So Far So Good

So I'm sitting here on my last day of my twenties, my face slowly wrinkling, my eyesight going, my memory fading, slowly wasting away. My youth is no more - what will follow is a life of desolate dryness, endless sadness, and white hair. Welcome, thirties.

Wouldn't it blow if I really felt like that? What a jerk I'd be. Thankfully, I'm not a jerk. I am turning thirty tomorrow, and as much as people keep asking me how I'm doing or if I'm "feeling okay" with a concerned tilt of the head, I'm really pretty fine. I usually love my birthday, and I'm hoping that I will love tomorrow. At this point, I just want it to be a good, lovely day, and see my friends. And maybe have a delicious bloody mary at some point. Boom, birthday! BOOM!

So far, I've had a wonderful 30th birthday celebration that began about two weeks ago in Chicago. My parents threw me a beautiful party at the arabic nightclub with my entire family (sadly, minus Emil and Mladenka, who were unbelievably missed), which was incredibly well-documented by my dear sister Sara. It's so hard to choose which pictures to put up because I'm pretty much 100% in love with all of them, even the one that I'm making sorta funny half-closed eyes in. So if you want to see more, check the facebook or let me know!

The party was fantastic. Delicious food, amazing music, great company. A few hours into the night, the belly dancer was performing her second set of dancing. All of a sudden, I realized that Albert, the owner of the club and singer, was singing Happy Birthday in arabic and a lot of people were looking at me. Everything was kind of a blur after that, but I do remember my mother putting a silver glittery tiara on my head with the number 30 in a heart in the front (she knows me so well - silver and glitter!) and the belly dancer standing next to me, and somebody bringing out a giant cake with thirty candles and sparklers (lit!) in the shape of the number 30 on top. Holy eff!


Here's me with an incredibly delicious piece of the cake from the Swedish Bakery. I used to hate it when I was little because they'd put marzipan on the cake. Gross. But now that I'm THIRTY, I like the cake (I still totally wouldn't eat marzipan, but the cake itself was incredible).


Oh, this is just me with the belly dancer on the dance floor. No big deal. And Luai and Samer in the background acting like a bunch of monkeys.


The following night, Sara, my parents and I attended the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and his 5th Piano Concerto, which is my absolute all-time favorite piece of music. What a beautiful night...


So that was a wonderful weekend. And since then, I've received some lovely little gifts along the way. Here are some of them:

Um...it's a joke between BFF Sarah and I. I swear. But I probably will read this entire book from cover to cover. I mean, Buns of Cinnamon?? Come on! That's hilarious!


This is a little vase I got from Auntie Hadar, my great aunt who doesn't hear so well. Sara says it's a Ming Vase (pronounced vaz). Fancy!


Hands down, the most hilarious card in the world, from the BFF!


Wait, here's the punchline!


A beautiful, thoughtful, rare gift from my sissy - a key from the movie Coraline, which I'm in love with and have seen twice in 3D. A handful of people who had worked on the movie got these button-keys as gifts, and somebody put two of them on ebay, and my sister snatched them up! My key hangs outside the door to the Lanai...it's sister lives in Atlanta.


Not much to say about this one, except thanks, Larry Sweeney. The man I love to hate and hate to love. Hahaha omg. I'm saying that from now on.


I got this delivered yesterday from my family! It's a flower-cake (you can't eat it, sorry) with a birthday balloon! Beautiful - it's sitting underneath a window in my living room now instead of next to all that Vitamin Water.


This is a hand-carved spoon that Kim brought me from Moscow. The real gift (I'm SO cheesy!) was spending time with her and her fantastic husband, Victor, this week. Yay for old friends!


Another unbelievably thoughtful and beautiful handmade gift from my sister. It's a (working) clock with cardinals - the bird of the 30s - and glitter and beautiful everything.


And yet another handmade from Sara: the charms are supposed to be healing. These ones are a hand and an ear, both of which would certainly use some good energy, what with my sort of busted up body and my dedication to music. This is an amazing, amazing gift.


And here's some more. Good stuff! Can you see the tiara?


And my favorite part of today, specifically: the rainbow that appeared on the ceiling for about 8 minutes and then disappeared as quickly as it came. I have no idea where it came from, what it was reflected off of. I began to look around, but thought better of it and laid on the couch staring at it instead, until it was gone.


30 isn't so bad, is it?