- Joined
- Apr 12, 2005
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- Website
- www.jamie-mason.com
Okay, so here's the deal: I mostly don't care about my birthday. Even when I was a kid, only the important birthdays seemed worth the hullabaloo. I'm not grumpy about it. I love getting a call or an email from a friend to mark the day. It's nice to have an excuse to go out for dinner. Raise a glass to my natal anniversary and I'm good.
I don't need presents. I don't need parties.
But I do like the milestone ones. 18, 21, 30, and now in a few months, the big 4-0. For my thirtieth, a group of my closest friends met at Dave & Busters, played some games, made some noise, had some fun, came back to the house and wrung the last of the giggles out of the clock. A flip of the pages, and I've found out that the calendar will be kind to my odometer and I'm turning forty on a Saturday - all the better to host a little woo hoo and have a chance that my friends will be available.
On a completely different track, my children have taken up chess. My oldest, in particular, is displaying an amazing aptitude for the game and, so far, has never lost a game in tournament play. My husband took first place in the parents' competition yesterday. Great, huh? It's a bit of a grind for the parents who don't play, because you get to sit in a school lobby in camp chairs for eight hours. It's not bad. I can read a book and chat with some of the other parents and fetch the lunch. Since it's only once a month or so, I don't mind.
You might be able to see where this is going.
This year, our team are the defending State Champions (although, my daughters were not on the team then.) The ranked games await their arrival as the year progresses and the red-carpeted course that shuttles them along to the Two-Day Big Show State Tournament Weekend deadends on my blessed birthday. In frickin' Greensboro. (Now I've got nothing against Greensboro, but if I'm going to spend my fortieth birthday in a town where I don't know a soul, it wouldn't be very high on the list.)
Suggestions please.
I don't need presents. I don't need parties.
But I do like the milestone ones. 18, 21, 30, and now in a few months, the big 4-0. For my thirtieth, a group of my closest friends met at Dave & Busters, played some games, made some noise, had some fun, came back to the house and wrung the last of the giggles out of the clock. A flip of the pages, and I've found out that the calendar will be kind to my odometer and I'm turning forty on a Saturday - all the better to host a little woo hoo and have a chance that my friends will be available.
On a completely different track, my children have taken up chess. My oldest, in particular, is displaying an amazing aptitude for the game and, so far, has never lost a game in tournament play. My husband took first place in the parents' competition yesterday. Great, huh? It's a bit of a grind for the parents who don't play, because you get to sit in a school lobby in camp chairs for eight hours. It's not bad. I can read a book and chat with some of the other parents and fetch the lunch. Since it's only once a month or so, I don't mind.
You might be able to see where this is going.
This year, our team are the defending State Champions (although, my daughters were not on the team then.) The ranked games await their arrival as the year progresses and the red-carpeted course that shuttles them along to the Two-Day Big Show State Tournament Weekend deadends on my blessed birthday. In frickin' Greensboro. (Now I've got nothing against Greensboro, but if I'm going to spend my fortieth birthday in a town where I don't know a soul, it wouldn't be very high on the list.)
Suggestions please.
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