What A Day

In tenth grade my US History teacher asked an extra credit question - What is the date US Presidents are inaugurated? Easy. January 20th. Well, actually until 1937 it was March 4th but the 1933 ratification of the Twentieth Amendment changed the start date of the term. But I digress. Why did I know this arcane fact in tenth grade? Because my birthday is January 20th and little facts like presidents getting sworn in on your birthday tend to stick. So "yippee" for me I got the extra credit. The only one supposedly to ever get it on that question. Ever!

We just had a huge January 20th. President Obama was sworn in and the country celebrated and hope spread over the land. It was a historic day full of pomp and circumstance and a general feeling of great things to come. On that very same day I turned forty. I have never been one to have a birthday and get all wigged out over a number and forty was going to be no different.

I awake on the 20th and shovel my driveway thanks to the broken snow blower (see post labeled The Snow Blower and the Flame for details of that little adventure). A little fresh air and exercise on my fortieth to remind me of how I am still young and vibrant. OK cosmos I hear you. Thanks I needed that. Then, since the kids have this now 4th consecutive day off from school and I have been tied up with a family funeral the other days thereby having no time for them; we host a play date. All good. Some screaming, a few fights but all in all a successful play date. The cosmos has given me this opportunity to embrace my joy of being a mother. OK I'm still with you Powers-At-Be.

Next my dad calls to say he is picking me up for an impromptu birthday get together. Impromptu because we had just spent the last several weeks with Aunt Alice, my mom's best friend of almost 50 years, as she succumbed to her battle with lung cancer. We have only just returned home from her funeral. To be honest I am emotionally spent as is my amazing family but they so want to not let me feel like I have been forgotten. So off I go with Dad driving and my kids in the back seat. First a quick stop at the veterinary clinic to get my dad's dog some medicine.

"I'll only be a minute," Dad says as we pull into the parking lot. There is a huge truck blocking most of the way. After a momentary "where-the-f**k-am-I-going-to-park" moment Dad sneaks past the truck and squeezes into a spot. Whew! As I watch my dad pop in the front door of the vet clinic I read the side of this very large truck situated to our right. "So-n-So's Pet Cemetery and Crematory". Ugh! Then the front door of the clinic swings open and a man comes out holding what is obviously a very stiff and very dead dog wrapped in a garbage bag. I kid you not. It had been frozen in a standing position or maybe lying down with legs out stretched. Anyway it was all covered except for one brown furry leg which was pointing straight to the sky as he carried the dog upside down. Cosmos, are you kidding me?!! I mean really! I have lived exactly 40 years and have never seen anything like it.

"Kids don't look out the window", says I, the totally freaked out forty year old mother. Molly and Liam do exactly what I would do, what anyone would do. They look right out the window and ask "Why?" So it starts. "Gross. Is that dog dead?" "Yes." Now tears from 8 year old Molly. "Oh that is so sad." "Yes it is." "Why is it so stiff?" from 6 year old Liam. "Good question. I don't know maybe frozen, maybe rigamortis" Did I just say that? Where is the mom censoring thing? I am totally off my game now. So it continues. "What is rigamortis?" "What is a crematory?" "Did Aunt Alice get burned or put in dirt?" Someone help me!!!! Great, here comes dad we can get going. In he hops with a "Don't let the kids look out the window" quip. Nice try Dad but too late for that. Then the front door opens again and two more men walk out with several bags each. Luckily you can't see anything protruding from these but they are very obviously dead animals. A guessing game now ensues - a cat? a rabbit? Liam thinks one might be an anaconda. Please make this end!!!! With the truck now loaded, off it goes and we are now able to leave the lot. As quiet settles over the car and we all contemplate what we just saw and in some cases learned, Molly says, "He should be pissed." "Who, Sweetie?" "The doctor." "Why?" "He doesn't look like a good doctor with all those dead animals coming out the front door." "Great point." I envision a marketing career in her future.

Flash forward to the party. My sister and her family come exhausted and spent after the funeral and, of course, my mom and dad are feeling the same. Steve, my hubby, meets us there. I don't know how she does it having not been home in weeks but Mom has a great sandwich and salad buffet all set and ready to go. And of course keeps my wine glass full. The mood is somber though with Alice's passing still so vivid. Conversation is surfacy and after a quick bite we move onto the obligatory presents and cake.

