Don’t fret, I’ll carry on milking my 40th birthday with my next post. I would like to say that this picture is a sign of my maturity, my newfound ability to not kill growing things in my garden. But really I think the credit goes to advances in horticulture technology:

Knockout roses:

The knockout roses we have have been through a hurricane, an October blizzard, and three winters of oh crap, we didn’t winterize the roses and they’re under nine feet of snow.

They don’t seem to be terribly bothered by any of it. I never knew how much I would love going outside and seeing roses there. It’s very cool, kind of like getting flowers every day for no reason.

Yesterday at work, before I left to meet CC for dinner between shows, I lightened my bag. The last thing I removed was my umbrella. Shockingly, there are no windows in theaters and I couldn’t see the sky. I went out a side door and saw one guy carrying an umbrella, but he was prancing a bit and it being New York and all, I thought it was merely an accessory. Then I saw others with umbrellas, then I felt the rain. I turned in slow motion to watch the side door–which opens only from the inside–close. If I wanted my umbrella, I would have to plow through the crowd at the stage door and walk all the way around the building again. So I chanced it.

It didn’t rain much, it wasn’t a big deal. At least, not until after dinner. About three blocks from work it started raining more. Then it poured.

Did I mention I was wearing white pants? I was mostly see-through by the time I got back to work.

I passed a complete stranger who actually laughed out loud at me.

And you know what? I really didn’t care. It was pretty funny. Chalk that one up to 40 too.

Speaking of thunder storms, Renee Schuls-Jacobson wrote a great piece On Sons and Thunderstorms.

CC sent me this link of before and after pictures of East Germany. This photographer took pictures immediately after the wall came down, and then again ten years later. It’s astounding. Pictures by Stefan Koppelkamm: A Massive Facelift for East Germany.

Melissa Stetton is a model with a blog that I totally dig. I don’t know her and if she’s noticed my comments at all she probably thinks I’m a stalker, which is sort of appealing. Here are her recent thoughts on doing a photo shoot nearly naked in Central Park in 55-degree weather. Pretty Bored: You Chose to Be a Model, Deal With It.

Sometimes life sucks. When you’re a writer, it’s all future material. Hannah R. Goodman guest posts on E. Kristin Anderson’s site: Dear High School, Thanks for Being so Sucky. Love, H.

I loved this post for so many reasons. Life Well Blended: On Being the Stepmom on Mothers Day

Happy Sunday.

I was holding out a hope that at some point in the day, there would be cake. It was really all I wanted.

Right before I left for work I was presented with this cake, made for me by #1:

She also got me a gift certificate to MAC cosmetics which I plan on trading in for something extravagant.

So my day was already pretty great before I even left for work.

At the theater, we were programming the console, making changes, and all of a sudden some friends from my old show (across the street) came in.

Then some more showed up.

With cake.

And then more friends.

With gifts.

And I was in the middle of working but my bosses made me stop and open gifts and have cake while they kept working.

Now, nothing can truly compare to a dark chocolate box cake made by your eldest child topped with your age in bacon. But the cake that my friend Michelle made me is a close second.

She’s made this cake for me before and it’s nothing short of divine. I should also point out that Michelle is the one friend I will never bake for. That would just be embarrassing.

The cake:

Cinnamon cake, with  ancho chile chocolate butter cream frosting. You don’t notice it at first, but gradually you become aware that the piece of cake you’re eating is totally kicking your ass, and you want nothing more than to eat the entire rest of the cake and then roll around naked in the leftover frosting.

Well, maybe that’s just me.

Michelle also strong-armed our friends into chipping in on a gift.

 A really big, outrageously generous gift that I totally don’t deserve but happily accepted anyway.

So big, I was rendered speechless.

I’ll give you a little hint:

No?

How about this:

Still no?

Okay.

The Marlene Deitrich Mont Blanc.

!!!!!

I have really good friends. Who are afraid of Michelle.

So we shared cake and my amazed expression.

I look confused in the picture, but actually I was asking if I could stab somebody with the pen.

As a parting gift, I got a list of instructions from Michelle:

The list of what I was to bring continued:

Advil

Toilet Paper

Metro Card

1 can of tuna

Bus/train pass to get you back to New Jersey

An open mind

I was further informed that my husband was aware and in full support of these plans.

Any time someone is telling me to bring an open mind, that’s an automatic red flag. The whole Advil/can of tuna/toilet paper thing was especially disconcerting. I truly had no idea what I was in for. That’ll be my next post.

Oh, I nearly forgot the other big gift I got. When #1 had dropped me off at the train station that morning she was returning home to pick up my mom to take her to the airport. She got about a mile from home and the transmission on our twelve-year-old minivan went out.

