Happy Birthday, Corvallis Edition

Turning 30 isn't too bad at all. I've got carnivorous plants, shrinking cells and even a house from my husband. Granted, the house was a Lego house, but I can make it as big or small as I want! (Although my biggest requirement, one toilet per adult, will not be met as Lego homes are devoid of plumbing.) Today we went down to Corvallis to continue the celebration with my parents, and in addition to some really, truly hideous singing of "happy birthday", I got a beautiful engraved locket and this:It's a Jonathan Adler whale pitcher! So strange yet cool at the same time. She (I think it is a she, but we aren't sure yet - how does one sex a whale?) works beautifully, although she is a bit heavy when full of water. Losing that water weight can be such a bitch... Our new pitcher will match nicely with my Christmas present from Donna, pictured below:The butter dish has been certified by us as 100% awesome. Our only worry is that we might become "whale people", kinda like there are "cat people" who have cat-emblazoned everything. Cat salt and pepper shakers, cat oven mitts, cat shaped teapots.... You get the idea. Luckily, whales are not exactly uber popular in kitsch culture. We also happen to have a Adler squirrel ornament perched on our oven, so a more realistic fear is that our kitchen will be invaded by a variety of ceramic animals great and small. This would be ironic, as we are carnivores and will happily eat cows even if we have cow plates and bowels. Oh well, as long as it looks interesting and tastes good, I'm happy. Whale water, anybody?

Sideburns are a girl's best friend

Tomorrow is a friends birthday and to celebrate I have purchased her trimmable Elvis sideburns! Nothing says hail to the king quite like emulating his most prominent facial feature, except perhaps going the route of the rhinestone encrusted jumpsuit. My best friend's father from elementary school was actually an amateur Elvis impersonator. I grew up thinking that it was completely normal for fully grown men to wear white polyester with enough bling to scare off even the local drag queens (who, it must be noted, were not too flamboyant in small town Minnesota). Maybe if I win the lotto I'll be able to buy a particularily lurid jumpsuit for her next big milestone birthday (that being the big 50, but that is four years away). Kitch = friendship and love. God bless the King!

Happy Birthday, Me

Thus far, being 30 years old has not been too terribly traumatic. Then again, I'm only 1hour into the whole ordeal... I'm sure there are plenty of awful things that will happen to me during the next 23. I'll probably witness the complete and utter collapse of all of my connective tissue, collapsing into a pile of skin more reminiscent of those really wrinkly dogs than an actual human being. My memory will be shot, I'll be become incontinent and drink my vodka not with Red Bull but Ensure. And I'll either gain a ridiculous amount of weight to join the ranks of the morbidly obese, or I'll wither away into a wrinkly stub of a human being with only a few strands of hair to cover my liver-spotted head. Aging right before your very eyes...

BUT... most likely, I'll be just fine. And that's the amazing thing. I've spent the last several weeks dragging myself into my own little hell and back. Sometimes I wonder if I'm one of those fashionable bipolar diagnoses -- it seems like every person displaying the tiniest bit of crazy behavior is labeled bipolar, and I feel that the disease has become overexposed and overdiagnosed. So I worry that I am a "light" case of bipolar. But then after the last few weeks, I know that I deserve all of the lithium I can shovel into my mouth. Mixed Mania is, to say the least, a bitch. And when the energy wind was finally taken out of my sails, I was stuck in a crippling depression. Details aren't necessary or pleasant. Through aggressive medication and therapy, I've managed to pull myself together just in time for my 30th birthday. So tonight I site at my computer thinking about a lot of things, but being stressed over an arbitrary number is probably at the bottom of my list of worries. And that's a kind of nice feeling.

Thirty is as thirty does. Here's to another year!