On September 29th, I turned 44 years old. I think this is the first birthday where I actually started feeling my age. My ankle was recovering from a sprain, I had developed tendentious in my elbow, and for some inexplicable reason my back was hurting. Being reminded of weakness in my body all at once like that is definitely enough to cause me to pause. If we make birthday resolutions, one of mine is to start a practice of at-home exercises to help improve things. I don’t like feeling like this.
Still, I love birthdays! We celebrated as a family together on Sunday, the day before my actual birthday.
And in spite of both of us having too much on our plate at work and a bunch of travel coming up, I convinced MJ to take my actual birthday off so we could celebrate by going on an adventure together.
Alas, it didn’t quite go the way I had hoped. First, I learned that the Boardwalk is only open on weekends now, so no rides! And in spite of my day off, I had an early morning meeting to attend, and so did MJ. And then I had to take Zara into the vet for an appointment at 9AM. We didn’t end up leaving the house until after 11 for the 80 minute drive down. The final wrench in our plans came when we realized that it was the only time we’d have all week to talk to potential au pairs, so our day wound down with 3 hours of au pair interviews lined up, taken from the car in Santa Cruz. I tried not to feel too disappointed by all this. We have a busy, complicated life with demanding careers, and sometimes it really is too much to ask to drop everything and go to the beach. C’est la vie.
But we still had some fun!
First was a stop at The Mystery Spot. The bumper stickers for The Mystery Spot are ubiquitous in northern California, but I never thought much about the actual place until I heard an episode of the podcast Lore a few months ago: Lore 261: Attraction. Among the roadside attractions covered in the episode was The Mystery Spot, and although everything about it is ridiculous, I knew it was a tourist trap I had to visit some day. How about on my birthday?
And it was 100% ridiculous, but for $10 a ticket, I couldn’t really complain. The guide was in good spirits and treats you to a series of optical illusions throughout your tour, explaining that it’s supernatural in origin, but I think we’re all in on it. They have tour participants stand in various spots and experience things in the crooked house that make it look like you’re defying gravity. It can be a little nausea-inducing as your brain gets confused by the illusions, but it’s mostly some good fun. At the end of the hour long tour they give you a bumper sticker.
From there, it was off to lunch! We drove down to the Santa Cruz municipal wharf and got parking near the restaurant, Stagnaro Bros. Seafood which hit the spot for some yummy fried seafood and a local IPA.
We then took a little walk and a call at the wharf before going to sit down by the boardwalk for a half hour or so to just take in the ocean view until our next call.
Our final stop before driving home was Pacific Cookie Company, where I got a decadent chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich that I couldn’t finish.
Most of all, it was just nice to get a day together as just the two of us. We need more of that.
I thought that was the end of my birthday adventures, but I was surprised when a few friends I met in my Ubuntu days happened to be in Orlando at the same time as I was for IBM TechXchange. Michael, Michelle, and Laura and her husband were in town for a big Disney trip! We made plans the Wednesday I was in town for dinner at the Polynesian resort at Disney World, and we all celebrated my birthday there.
It was delightful. We ate amazing food, watched fireworks, and they even got me birthday cupcakes.
I learned that you can take the monorail even if you’re not doing Disney, and my friends asked the train operator if I could get a look in the front cab, and I got to sit there as he gave me the 30 second tour of the controls.
Our evening concluded with the signature drink from Enchanted Rose Lounge at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort. It was tempting to do the Disney World Monorail Bar Crawl, where you stop everywhere for a drink, but after three days of conferencing, I was more inclined to just go back to my hotel room to get some rest. Maybe next time!
So here we are at 44. Onward and upwards.