Sweet. Sweat!

Anyway, it all got me thinking about birthday gifts. For #1′s thirteenth birthday, we wrapped up our shovel very elaborately and gave it to her. Then after she unwrapped it we made her put it away, where her real gift was waiting for her: a guitar. This year in December I called the school and told them that #3 had a dentist appointment that I forgot about, and asked them to tell her and get her ready for me to pick up. It was especially mean because she’d just been to the dentist like two weeks prior to this. When I got her out to the car I gave her a hot chocolate and then we went and got mani/pedi’s, followed by the eye doctor to get fitted for contacts, the ONLY thing on her Christmas list.

I have a couple months left to plan for a unique gift with clever presentation for #5′s birthday. Any thoughts?

I’ve heard people get all philosophical about “age is just a number” and “you’re only as old as you feel”. I know many, many people who lie about their age, or just pick one that they like and stick with that forever.

I’m not all that philosophical and I don’t go in for pithy sayings or Stuart Smalley-esque affirmations. But I’m here to tell you something:

40 ROCKS.

I totally would not lie to you. Not about this.

See, I have a theory. I developed this theory ten years ago when I turned 30. Somehow the turning of a new decade in my age gave me a lot of freedom that I wasn’t expecting. It meant starting anew, at the beginning of a new set of numbers. I no longer had to fit into my idea of what the previous set of numbers had been- I’d outgrown them and passed them by. The new numbers were unwritten. A vast, empty space, waiting to be filled with whatever I chose.

Blank, clear, free. Up to me.

Here’s my Top Ten List of what rocks about 40:

10) I have 40 years of experience in screwing up. It’s no big deal anymore.

9) I have 40 years of experience in figuring out what I like. That’s awesome! Do you have any idea what a time-saver that is?

8) I give a shit about my health. More than a shit, actually, I care a great deal. I eat on the healthy side, have little interest in chemically preserved/highly processed anything, do not actively put toxins (including chemical recreation) into my body anymore, take those damn supplements the doc had been suggesting the past five years, and I exercise. Very little gives me greater pleasure than standing in a Bikram yoga class next to some perky co-ed who was out partying all night and watching her go green down on the mat while I’m solid, holding standing bow. Take that, size zero.

7) I’m not above being petty when it amuses me (see above).

6) I don’t spend much time trying to figure out how everything’s going to work out anymore. My god, I used to make myself crazy with that. It’s far more interesting to just do the next right thing in front of me and let it all unfold as it will. All my worrying and trying to guess what comes next never affected the rising of the sun or the pull of the tides.

5) Less drama. He said/she said, I’m gonna do this to make him/her jealous, I’m gonna do that to make so and so think such and such. . . I have no interest anymore.

4) I’m finally good at my job. God knows I’ve been doing it long enough.

3) I know the value of a good cry and a day in bed with a bag of cookies.

2) I appreciate and can accept my family of origin just as they are. By this point, I don’t expect them to change much. They would probably say the same about me. But they’ll have to get their own blog.

1) I’m still not as old as my car, nor will I ever be.

Disclaimer: I am not 40 in the pictures below, I’m. . .32? But those are the only pictures of me and Miss Lucy.

Here’s a picture of me being 40. I’m pretty much the same, just. . . forty-er.

I’m looking forward to testing my theory with each new decade I reach. But I’m in no rush.

I’d love to hear the number one thing that rocks about the age you are right now.

I was lucky enough to have multiple birthday celebrations, which I’ll be writing about this week (yes, I’m totally milking it).

This isn’t it, Michelle. My gift back to you is another week to blow me crap about it.

The kids just got back from Sunday school. #4 brought me a flower:

#5 said: You know what would stink? Becoming a zombie after you had died from losing your head. Because then you couldn’t eat brains. 

I am unclear as to whether this was part of today’s teaching.

#5 has also developed an obsession with Llamas, and my belly fat. CC is trying to teach him that if he wants girls to like him, he probably shouldn’t smack their stomachs and say, “It jiggles!” but so far the lesson hasn’t penetrated.

The Beatles’ You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away just came up on Pandora. #1 asked: Did this song come out in the 80′s?

Here’s your picture (I know, I cheated; two pics today):

Just a dusty pansy in the cemetery before we got all that rain. I like pansies.

And here are five links that are worth your time:

The best marriage advice I’ve ever read: Lydia Netzer 15 Ways to Stay Married

Three pictures of pit bulls that will make you smile: Sadie and Dasie

A simple way to shop the grocery store when you’re looking to eat healthier: Kate Miller on the Healthy Wage blog.