My sister and her family had no time to shop with the funeral so she gives me a lovely one-size-fits-all crisp $100 bill. No complaints there. Next I open Steve's gift. A gorgeous new ski outfit and reservations for four to Bretton Woods and the Mount Washington Resort, ooolala! Keep in mind I haven't skied in 15 years and sucked at it when I did. The kids mind you have never skied and I think Steve went once 20 years ago. I know he means well. I have been saying, quite often actually, that we should take the kids skiing while they are young enough to not understand gravity. I think I would have been a much better skier had I learned in that happy state of juvenile innocence. So yes, he heard me and for that I love my gift and him. That is my heart talking though; my head on the other hand in its state of emotional exhaustion is thinking: "we should" connotates something you have to do. For me it is a check mark for being a good parent to expose your kids to skiing if you can. I haven't been saying "I wish I could get back out there on the slopes. Oh how I miss it!!" And Liam has strength issues with his legs. This could be a nightmare. I have always wanted to go to the Mount Washington Inn but as a romantic get-away not as a family trip. Did I mention the ski pants are like 2 sizes too small and the jacket a size too big? Or he got himself a great ski outfit too? Or that I am a complaining, ungrateful bitch?? I know. I know. But this is what goes through my head. Then my sister says that I could use the money they gave me for a massage because, ha ha, "You'll be so sore from falling." And my brother-in-law says, "At least you'll have money for your emergency room co-pay." Everyone laughs because that was truly very funny. But I'm thinking "you don't know how right you are."

Now my mom gives me a gift. I open a spectacular sweater from Anthropologie. I have always wanted to buy a sweater from there but have refused to pay $125 for a sweater in a size I don't plan to remain in. This by the way will be the year I get back to my pre-baby weight. Immediately I love the sweater. Soon though, Mom says "I have the receipt if you want to return it. The lady swore it would fit you but I tried it on and I don't think it will. You could keep it as a goal sweater." Are you freakin' kidding me? Is my mom calling me too fat for an XL sweater on my birthday???? Stay calm she is not thinking right. She just buried her best friend and is pushing past grief and exhaustion to make your day special. Focus on that and stop being a bitch. When she keeps repeating the "I have the receipt" and "the lady said it would fit but..." and "goal sweater" for like 10 minutes I finally have to say "I get it, Mom, I'm fat and the sweater won't fit even though I haven't tried it on. I get it. We all get it!" What little festivity there was has now evaporated and I'm running on fumes as out comes the peanut butter cup birthday cake. Peanut butter by the way has been plastered on the news nationwide for weeks as being recalled due to people dying from salmonella. A fact I intellectually know she missed being at her friend's deathbed but nonetheless it adds fuel to my self-pity, nothing-is-right fire. Taking my life in my hands I quietly eat my cake. Now I am really hating myself for the overwhelming pettiness and ingratitude I have oozing through my mind. It is truly ugly and I know I am hurting the people I love the most in this world but I can't turn it around. Time to go home.

As we step through the doors and I am thinking about everything I have to do to get the kids ready for bed and school Steve decides it would be a great time to try on the ski outfits. He is excited because he did this really great thing and doesn't know his wife is a seething ball of pettiness, grief and self-pity. He doesn't recognize the "save yourself" stare as I say maybe now isn't the best time. He persists with a boyish excited grin. I say, "I don't think they are my size." He counters encouragingly with, "You never know they might fit - you have been working out." I have been. But I know. He's all suited up now - looking so GQ or should I say so Sport Illustrated. "Please..." "Fine." (Note: when someone says "fine' it is a sign of passive aggressiveness and you should not consider any point conceded as a win.) Guess what? ... They don't fit. I now have visual proof of how fat and ugly and petty I feel. Thanks Cosmos so far forty is great.

Morning breaks and the sun is shining. Now all that lingers is the guilt of feeling so ungrateful for what with the right attitude is sure to be an amazing family adventure. We always have a blast on our trips together. They are my most treasured memories and I am sure this one will be too. Morning is quiet and I am still emotionally raw with grief for Alice and now guilt for hurting people I love. Steve leaves for work probably walking on egg shells not sure what he did wrong. When the kids get on the bus I get ready for work. With no one around to see I try on the sweater.

It fits.

Later in the day I call my mom and sincerely thank her for the party and tell her I love the sweater and I won't be needing to return it. "Oh that's great honey. I'll toss the receipt. I'm so glad you like it."

Forty is not so bad once you get used to it.

For the update on the ski trip see What A Weekend (a.k.a. What A Day Part II) . Did we go? Did anyone use the co-pay? Check it out.