Home Again, Home Again, Jiggty-Jig

[lydamorehouse]

We're back home again after nine and a half hours on the road on the day of my birthday.  As I told Shawn when we got out of the car after the trip, this was the first birthday I actually felt my age.  Nothing makes a person feel 40 than nine and a half hours in a car.  Bleah!

We came home to a TON of packages -- none of them specifically presents for me, except one.  We bought some new lamps because our house is so dark and our overhead light so ugly.  (if you ever wonder what my royalities buy, this is it, folks.)  We also spent some of that money on a new bird-feeder for the backyard, which also arrived while we were away.  I got one present -- an Amazon box with a book for me:  BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY by Jeremy Scahill, a guy I heard talk on PBS with Bill Moyers.  I'm hoping to start that after I finish LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS.

I got a couple of cool presents I can't wait to get to -- some fan fic from

xochiquetzl and this blast from the past from my friend Andrew:


This is Shawn and I and we're sitting outside our apartment on Girard Avenue in Uptown (Minneapolis.)  So, I know the photo is a LEAST ten years old, as we've lived in this house for that long.  However, it could be significantly older as we lived at Girard for at least six years.  So this could be me as much as 16 years ago.  The long hair is an interesting look for me.  I didn't have it for very long.  My hair is dyed black.  Naturally, well... who knows what color my hair is, but the last I checked it was mousey brown.  These days I dye it blonde, but Mason and Shawn have been advocating for black again.

I feel I should probably ruminate on what it means to be 40, but I don't have anything brilliant to say at the moment.  Perhaps later.

 

Comments

Happy Birthday!

[plaidder.livejournal.com]

I didn't know it was your birthday! (No...wait...LJ told me, and I forgot. Oh well.) I will be 40 soon enough, so, you know, morituri te saluant. But don't worry, kids keep you young! HA-hahahahaha!!!*

(*PJ's cold got real bad over the weekend. She's now taking her first nap since Friday. I feel like I'm at least 60.)

Have a good one,

The Plaid Adder

Re: Happy Birthday!

[lydamorehouse]

Glad to hear the little one is better. Sick children can definately add years to your life.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Forty is a strange one. It feels old.

[sg1scribe.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!

I have to say I discovered I really liked being 40 having approached it with trepidation. Way, way better than 20 (when I didn't know who I was) and 30 (when I was coping with a toddler and a baby).

By 40 I was comfortable being me. I hope it's a good year for you too.

[xochiquetzl]

What Scribe said, only without the toddler and baby part in my case. I think 40 is a good age. I'm old enough to know who I am and enjoy it, and only mildly decrepit. ;)

[lydamorehouse]

Maybe 45 will be comfortable. I'm actually in that "dealing with a toddler" stage at forty, which I think makes me a bit crankier than I should be some days.

[jiawen]

Happy birthday!

Wow, you both look so different. Nothing about age -- just the long hair.

[lydamorehouse]

That's right -- you've probably never seen Shawn with long hair either! After her masectomy she decided to change her whole look and went short. (I'm used to her long hair still.)

And thanks for the birthday wishes. It ended up a good day -- I got a slug! (as in garden slug, not a punch in the arm.) Yes, I'll have to explain that.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I've never seen you with other than your current haircut, so this looks like someone slapped a wig on your head. Funny how one gets an image of what you "ought to" look like.

[lydamorehouse]

That's kind of my reaction too. Who put a wig on me!? Oh, yeah, I remember that haircut. As I said, I SHOULD be able to pin the date down since I didn't keep my hair long for very long.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!

Don't fret the turning 40 bit (spoken from the other side of 50). I thought 40 would be incredibly meaningful (much as I'd thought turning 30 would be incredibly meaningful) but as it happened, even after turning 50, I'm still much the same me as I ever was, just with more mileage, less energy, and more things I can bore people by reminiscing about.

[norafleischer.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! That's a lovely old picture... you two look so happy.

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks. Andrew actually sent a long several of this series and in one we're clearly in the middle of a hardy laugh.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

Being 40 means you are not yet 41. Pretty much about it. ;)

[lydamorehouse]

Or, as Shawn's father said as we were leaving, "Don't get any older!" and I said, "Are you kidding? I hope to get a LOT older!" My eye doctor once said when I complained about getting older, "it beats the alternative."

Although I remember a friend of mine from IHRC at his birthday party. He was turning 18 and he said, raising his glass of sparkling juice, "One more step closer to the grave!" He was an exchange student from China, but I don't think it was cultural -- I think he was being particularly morbid.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

Oh, and HBD.

Duh. ;D

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday! Glad your trip went well.

Hopefully, we'll have more of a chance to get together next time I'm in Minneapolis than just waving at each other on 94 in Wisconsin. It's hard to spot y'all amongst the pickup trucks hauling dead deer.

[lydamorehouse]

I'm very sorry to have missed you and Michael, too! I thought of you as we saw several car pile-ups on the way back. I hope you missed 'em all.

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

We did. Fortunately, the worst that happened was lots of dead deer strapped to cars.

Did I mention the dead deer? *shudder*

[winterophelia.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday! :D

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks! It turned out well in the end.

[holy-toledo.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday!!!!

-Mel

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks for the birthday wishes. You're back in the US right? We should get together?

[kellymccullough.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday and welcome to 40. So far the water's fine.

[lydamorehouse]

No sharks? Are you _sure_?????

[kellymccullough.livejournal.com]

Nothing's taken a bite out of _me_ yet.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm..... I'm trying to play detective here. I'm pretty sure we have a copy of this picture, or one very, very close to it. You gave it to us on our big "goodbye" party in Saint Paul when we moved to Florida. That was December 1993.

And didn't you live in Girard house when we first met you in the fall of 1990? Which would mean that this picture could be 17 years old? Unfortunately, I only remmber Shawn's hair from that meeting, not yours. I still picture Shawn with her hair like this and it is always a bit of a shock to see her with short hair these days.

I'm pretty sure that we have proven that I am a lousy detective. I wanted to swoop in here with a Holmsian, "Apart from the fact that you've done a lot of physical labor, have been to Afghanistan, are a Freemason, have once again taken up your medical practice, and are a Roman Catholic, I can deduce little from the picture."

I guess some of us will always be Watson.

jpj