Peg-o-Leg: she’s funny! Don’t get in her line at the store. The Line Slayer

I totally stole this from Piper Bayard: Epic Rap Battles of History: Shakespeare VS. Dr. Seuss. Also, if you click on the Piper link, there are a couple of awesome coffins.

Happy Sunday.

We come into this room to learn how to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

Probably makes more sense if you know that it was a hot yoga class, but I think it applies to most yoga, and many other things as well. All of those things that we do to try to be better . . . “us’s” when the easy way out just won’t cut it.

Yeah, that punctuation is intentional.

Here are some more pictures from a cemetery trek with Team Puggle. Enjoy.

One with lots of wind that made a rare opportunity to see a home track meet unfortunately very short.

To an afternoon of cleaning out my closet, of trying on every item of clothing I own and deciding:

I’m fucking done being neurotic about my body.

Life is too short, and forty is too awesome, for neurotic. Four bags of  donated clothes later, somehow I feel like I have a new wardrobe. Less truly is more, sometimes.

The week passed with a meeting of my writers’ group, followed by a much-needed, greatly enjoyed lunch with the ever-fabulous Christine from Quasi Agitato. It passed in a sushi dinner with one old friend, and two new ones.

The week went to an ivory evening gown, which I bought four years ago at Nordstrom’s Rack in Chicago for only thirty-five dollars because it was pre-altered and had a heel hole in the train which my tailor sewed up for me so you can’t even tell.

I wore it to CC’s opening night, even though it doesn’t hide my stomach.

My only embellishments were red lipstick and my handsome, handsome husband.  Away from me, someone told him I looked like a badass angel goddess.

That pretty much made my whole life.

This is a picture of me taking a picture of myself in my mirror. Just under my left elbow is my dress, folded over the back of the chair. We did not get a picture of ourselves at the shindig, partly because that useless little purse you carry with an evening gown doesn’t hold your lipstick, phone, car keys AND a camera. Hell, it won’t even hold a camera by itself. Or an epi-pen, I’m told. I considered putting the dress back on just for a picture here, but ultimately decided I was too lazy. Trust me though, we looked fabulous. Also, I am too lazy to figure out how to use the timer on the camera so that I don’t have to look like a douche holding the damn camera in the mirror. Hmm. . . this picture is a remarkably helpful illustration. Of nothing.

The week passed in six commutes, eight shows, eight onstage hangings and crucifixions. Eight times of laughing to myself out loud at the end of the night and saying, “Holy shit these guys are on fire!” because our band is that damn fantastic. It passed with one Drama Desk Best Sound nomination, followed by the crappiest show I’ve mixed here.

Well.

These things happen.

The week passed in a couple of yoga classes and some miles on the treadmill and an awful lot of staring myself down in the mirror saying yes I can when I really wanted to just stop.

And eat a cookie. Or ninety.

The week went to this thing in my refrigerator:

I can’t decide if I want someone to tell me what it is or not.

The week passed with Metallica, Sixx A.M. and My Chemical Romance. It was spent with my Uncle Tupelo station on Pandora.

It went to parenting that was neither funny nor satisfying- the ugly, unsettling kind that leaves you second guessing yourself while simultaneously knowing that, given the chance for a do-over, you would make the same decisions. You would still be left feeling sad and anxious and  nauseous.

It passed with Jenny Lawson’s stupidly excellent book Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. She’s so awesome it pisses me off. I love her. I almost want to be her when I grow up except then it wouldn’t be as much fun to read her stuff. Which is the exact same reason why I don’t want to be a yoga teacher. Sort of. Also, I think I’m older than her, which would make being her when I grow up even more difficult.

The week went to lots of dog hair and stinky puppy feet, to puggle butts trotting through the cemetery as they sniffed about the freshly dead, of which there were many.

It went to a couple of fantastic mornings on my deck, listing things for which I am grateful. Like not being a reason that the cemetery is busy.

It went to Peanut Butter Puffins and skim milk. Skim, because it makes the best gooey-peanut butter milk at the end of the bowl. Trust me.

The week passed in many games of Scramble, with my sister and also my boss- whom, I am now certain, is cheating and has a ringer sitting in for him. Pretending. But still not winning.

It passed in saying goodbye to my two men as they went on a Scouting trip for the weekend.

It ends with not enough sleep in a bed that is far too empty, even with a puggle or two.

I hear myself say, “Where’d the week go?” but I know exactly where this week went.

I had to confess that I didn’t know, either. I didn’t know until I read her post.

