Now, if you know me, then you know I don’t do well with change and I always like to have a plan and preferably a list to go with the plan. Anything else causes anxiety.  Also, I’m old and no longer like to stay out late. I sent this text back:

To which he responded:

Again, if you know me, you know I love skulls and I love me some bling, but at the moment I don’t have a single article of clothing that fulfills both of those requirements. I have clothes with skulls on them and I have clothes with bling on them, but not both. (That really needs to be remedied, by the way.) So I responded with:

Clearly, THD got tired of my whiny self and cut the convo short:

Left to ponder this turn of events, I suddenly remembered my 35th birthday party and began to wonder if we were really going out at all. Sheer dread hit me as I pictured thirty people suddenly converging on my unmopped kitchen floor. I sent this text:

No answer.

So I got dressed and was ready to leave at 5:00. When we got in the car, THD handed me a blindfold.

THD: Put this on.

Me: No. I’m not putting that on.

THD: Just trust me. Put it on.

Me: I don’t trust you. I’m not putting it on.

THD: JUST PUT IT ON!

Me: I didn’t spend the last thirty minutes putting on makeup to have it rubbed off on a blindfold.

THD: Put it on over your sunglasses.

Me: Well, that’s gonna look real cute.

THD: Just do it!

Me (putting on the blindfold): Just so you know, I get car sick when I can’t see where I’m going.

THD: You’re going to be fine.

*Driving a few minutes*

*Clicking of a cell phone camera*

Me: Did you just take a fucking picture? THIS? This is why I don’t trust you!

*Driving a few more minutes*

Me: I am really pissed off.

THD: Why?

Me: Because nobody has called the cops on you yet. We should be getting pulled over right about now, surrounded by cop cars and S.W.A.T. I mean, who the fuck drives around with a blindfolded woman in the front seat of their car and doesn’t get the cops called on them??? WHAT’S WRONG WITH PEOPLE??? I’m totally going to tell them I don’t know you, either.

*Driving a few more minutes*

Me: Imagining what you’re almost hitting and all the near-accidents you’re having is far more terrifying than actually seeing them.

*Driving a few more minutes*

Me: I’m getting nauseous.

THD: Hang on.

Me: No really. I don’t feel so good.

THD: We’ve only got like three more stoplights.

Me: Is there an empty grocery sack in the backseat? Because I really think I’m going to hurl.

THD: You’re not going to hurl. We’re almost there.

Me: I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I DON’T FEEL GOOD! I’M TAKING THIS THING OFF!

*Pull off blindfold and realize we’re at The Hard Rock Casino*

THD (looking frustrated and handing me a note): Read this.

Me (reading the note): Are we going to Blondie?

THD: Yes.

Me: I love Blondie!

THD: I know. Are you surprised?

Me: Yes. And nauseous. So, so, so nauseous.

THD: I thought people only get carsick on road trips. How was I supposed to know you were going to get carsick?

Me: Ummm…because I told you when you made me put the blindfold on?

THD: *blinks*

Me: *blinks*

THD: Surprise!

Nausea aside, I was pretty damned happy to be going to see Blondie. I have loved Blondie ever since I was nine years old and my brother, deep into his kleptomaniac phase, shoplifted  a 45 of “The Tide Is High” and gave it to  me.

(Don’t judge. Gifting me a record he shoplifted was probably the nicest thing my brother ever did for me and was the only gift he ever gave me that wasn’t selected and purchased by somebody else.)

(Also…For all you youngins…a 45 was a small record album that contained one song on each side. Usually, one side was a single released to the radio and the “B” side was just some other song off their album.)

(Also…Don’t judge. My Dad called everybody under the age of thirty “youngins” and it rubbed off on me.)

Anyway, after I wore out “The Tide Is High”, I saved up all my money over a period of months until I had the $9.98 it took to buy “The Best of Blondie” album at Sound Warehouse.

I know you’re wondering why it took months to save up $9.98. That would be because it was 1981 and I was not old enough to have a job and too old to leave teeth for the tooth fairy. In those days, the tooth fairy only left quarters anyway, so I would’ve had to have yanked out my entire mouth to save enough for an album.

I wore that album out too, memorizing the lyrics and making up my own dance moves. In fact, I loved that album so much that twenty-five years later I was wearing out the CD in my car. When Shane was four, he knew all the words to “One Way Or Another”, “Call Me”, and “Hangin’ On The Telephone” because I listened to the album so much.

So I guess you could say that Blondie has been on my Bucket List for a while.

We went inside and once my stomach settled, we had dinner then played some slots before the show. We’re cheap AF frugal, so we headed straight for the penny slots. THD sat on the end of the row and I sat down two seats over.

I literally had just sat down when two guys looking to be in their early sixties sat on either side of me. One had a big fat cigar in his mouth and the other was nursing a beer.

“Are you winning?” one of them asked me.

I just laughed and told him no. They continued to converse with each other across me, but would often pause to address me, as though they were trying to get me to engage in the conversation. I looked sideways at THD, who stoically played his machine while giving side-eye to Mr. Cigar next to him.

“Hey, miss. Can I buy you a drink?” Mr. Beer asked politely.

I’m not going to lie. Calling me “miss” was flattering in the same way getting carded at the liquor store is.

I’m pretty sure I saw a vein throbbing in THD’s head and his fists clenched slightly.

“No thank you!” I said to Mr. Beer, without looking away from my slot machine.

Finally, I said something to THD across Mr. Cigar, hoping these guys would get the hint that we were together. Apparently, it worked, because Mr. Cigar looked over and caught a glimpse of the skull on the hat, the tattoos, and the side eye and apparently needed to be somewhere else pronto. Mr. Beer followed soon after.

Me: You handled that quite well.

THD: Took everything I had. I was calling them every name in the book in my head. I didn’t want to get us thrown out before we got to see the show.

Me: I was really surprised you didn’t say something when that one guy offered to buy me a drink.

THD: I didn’t hear that. Otherwise, we’d be probably be driving home right now saying “We ALMOST got to see Blondie!”

Anyway, Blondie DID NOT disappoint. Deborah Harry can still kick ass at age seventy-three! Yes! SEVEN THREE!

She looked and sounded as good as she did forty years ago.

Somehow, turning forty-seven doesn’t seem that bad now. If a seventy-three year old can dance and strut and belt out songs for an hour and a half like she’s thirty, then I’ve got nothing to complain about.

And let me just say that if I’m seventy-three and I’m not standing around wearing a black-light jacket over fishnets with matching black-light wedges and sunglasses, and pink tips in my hair, then you can consider that I’m not living my best life and it’s time to call Dr. Kevorkian.

Just bury me, ‘mkay?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading my blog this last year!

And thank  you to The Husband Dude for a great birthday and for putting up with my anxiety which disguises itself as a foul-mouthed eighty year old who had a stroke and can’t filter her thoughts anymore. I heart you!

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!