On Turning 51 with Panto, glitter and friends!

I love birthdays - mine and everyone else's. 

I am an equal opportunity birthday lover.

I even love my age now.  51 seems sturdy.  I have all my teeth.  I don't see as well as I used to, but then, that just makes everyone else look all dreamy....

I always think a birthday is a time to reflect on the year past and mostly, I think it is a time to reflect on how lucky I am to be here on this lovely blue dot in a vast universe.

I think of friends who didn't make it to 51.  I owe it to them to disco and do my Angus Young impression at parties and sing off-key very loudly when I listen to 80s on 8 on Sirius XM.

This past year has been about profound changes in my life and in me and the biggest of these is that I now practise gratitude on a daily basis. 

Yes, I still have my black moods, but I recover from them more quickly.

I can still be - ahem - prickly, but I apologize and try to do better.

And I no longer blame - myself or others.  I don't need to be right any more and I let sleeping dogs lie. 

What I know for sure at 51:

• I'm not the smartest tool in the toolshed, but I get by
• I'm as beautiful as I want to feel and while my belly looks remarkably like those geographic relief pictures of the Appalachian Mountains, I like to think of it as a scientific wonder now, not an item for derision
• I want people to think kindly of me after they were with me - wasn't she fun?  isn't she joyful?
• I love all of my friends and most of them love me back!
• I love my family and mostly they love me too!
• I do love attention.  I am pretty sure in a past life I was a showgirl!
• That Tina and Amy may have joked on the Golden Globes that George Clooney headed into deep space to get away from a woman his own age, but I am convinced, and surely you must agree, that there can be only one truth: he has been searching his whole life for a geographic relief of the Appalachians! 
• That everything in life can be summed up thanks to the Tao of Dr. Seuss: for some wonderful period of time we are here on this planet, today is part of that journey for me, and like those little Who's in Horton Hears a Who, I am going to continue to reach out: "I am here, I am here, I am here!"  Cause you know what? Here is pretty darn good!

You are lucky in life if you meet people with whom you connect.  One such person is my beloved Tabs over in Scotland, and I am convinced we are distantly related, if not by blood then by the fact that we engaged in the same tomfoolery in the late 70s and 80s! 

She lost her finger puppets in the horrid home break-in last year and I recently replaced them with some new ones. 

She has repaid that gift in spades with a special Panto just for me.  It has all of the hallmarks of a classic, eventually to be seen every January 14th henceforth, a modern Christmas Carol or How The Grinch Stole Christmas if you will, full of many layers of meaning that film historians will watch, rewind and then pore over for years to come.  Everyone will wonder "who the hell was Wendy?" and "What is a Schaeffer pen?", but I will know wherever I am and I will be drinking bourbon (and then probably being ill later!).  And you just know she is getting more puppets!  Thank you Tabs, my glamorous Scottish Queen!  Much love!

you know you're special if you get birthday greetings from Winston Churchill and Queen Victoria

So thanks to you all tonight and tomorrow for dropping in on the virtual party.  Take some cake and champagne and head over to Tabs' for the entertainment.  Mind the disco ball on the way out!  You are all why I am here, whether you chat or not, and I am grateful! 

Wonder what the 102nd birthday party will be like?  George will be 106 then, so it might work out...

Stay Safe out there!  And get prepared for tomorrow's Style Wednesday!