Birthdays, Blenders, and Two Brave Girls

January starts the Birthday Season around here.  Five of the six family birthdays happen between the months of January and April and our season starts off with Bill's birthday.  He has the unfortunate circumstance of having his birthday on January 4 (so soon after Christmas.)   He should have married a woman who was organized, prompt, and prepared for dealing with two back-to-back gift-giving events.  I am not that woman.  When I'm planning his Christmas gifts, I usually try to reserve a few good gift ideas for his birthday so he gets an assortment of good and bad gifts for each special day.  Sometimes the after-Christmas birthday comes in handy.  There have been years when  a "Christmas" gift  is ordered too late  doesn't arrive on time, so it's slipped in with the birthday gifts and the recipient is none the wiser.  Sometimes by the time Christmas comes around I'm plum out of good gift ideas and he's left with whatever desperate gift I can find at the last minute.  One year he got an ax for his birthday.  An ax!  What kind of a crappy gift is that?  He was a good sport about it, though...and actually claimed that he liked the ax. 

This year his birthday gifts were particularly pathetic.  Being way over here on Okinawa (unusually far from a Target) I should have made the extra effort and planned ahead to make sure I ordered and shipped any birthday gifts with plenty of time.  Unfortunately I barely got the Christmas gifts ordered and shipped on time, so Bill's birthday really got the short end of the stick this year.  Here are some of the sad gifts he received on his birthday:

A set of mini clamps:  If you need to clamp anything, Bill's your guy. 

A little light that uses a magnet to stick to a grill spatula:  For all your night time grilling needs. 

 And finally.....

The blender sounds like a worse gift than it really is.  Bill makes milkshakes for the kids on Friday nights, and our old blender had seen better days.  He actually requested this gift. 

Bill was a good sport about all these gifts, but I also think he's just a good liar.  Look at Andrew in this picture...even he knows Dad got screwed. 

After the gifts, the kids were a little hyped up from the sugary cake and they started acting really silly. 

We eventually got the kids to bed that night, and relaxed for the next 26 days before Yours Truly finally reached her special day. I was a little ambivalent about this birthday because it's the Big 3-8. I don't know if I was having a mini-mid-life crisis or if the reality of aging was too overwhelming for me, but on the morning of my birthday (after the traditional muffins and coffee) I decided I was going to do something out of the ordinary on this Important Day. I wasn't going to let the fact that I am now firmly entrenched in my late-thirties stop me from anything. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day and Okinawa has many exciting attractions, so I consulted my little partner (Mary) and we decided that we would go visit the Okinawa Lighthouse. It should be said that in the last few years I have developed a paralyzing fear of heights, so this destination certainly qualified as Out of the Ordinary for me. When we made our plans, we were sure the lighthouse would look like this when we arrived.

Unfortunately, due to Okinawa's freakish suddenly changing weather, we arrived to a lighthouse that looked like this:



"On second thought, I don't know if this is such a good idea," I told Mary as we got to the lighthouse.  "I don't even know if it's open." 

"But look Mom--There are people up there! It is open!" said a very excited Mary.  (These Crazy Okinawans! Thanks a lot! Who else would think of going up in a lighthouse in this weather.) 

The rain had slowed to a drizzle so we got out of the car, paid the lighthouse keeper, and made our way up the 527 lighthouse steps.  As my partner and I slowly ascended those stairs, I could feel my heart beating faster and faster and I was internally starting to freak out.  My mind was racing.  "I'm crazy for doing this!"  I said to myself.  "What am I thinking!  What if there's an earthquake while we're up at the top and the whole thing comes crashing down!  I didn't even tell Bill we were doing this!  He doesn't know we're here.  He'll never think to look for us in the lighthouse rubble.  This was a VERY BAD idea."  

Before I knew it, we were at the top of the stairs and I had officially reached panic mode.   As if that wasn't enough, once you reach the top of the stairs you have to climb up this old, rusty looking ladder onto this little landing.  Then you go through a tiny door to get outside onto the lighthouse deck.  (Is that what it's called?  I don't know.  It doesn't matter.  I'll never be up there again.)  Maybe the rusty ladder looked scary, or maybe I was exuding my trepidation, but even brave little Mary got a little nervous when she saw the ladder.  "Here's my chance!"  I thought.  Then I said to Mary, "You know, we don't have to do this if you don't want."  "No, it's okay, Mom.  But how about you go first, " she said.   Great.  My plan backfired.   So I cautiously climbed up the ladder, and she followed. 

Our last step before going outside to the deck was to go through the little door.  And it had started to rain again, so I told Mary, "How about we just look out through the little door so we don't get all wet?"  She seemed okay with that idea, and a little panicked herself.  As we looked out at the little buildings and cars WAY down below, I started thinking, "This is ridiculous.  Why am I being such a wimp?  This thing has probably been here for 200 years....it's not going to come crashing down.  It's a LIGHTHOUSE!  The whole point of it is to be here during stormy weather.  It's not like this is a typhoon or anything!"  So I very nervously forced myself out that little door and stepped onto the deck.  It was VERY high.  However,  it was quite breathtaking, even on such an ugly day. 

I felt very proud of myself for not letting my fear get the best of me (although I didn't dare step more than 2 feet away from the little door in case we did get an earthquake and we had to suddenly rush down those 527 steps.)  Even Mary found her courage and joined me out there, although I think she might have second-guessed that decision a little bit.....

After about 30 seconds we both decided we'd seen all there was to see and we went back through the little door, down the ladder, and back down the stairs.  Once we were back on solid ground, we felt like some very cool chicks.   We had survived and conquered the Lighthouse! 

The rest of the day was pretty standard for birthdays around our house.   The birthday person always gets to choose the dinner, and I didn't feel like cooking.  I chose Macaroni Grill because the other places I wanted to go to are closed on Mondays (I don't know why) and because it's one of the few places that everyone likes, so that meant I would avoid a Birthday Argument.   It turned out to be a very nice day.  Maybe 38 won't be so bad after all! 

You probably won't hear from me again for a while.  We normally don't do big Valentine's Day things around here, so it's unlikely that I'll post about that.  Early on in our relationship Bill and I had a series of dismal Valentine's Days, so we decided many years ago that we would fore go this holiday.  We like each other...we know it.  No need to fight the masses at the fancy restaurants trying to get a reservation.   If we decide to explore any exciting (ground level) Okinawan hot spots in the next few weeks, I'll be sure to share our adventures with you guys.  Miss you lots!