Birthday

My silver birthday medal

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I called this “won”. My silver birthday week ended with a silver medal. Inwardly, I am chuckling at the irony of earning the icing on my cake. I finished the 5k in 25 minutes. I awoke this morning to thunder and heavy rain. When we got to the race, it stopped raining. I guess there was a silver lining in the gray clouds after all. It was a hot and humid run. My mom, Paul, and the kids all finished but did not place. 

 Now back to marathon training mode with another 24 mile run planned for this next week. Pfwhew…

Marathon training, week 8

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I am done training for the week. I worked out for a total of 2 hours this week compared to my normal 6. No, not because it was my birthday this week. It took everything I had not to go for a 6 mile run on my birthday. Pretty sad, huh? Actually I decided to take it easy to get ready for a 5k this weekend. I want to place in my age group. Looking at last year’s results it isn’t going to be a (birthday) cake walk (run). Plus we are going to have the summer’s first heat wave this weekend, but everyone will be in the same boat as far as that goes. Wouldn’t it just be the icing on my cake if I got a silver medal the week of my silver birthday? Geez. In my opinion, I already won. My mother and two daughters are doing their first 5k this weekend. They will all be walking it, but hey, there is nothing wrong with baby steps. Lol

Did I tell you that I got my first “hit” off my honk if you’re going to hit me t-shirt last week? I wear it for my long runs. Some guy came up behind me and started honking. I was bracing myself for impact. Turns out the guy only wanted directions. Talking about that, I did end up seeing the black cat out on the road again that just missed getting smacked by a truck last week. This time he ran out in front of a bicyclist. I think that cat must enjoy the adrenaline rush. I wanted to tell him he was on the wrong path. Hmmm…

My silver birthday

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The good news is that I didn’t spend the first few hours of this birthday in the ER. Instead Paul and I took the kids out for sushi. The restaurant had a nice, quiet atmosphere with live classical guitar music. I had a glass of Riesling and we all sampled each other’s sushi. Two out of three kids liked sushi. I once heard that two out of three ain’t bad. Ha ha. I bet right now you are thinking that I am a really sophisticated, classy, and perhaps elegant woman. If that is what you want to think then you better stop reading because Saturday night I was in the mosh pit. 

Saturday night? Well Saturday night I played the birthday card. The birthday card is something that I bring out the couple of weeks before or after my birthday, okay okay pretty much the whole month of July. I think that birthdays became such a big deal for me because as a kid my mom went out of her way to make me feel like a princess on that one day of the year. My autistic brother went to grandma’s or aunt Grace’s for the day. He wasn’t the center of our universe or talked about for that one day of the year. Since my birthday fell in the middle of summer I could take friends swimming, have a sleepover up north, or go mini bike riding. 

Back to Saturday night, I talked Paul into seeing a metal band with me. Paul likes classical music. No, not classical rock. I am talking about Beethoven and Bach here. Pretty wild guys in their day, but not ours. We also dragged our pastor along. Makes confession a lot easier. No, seriously, he has an appreciation for the music. This was a pretty crazy crowd. Not a quiet crowd like the one we had at the Metallica tribute concert. Who would’ve guessed? We hung out in the back, moving out of the way when average sized bouncers dragged out surly drunk fighters. Three quarters of the way through the concert I wanted to get in where the action was. Even though the little voice in my head told me to stay away because I couldn’t risk getting hurt before the marathon next month. I imagined someone crushing my foot as I inched my way into the third row, the music beating into my chest and my hair feeling the static of the vibration. The adrenaline rush, the anxiety of passing out, feeling surrounded by people yet all alone, enjoying the music. The guy two over started punching someone which edged me over into the mosh pit. The guys there moved this weak, fragile, old (strong , marathon trained, young) lady out of the way. But that happened Saturday night when I was still 40. 

Another year of life with lots of things checked off my bucket list this year and  just as many added. Another birthday under my belt!

My 40th birthday

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I spent the first couple hours of my 40th birthday at the ER in downtown Chicago. 

Today is my last day of being 40. Tomorrow is my silver birthday. No, it is not because I have silver hair as the kids thought. It happens when the numbers in your birth date flip flop, the opposite of a golden birthday. I just found out about this 2 months ago. Good thing, I guess, since tomorrow is the big day. But I have to work tomorrow. That can be a hazard of being self-employed. My employee who covers for me, especially on the long running days, has the day off tomorrow. Her mother is having surgery. Sorry you have to work it is my silver birthday would be totally wrong. But I digress, you probably want to know how I ended up in the ER. 

Last year I started my birthday celebration off with my first and only ear cartilage piercing. Milestone birthdays always require special rituals. My friends took me out to eat and dancing afterwards. I started celebrating July 3rd as my real 40th birthday was on a Monday and let me tell you that the nightlife around here on a Monday night is nothing worth blogging about. Half of my friends were up north already for the holiday weekend, so it was a rather small crew. I headed up north the following day myself and that is where it happened. My youngest daughter, Arabella, got sick with a fever. I took her to a fast care when we got home Sunday because she had a 104 temp after meds. They said she had a virus and sent her home. Arabella got a lot of rest and seemed to be feeling a little better. 

We headed to Chicago later that week as planned to pick up my mom and oldest daughter from the airport after a school trip. We toured the aquarium, saw The Blue Man Group (awesome show by the way), and I bought myself an authentic 70’s hippie outfit that I wanted to wear out for my birthday. By the end of the weekend, poor Arabella was very sick and feverish. She had to stay behind with family for some of the planned events. In the wee hours of my 40th birthday, Arabella was burning up. Paul and I decided to call our family dr first thing in the morning. When we called our family dr, we found out that she retired that morning. Really? WTH! So we found that nearest ER to find out that Arabella had pneumonia. We were given antibiotics for her. That night I went to the House of Blues for my birthday. I didn’t dress up because I felt down that I had to leave Arabella behind and my other kids said that weren’t going if I dressed in hippie garb. Party poopers!

We headed home the next morning. Arabella wasnt feeling any better and on the ride home she developed hives from the antibiotic . We got home and headed back to the ER. This time the dr thought it was asthma as she responded well to the steroid treatment. They took her IV out and were ready to send us home when the dr decided to do a quick X-ray . The X-ray showed pneumonia everywhere. The dr mentioned hospitalization and put the IV back in as I started to cry. Further tests showed a really bad case of walking pneumonia. The dr reluctantly sent us home with promises of finding another dr for follow up. This is how my 40th year started. I hope that tomorrow proves to be a less eventful start of my 41st year.