Celebrating another year
Published 01-09-2020
Birthdays kind of lose their appeal after awhile, at least that getting older part. If I could keep the favorite foods... and cake without the aging it would be incredible.
And while 44 isn’t exactly old, it can kind of freak a person out, especially when you could swear up and down that twenty five was, like, yesterday.
Getting older isn’t half bad, though.
I mean no one cares that I got a little tipsy last Thursday afternoon when Vince and I took Joe to the airport for him to return to California. As much as I would have loved a longer visit, the U.S. Navy is kinda strict about people returning on time, step-mom’s birthdays aren’t really an acceptable excuse.
Downtown Nashville is a lot of fun, filled with Honky Tonks and live music day and night. I can attest that the drinks went down easy. Good thing Vince was driving. And I said a prayer of thanks that the girls and I never decided to take a trip there in our single days. Trouble in capital letters, and visions of tearful calls to parents for bail definitely entered my head.
I’m not even getting into the small fortune in boots that would have needed to be shipped home. I’m going to have to start saving money now for when my mom and sister come visit. If I’m drooling over the displays, the damage the three of us could wreck in an afternoon would be spectacular. Forget the Louboutin’s. Corral is more my speed. I don’t know if I can find a reason to justify going back and getting those black sequined boots that I’m still thinking about, but really, do I need one? Another plus of aging.
I’d like to say I’ve calmed some with aging, but Vince would probably have something to say about that, and if Sam’s comments during the last Louisiana State football game are anything to go by, well, I’d be lying if I tried to. The boys came to check on me one Saturday afternoon, thinking something had gone spectacularly wrong and I was injured, but no, it was just a missed tackle. I caught a mumble or two of “she’s crazy” as they went back upstairs. I figure it’s better if they learn early, Sam’s wise enough to know as long as it’s not directed at him it’s all good.
And he knows the answer when he asks if I could be louder. The answer is usually yes. Especially during football season.
With age, comes experience. Which, as I get older, I respect more and more. One great plus about life in Tennessee is adjusting and experiencing life from a different outlook than where I came from. Shaking up your perspective can be helpful. And having a little life behind you... struggles and successes, joy and grief, blessings and hardships, helps you appreciate all of it. Understanding that, comes with age. And while I may require ibuprofen some days to help an ache or pain, that understanding makes so much of life so much easier, and an acceptable trade off.
My mom reminded me of those “exciting” birthdays where many plans were made for festive celebrations, and blowout parties when I lived at the ranch. Everyone should have fireworks on their birthday at least once, and being surrounded by a damp orchard was a perfect excuse.
Now the perfect birthday is homemade pizzas and a scratch baked red velvet cake, with a good chance of a glass of diet root beer and vanilla vodka to kick off the celebration. While I remember my thirtieth birthday party quite fondly, at least the parts I can remember, I don’t know that I could survive another like that. I don’t think I’ve had a kamikaze since.
Gone are the days of planning nights out, I’m more interested in nights in front of a fireplace and planning my next painting project (the master bathroom, if anyone is interested, I’ve finally had my fill of lilac). Although a few of those ibuprofen may be in order when I’m done.
••••••••
So much for a quiet Christmas break for Congress.
Between the back and forth of the impeachment saga, and the disposition of Iran’s Solemani, the New Year brought about many political fireworks, even if the outcomes of some of it are known.
Regarding the former head of Iran’s Quds force, I shed no tears over his death. Period.
But the hair on fire reactions from across the political spectrum was something to behold. Panic attacks about President Trump starting World War III, people in hysterics about a draft that isn’t happening, and on the flip side gross cheering at a new front in our Middle East misadventures.
Not two weeks after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, everyone is accepting at face value our wartime intelligence and government decrees? Sorry, no.
At the same time, I fully get the necessity, and message, of our government taking out the number two guy in Iran responsible for funding and exporting a level of evil that regular people can barely fathom.
Don’t get me started on the glowing obituaries ran in the Washington Post and New York Times, glorifying Solemani.
Half of the democrats, in an effort to damage Trump politically, defended a man who’s at best was murderer. Insanity.
Disagree with the President’s tactics all you want, plenty do. But for the modern left, defending a regime that regularly executes gay people, seems more than a little unhinged. Calling Solemani a monster might actually be uncharitable to monsters. And in the rush to dirty a president, tried to gloss over the actual oppression and terror the man fomented.
No, I do not enjoy that the United States is the world’s police man, but sometimes it’s necessary.
To put it simply, sometimes the bully needs to get punched back, a little harder, to remind them that there’s always a bigger guy in the school yard or around the next corner.
Violence isn’t always the answer, but sometimes a reminder that violence is available, just not preferred does the trick.
Even a basic reading about Iran’s capabilities would tell you that calls of World War III being on the horizon aren’t realistic. A draft, in the immediate future over Iran, fantastical.
Thankfully, I am pretty sure we have a president that is less interested in nation building than I am. Also thankful that he doesn’t apologize for saying things like “[Solemaini] was a monster. Now he’s not a monster. He’s dead.”
Sometimes, it really is just that simple.