Is it because I grew up in Indiana, sans Diego and sans Wonder Pets? I definitely never saw one in a zoo. I certainly learned more world geography than Narwhal facts (and that’s saying something).

In fact, the only time I had ever heard of a Narwhal before reading this post was in the Archie McPhee catalogue, purveyors of all things hilarious and ironic. They used to have a Narwhal/Unicorn death battle action figure playset. I believe I drew my own conclusion.

CC says it’s because I’m blond.

I asked #4 and #5 :Narwhal, real or imaginary?

#5: Real.

#4: Real. I know a song about a Narwhal.

Me: Really?

#4: Yeah. Narwhal, narwhal, swimmin’ in the ocean, causin’ a commotion, cause you’re so awesome.

Me: Huh.

Then later this week, we went to the elementary school for parent-teacher conferences. Outside one of the classrooms was a display of kid projects on ocean animals. Guess what was represented? It wasn’t no damn unicorn.

*sigh*.

Here’s your picture. I took it with my phone last night to demonstrate how awesome I am to go with this post. Saturday night on Broadway, waiting near the subway for my husband to finish his show. I’m set up with a seltzer and a stack of critiques for my writing group.

Do I know how to live, or what?

Also, I could use a manicure.

Here are your links.

A really damn good list of dating hints for teenage boys: Given Breath: Pick You Up At Seven.

The pros and cons of dating a yogi (what you should know before you get into it): The View From My Mat

Musings from the mind of a three-year-old: Coffee Powered Mom.

I never watch videos, but I howled at this one. Henri the Existential Housecat. (Julie from Go Guilty Pleasures sent me this link.)

And again, I never watch videos, but this one is so awesome I sat through the whole damn thing and it makes me want to take a trip to LA. It’s worth your time. I’m linking through the blog I found it on, Steadily Skipping Stones: Caine’s Arcade.

Nothing gets by us. We're geniuses.

If they had business cards, that’s what would be printed on them.

What? Yes, I know dogs don’t have business cards. In no small part because they have no thumbs. But I’m thinking about getting them little tags for their collars because they’re so, so smart.

What? No, I don’t believe for a second that we’re the only family who gave their dogs middle names.

Not only are my dogs smart, they are terribly aware. Observe:

Looking the wrong way.

We’re puggles. We’re so smart. Hey, look! Grass!

What was twenty feet from them in the other direction.

No, we don’t need to look the other way. What could possibly be in the other direction? We’re puggle geniuses.

Completely at ease, with good reason.

Nothing gets by us! We’re geniuses! Did I mention we’re puggles?

Smooches!

Below is the deer’s reaction to me taking pictures. My dogs actually did not notice the deer until after they stood up.

Then Casey lunged, and the deer bolted. Mama went one way, babies went the other way.

I say babies, but they’re practically grown. They were babies last year and we would see them in this part of the cemetery while we were walking the dogs. The dogs didn’t see the deer then, either.

Now the babies are losing their fawnliness.

Yep, any day now these fawns will realize that they’re full grown. That they probably should get  full-time jobs; maybe go to summer school.

You can't see me. I blend right in.

Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't look at me.

They’ll realize how awesome it would be if they started cleaning the kitchen without being asked and stopped leaving their shoes in a death trap pile at the bottom of the stairs so their stepmama deer doesn’t break her damn neck.

They’ll buy their stepmama deer Godiva.

The extra dark truffle bar.

Hmmm. Where was I?

Oh right.

Geniuses.

CC and I are up way too late, sucked in to Kill Bill like we are every time it comes on. It’s my turn to get up with the kids in the morning.

Me: Whoa. There is some serious salamander activity next to me here.

CC: In what way?

Me: There was a splash.

One salamander is still at the bottom of the bowl, but the other is very determinedly attempting to get out.

splash.

Me: Dude is getting out of that bowl for sure. What should we do?

CC: {sigh}

Me: Really. What do you do with a salamander? I feel a tremendous sense of obligation for these little guys.

CC: Fine. Get the car keys. I’ve had two scotches and half a bottle of wine. You’re driving.

Me: Okay, but you have to carry them.

CC: Oh sure. Make the impaired guy carry the salamanders.

I pause to take a picture.

We have a park near our house that has both a pond and a stream. It’s a nice park. A great place to release your salamanders. Except it’s the kind of park that has police who notice and come to question you if you’re there after dark.

Me: Wait, these aren’t like zebra mussels are they?

CC: No. Get in the car.

We go out to the car- me, CC, and two salamanders.

Me: You know, there’s an X-Files episode about this.

CC: No there isn’t.

Me: Yes there is.

CC: About dumping salamanders out in a pond?

