Birthday birthday (and some other stuff)

I was standing on Bathurst Street just after sunrise this morning wearing a tanktop. It is really too chilly for bare arms that early these days but soon it will be entirely impossible and I want to feel the air on my skin as long as I can. Also I don’t get as bothered by being cold as I used to—I still feel it, I just don’t care as much. It occurred to me, waiting to cross the street, that I’m not as fussed about food I don’t like anymore either. I will notice I don’t like it but now, if I’m hungry enough or trying to be polite, I can just eat it, whereas that used to be impossible. Am I getting more tolerant of discomfort in middle age? And then I remembered being too hot yesterday and I realized now, certain types of discomfort still make me nuts, but at least some types I can tolerate more.

Age is funny, I guess. Yesterday was Mark’s birthday and a great thing I have discovered as an adult is that all birthdays of people I like are as good as my birthday. I think if children were less narcissistic, I would have found this out earlier—parties, cake, pin the tail on things, running around with your friends, getting to watch a movie and eat a big bowl of cheesies, goodie bags, sleepovers—in childhood, any friend’s birthday celebration was a jackpot! As an adult, many friends choose not to celebrate—slumber parties are VERY rare now—but if I am a part of things, I love it just as much as any celebration for my own self.

For reasons I choose not to examine, many of my favourite people are Virgos so it’s been a real cavalcade of celebration lately, but yesterday was the best one, my husband Mark, who has no option not to include me in his celebration. We had pancakes, went swimming, went on a Prohibition Tour and whisky tasting in the Distillery District, out to dinner and then home for cake. And that’s just the Coles notes. The tour, which was fine but not terribly long or in-depth, was such a nice excuse to be in the Distillery on a hot sunny day instead of at Christmas time, which is almost the only time I’m ever there otherwise. And the whisky tasting was so funny, as I was determined to fully participate despite the fact that I DON’T DRINK ALCOHOL, and whisky is the I think the MOST alcohol. The tour leader said I was turning red almost immediately after my first sip but I tried everything, and was surprised to find I did hate the whiskys to differing degrees, though I did hate them all a lot. Mark had more detailed and interesting tasting notes.

Then we kept walking—why not?—and discovered it was waterfront festival time and it was a WONDERLAND. We found out that the mascot for the Canadian Navy is a fuzzy bear wearing a baseball cap and we watched a bit of the Canadian Aquatic Championships and saw some tiny girl dance squad rehearsing in what appeared to be a cage and got a free piece of pizza and a bunch of free granola bars (Mark: you are so good at finding free samples of things; RR: It’s a family trait.) And then somehow we walked 11 kilometres. I don’t know how it happened—it was such a pretty day and we were having such a nice day and then suddenly I was very hot and thought maybe I was dying. We went to dinner an hour earlier than our reservation because no more walking or being outside. Dinner was nice but I was only truly ok again when we were home eating cake.

I made a pirate cake for Mark, which is a cake we invented when we discovered a mutual love of pirate cookies, a Mr Christie brand cookie (somehow now confusingly manufactured by Peak Freens) that has an Oreo structure but with a crispy oatmeal cookie and peanut butter frosting. So the pirate cake has oatmeal cake and peanut butter frosting. It’s marginally healthier than a normal cake while still being, you know, cake. It’s good, although hideous to look at, being beige. Here’s a recipe if you want to make one.

Anyway it was the nicest birthday except for the mild heatstroke and Mark is great and I love him. This newsletter does not have enough photos in it!

Here is some other random stuff I’ve written over the course of the past week that needs somewhere to go:

Reasons why I got As in school that don’t have to do with intelligence:
—I have a very good memory
—I’m very patient, don’t get bored easily, and don’t mind sitting still
—I’m social and enjoy being around others, even in a noisy classroom all day
—my family, was reasonably emotionally stable throughout my childhood—someone always fed me breakfast before school and was waiting for me after
—my parents liked school and were interested in and supportive of my schoolwork. They were also knowledgeable—if I struggled with a concept, they were able to help me throughout high school and into university in some subjects.
—I like school. It was the right environment for me and agreed with me. Not every day but in general.

I think it’s so important to acknowledge that so much more goes into scholastic achievement than intelligence. My mominator, who used to work for Kaplan, the test-prep company (there actually was a Stanley Kaplan, who founded the company out of his basement. My mominator was his first employee) always says that the only thing a high score on a test proves is that you are good at taking tests.

And I actually DO think I’m smart, for what it’s worth—I just think a lot of people are smart and they didn’t get to have the all the validation I got.


Word nerds: Thursday stuff:

Around 10, after all the coffee has been drunk, teeth-brushing:

RR: Whatever happened with “health care” as an adjective?
MS: I’m advocating for it not be one word. That’s not a word.
RR: Is it in the dictionary? Did you check the dictionary?
MS: No.
RR: Check the dictionary. If it’s in CanOx2, then it’s a word.
MS (yelling through toothpaste): I am the dictionary.
RR: Does this end with you on the roof, screaming, “I am the lizard queen”?
MS: It’s the lizard king, and no.
RR: Who said that, originally?
MS: Originally, Jim Morrison.
RR: Oh, I didn’t know that.
MS: But then…(describes this Simpsons episode in which Lisa calls herself the Lizard Queen)
RR: That’s a good episode, I want to watch it again.
MS: At dinner tonight.

I feel like I should have a final thought to end on but I do not. I hope you are having a good evening, gentle readers@