It’s Still Alive!

Today is my birthday. For those keeping score, I am forty-seven.

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

I didn’t 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. It was appropriately titled It’s Alive complete with a picture recreating the whole Frankenstein Monster’s themebecause the whole process reminded me of creating this weird new being (a writing website) out of spare parts (stories from my life).

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.

Occasionally, though, The Husband Dude gets a wild hair up his ass and decides he wants to surprise me. He 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 The Kid was really little then and he absolutely hated anybody singing the Happy Birthday song. I don’t know what it was about that specific 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 friend, M, 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 Buffett. 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:

The Dude: Good morning. I need you to get dressed around the time I get off work. The Dude Train leaves around 5:00. The attire is a little bling, a little skull. You might take a little snooze today. No questions asked. Just go with it. Have a nice day. I love you.

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:

Me: I don’t know what that means. A little bit skull and a little bling. Do I have to stay out late?

To which he responded:

The Dude: Your clothes. Something with skulls and bling. Just go with it. Have a great day.

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:

Me: I don’t have skulls and bling. I have no fucking idea what to wear.

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

The Dude: Wear capris or jeans and a top. I gotta go. I love you.

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:

Me: Do I need to clean the house or are we really going out?

No answer.

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

“Put this on,” he instructed me.

“No. I’m not putting that on.”

“Just trust me. Put it on.”

“I don’t trust you. I’m not putting it on.”

“JUST PUT IT ON!”

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

The Dude rolled his eyes. “Put it on over your sunglasses.”

“Well, that’s gonna look real cute.”

“Just do it!”

I put on the blindfold. “Just so you know, I get car sick when I can’t see where I’m going.”

“You’re going to be fine.”

We drove a few minutes before I heard the clicking of a cell phone camera.

“Did you just take a fucking picture?” I asked him. “THIS? This is why I don’t trust you!”

We drove in silence a few more minutes.

“I am really pissed off,” I told him.

“Why?” he asked.

“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.”

We drove in silence a few more minutes.

“Imagining what you’re almost hitting and all the near-accidents you’re having is far more terrifying than actually seeing them,” I informed him.

We drove in silence for a few more minutes.

“I’m getting nauseous,” I announced.

“Hang on,” he told me.

“No really,” I insisted. “I don’t feel so good.”

“We’ve only got like three more stoplights,” he assured me.

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

“You’re not going to hurl. We’re almost there.”

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

I pulled off the blindfold and realized we were at The Hard Rock Casino.

The Dude looked very frustrated and handed me a note. “Read this.”

I read the note. “Are we going to Blondie?”

“Yes.”

“I love Blondie!”

“I know. Are you surprised?”

“Yes! And nauseous. So, so, so nauseous.”

“I thought people only get carsick on road trips,” The Dude said. “How was I supposed to know you were going to get carsick?”

“Ummm…because I told you when you made me put the blindfold on?”

The Dude blinked.

I blinked.

“Surprise!” The Dude yelled.

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 bought by somebody else.

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 The Kid 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.

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, so we headed straight for the penny slots. The Dude sat on the end of the row, and I sat down two seats over from him.

I 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 The Dude, 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 The Dude’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 The Dude, 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.

“You handled that quite well,” I told The Dude.

“Took everything I had,” he said. “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.”

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

“I didn’t hear that. Otherwise, we’d 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.

Let me just say that if I’m seventy-three and I’m not standing around wearing a glowing, 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, okay?

Shout out 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 can’t filter her thoughts anymore. I heart you!