Me: No, but about salamanders. This guy who has it out for Mulder gets worked on at prison by some crazy doctor and he gives him a salamander hand, thereby proving my theory once again.

CC: Which is?

Me: That you can name pretty much anything, and there’s an X-Files episode about it.

CC: {silence}

Me: The end.

CC: {silence}

Me: Don’t drop the salamanders.

CC: I’m not going to drop the salamanders. They’re going to get eaten by fish the instant we set them free.

Me: No they won’t.

CC: Yes they will.

Me: Well, better to be eaten by a fish than by one of the puggles, which would cost us $400 and three days of emotional duress while they’re hooked up to an I.V. at the vet.

CC: We’re going to get arrested for this on some eco-violation. They’re going to come and arrest #5, and all the rangers that took him on the camping trip, and we’re going to have to sell the house and move into some tiny apartment where we don’t all fit to pay remediation costs to remove and restore these two salamanders to Western New Jersey.

Me: I’m pretty sure we don’t have that much equity in the house.

CC: {sigh}

Me: I forgot my flashlight. Also, I’m in flip-flops.

CC: Can we just drop them in the pond instead of the creek? The last thing I need to do is break a frickin’ ankle tonight.

Me: This decision of where to drop them probably is the single most important thing that will determine their length of life, isn’t it?

CC: Who cares? The cops are gonna be here any minute. “What’s that, officer? No, sir, we’re just taking our bowl for a walk. We do it all the time.”

We dump them.

Into the pond.

One stays put. The other heads for dry land.

I like to think he was the jumper.

Me: I wonder how long it’s going to take #5 to figure out they’re gone.

CC: About as long as it takes him to cross the floor. He did leave them on the kitchen table. It’s going to be the first thing he checks when he wakes up.

Me: Yeah.

CC: {laughs}

Me: What?

CC (re-enacting our first phone call eleven years ago when he was interviewing me to be his assistant on the Aida tour): So, I’ll hire you for the gig. In like, eleven years, you’re going to be dumping two salamanders out of a cereal bowl into a park pond in New Jersey while looking out for cops. I have no idea what happens between these two events. You still want the gig?

For the record, I still would have taken the gig.

He’s too young for it, we know.

We were maxed out on our family plan when it came time to get one for #4, who was literally the last kid in the sixth grade without one. We had to open a whole new account to accommodate her, and at that point it was easy to add him on.

For the record, we’re talking about basic phones here. Not smart phones. An awful lot of kids in the middle school here got iPhone 4′s for Christmas. Our kids referred to them as spoiled, which made me proud.

Though it is quite possible they were just saying what they knew I wanted to hear in hopes that I would buy them smart phones next time around.

I figured #5′s phone would last three months, tops. Turns out it was #4 who broke her phone first.

Ten days after Christmas; water damage.

She didn’t do it, she swears.

Kids text. They don’t talk on the phone. I wish someone offered a plan that was unlimited texts and like, twenty minutes a month. I would totally come out ahead on that. Which, I suppose, is why no one offers that plan.

Most of the texts I get from the girls are either asking for something that will cost me money or complaining about something that will cost me money. They are nearly always misspelled, and not in a fashion that saves them any extra effort.

-Wat is 4dinnner

-Cant we haaav bk instead of stew

-do i haaavd to do choares please say no

-HELP ME. SHE WONT STOP SNORRING.

-I haaaaate her shez such a b-word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Cn u leev $$$ for me pleeeez?

-I just want to give you a heads up about tour. I’m going to need two new dresses. And probably shoes as well. (#2 always spells everything correctly)

Though I have to say, during the brief span of time before she broke her phone, #4 did send me a picture of Casey wearing the Gene Simmons wig.

#5, however, is different. He never texts me with complaints about his sisters, requests for money, or to say he didn’t like dinner.

This is the kind of thing I get from #5:

OH NO MY ARM!!!! EVERYTHING'S BETTER WITH PERRY

A picture of him being attacked by the vacuum cleaner on a Saturday when we left them with an extensive chore list.

“Everything’s better with Perry” was his signature line. A reference to Phineas and Ferb, the greatest TV show of all time.

So when my friend Walter brought me a gift to give to #5, I texted him.

Me: My friend Walter brought me a gift for you.

#5: sweat! tell him i said thanks

I’m pretty sure he meant “sweet”. He didn’t ask what the gift was until I got home. As if it never occurred to him to pester me via text.

The pestering came later, and it was really directed more at his sisters as he proclaimed with great joy, and even greater volume, the two magical words that named the gift, over and over, all day long:

BACON WALLET!!!!!

It is his most cherished possession. Thanks, Walter- it’s sweat!