Five things I learned pre-celebrating my 40th trip around the sun

As you undoubtedly gathered from Friday’s post about, well, I don’t know, reflux and other somewhat loosely related ramblings, I’ll be turning 40 this week.  Actually, tomorrow, to be specific about it. 

Woohoo, indeed.  I’ve got party hats all picked out already.  I intend to mark the occasion with a Cub Scout meeting and my daughter’s cheerleading practice.

Because, yes, I rock that hard.

In the case when celebrating something can’t conveniently be done the day itself (see above), normally I’d schedule a celebratory outing for a date after the actual event.  You know, just to make sure the Earth didn’t end first in a fiery, brimstony, cataclysmic rain of meteors the size of the average Kardashian ego home.  Because then I’d feel bad for having celebrated something I didn’t actually accomplish.

Just when or how I would feel bad about it, considering that world would have ended and all, is, uh, not important right now.  But I’m sure I’d still find some way to feel guilty about it.  Metaphysically or whatever.

But, as we all know, next weekend there will be reveling a-plenty for St. Patrick’s Day.  Now, as I’ve said, I lurves me some St. Patrick’s Day, but I also consider it one of the two larger “Amateur Hours” on the calendar.  You know, when millions of people who lead otherwise normal, productive lives spend hours in the middle of a perfect good day consuming drinks with odd names they’d never even think about on a “normal” day.  That’s usually followed by the only real competitive event of such days: Vomiting Upon Whatever or Whomever Happens To Be Nearby.

The other big “Amateur Hour” is, of course, New Year’s Eve. 

So, rather than subject my friends to having to rub shoulders with increasingly angry and/or semi-conscious mobs of people drinking Guinness (one hopes) or something tasteless dyed tastelessly green (one fears) and then sidestep the inevitable puddles of, well, partially digested matter, I chose to pre-celebrate my birthday this year.

And that’s exactly what we did Saturday night.

So, then, I give you Five Things I Learned Pre-Celebrating my 40th Birthday:

1. While I tend to be fairly neutral about Daylight Savings Time beyond typically making a single remark along the lines of, grumble, grumble, Spring Forward, grumble, DST in conjunction with an Event of Significance (such as 40th birthday) is wrong, evil, and, did I mention, wrong.  Such a confluence of events should be avoided as one would avoid taking previously used chewing gum from an unkempt, unwashed, wild-eyed, rambling stranger on a subway.
2. When you learn something important about your health from an actual Doctor—for instance, that you suffer from ninja reflux—and then not even a week later spend the evening doing pretty much Every. Single. Terrible. Thing. said doctor’s diagnosis sheet advised against, you should probably not be surprised to feel the angry, Elder-Gods-like wrath of said ninja reflux the next day.  In other words, not only was my nearly 40 year-old body attempting to deal with an unfortunate but much-deserved hangover yesterday morning, I also sounded like Ethel, the gravelly-voiced diner waitress of 40-plus years.  But, you know, without the hard sarcastic exterior protecting a sympathetic heart of gold.
3. A Taste of Belgium at 12th and Vine in Cincinnati has the most awesome, wondrous, full-of-rainbow-glitter-and-unicorn-magic, fantastic Belgian waffle (which, I suppose, are technically “Liège Waffles”)  ever made by human hands on planet Earth.  All your other Belgian waffle-related arguments are invalid.  Also and related: their Waffles n’ Chicken dish is unquestionably evidence that there is a higher power in the universe, and He/She/It /Them would like us to be happy, if at all possible.
4. Much and more has been written about this hundreds of times already, but I’ll say it again for anyone not aware: the city of Cincinnati has done marvelous, wonderful things in Over-The-Rhine, a neighbor that in the not-too-distant past had a reputation as a sketchy area, at best, and a dangerous one, at worst.  My friends and I had a dinner at a restaurant at the corner of 12th and Vine streets on Saturday night, and if you’d asked me venture to that same corner a decade ago when I turned 30, I would have demanded an armed escort and a bullet-proof vest.  Well done, Cincinnati.  Keep up the good work.
5. When your friends provide you with silly 40th Birthday necklace bling and a tiara to wear as you pre-celebrate, then you wear that silly necklace bling and a tiara.  Because, if not for occasions like one’s 40th birthday, when else might you avail yourself of the opportunity to be a pretty, pretty princess?  Well, in public, that is.  I don’t want to speculate about what you do in your own home with the shades drawn. Admittedly, I didn’t wear the tiara in question the entire evening, of course, because the Puddinette is ever mindful of the tiny sliver of dignity I still somehow manage a tedious grasp of.  So she made me take the thing off from time to time.  You know, for the children.  But when I did wear it, I owned it.  And yes, there are pictures of me wearing the tiara, but no,  you can’t see them.  At least, not now.  I’m planning on holding onto them as a Kickstarter stretch goal someday.  Just in case I ever need to Kickstart something.
6. Everyone needs the kind of friends that will provide them with silly necklace bling and a tiara to mark their 40th birthday.  I’m lucky to have some.  And I hope they all know that I understand just how lucky I am.  Oh, and, yes, I know I said 5 things.  Shut up; it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.  If it bothers you, pretend that either I can’t count or this is just, you know, 5b or something. 

Now then, let’s all just hope that by pre-celebrating, I didn’t jinx us.  Because a storm of meteors to bathe the world in fire and destruction would be pretty bad, even for a Monday.

Pud’n