well, we got that over

I hate my birthday, and this year I had a new, proactive approach to my annual funk: hold a cocktail party which would force me to spend days preparing, rather than lying around sobbing in the throes of a deep depression. Out of my birthday phobia, I didn't tell anyone I invited it was my birthday.

This actually worked, for the most part. I slaved over my beloved Aga and made a huge mountain of food, expecting to have days of leftovers, but a swarm of friends and neighbors descended upon us and ate everything, except for the last of the homemade caramelized onion dip and homemade salsa, only because both the potato chips and tortilla chips ran out. The children joined in very kindly, calling themselves "Chubby's Catering Service" and making two kinds of cookies. I objected to the name, saying everyone would assume that it was a slam on my weight, but the children asserted that it referred only to the generous size of their cookies and gratuitously flattered me with compliments to my size and shape.

The poor Sober Husband, still recovering from the debacle of giving me soup bowls for our anniversary, gave me an AC/DC cd (win!), necklace shaped like a caffeine molecule (also a win! but I still want the LSD molecule necklace), and ... a pair of slippers which turned out to be lined with real fur. From real dead lambs. This was a difficult moment, as I truly did not want to return to the awkwardness of us fighting over a well-intentioned gift. I tried to make nice facial expressions while the poor mortified Sober Husband swept the slippers away and vowed to return them.

At our cocktail party, I had so much fun I did that horribly obnoxious thing I haven't done since I was in college, making people prod my gym-toned muscles. "Look! Feel my quads!" I commanded. "What is a 'quad'?" asked an old Burning Man friend.

Finally the birthday was over. Next year I may need to deploy this same strategy again.