It was just a Birthday Fan

Getting older appeals to some. It doesn’t to me. I haven’t reached the age yet where I’ll wear purple hats and large jewelry. But I’m over 50 now and while Jeff keeps telling me ‘it’s just a number’ he has the luxury of doing that because he’s 1 year and 6 weeks younger than I am. And starting today, he’ll remind me that we’re ‘2 years apart’ in age for the next 6 weeks, until he turns 51. I don’t really love that part.

I vacillate between wanting an over the top birthday celebration (I am a LEO), or keeping on the down low. The older I get, the down low is winning and this year continued that trend. That, and that simpler seems better these days. I don’t need big gifts or fancy dinners. I like simple food, simple experiences and I want to have those things with people I care about.

This morning, Jeff and I kicked off my ‘Cincuenta segundos Cumpleanyos’ (PS I don’t have the ‘n’ with the little squiggly thing above it on my keyboard that makes the ya sound so I added a ‘y’ to Spanish Birthday) by finally taking out our bikes that arrived weeks ago from Seattle. His is actually a recumbent trike (sort of biking while laying on your back – good for your core) and that got A LOT of stares on the street and in the Turia. We haven’t seen one here yet, and when we stopped for coffee we got a lot of action circling the bikes, mumbling in Spanish, and checking it out. Jeff is starting to make noises about perhaps riding the Camino on it. His idea, not mine.

We came home and Emilie and I decide to go out and buy my ‘Birthday Fan’ down at Friday market in Benimaclet. Our Market Day happens every Friday. Clothes, shoes, bras, fruit, pots and pans, and the polka dotted fans I had been eyeing for weeks now. We have another market on the other side of the tracks – literally. But that happens on Tuesdays, and since this is my Birthday Fan we were going to our market day.

We had so much fun! We bought more crazy pants that I love to wear (I convinced Em to get a pair too). We got my lovely Birthday Fan for 3 euros because it’s so bloody hot here you have to have a fan with you in every handbag or back pack you carry. Sitting on the Metro is like a fanning competition. And we stopped and got some things I have been coveting for some time now.

 

You know how certain things make you happy? They’re simple, stupid things that cost almost nothing. They don’t have any real value but then you get them and they make you smile. That’s how I feel about olive trees, lemon trees, pepper plants and my herbs. And today, Emilie and I found our plant guy on Benimaclet Market Day!  It’s my birthday so I told the guy we were taking the lot! He was a happy man and bagged it all up for us, and a few other things besides. All for 20 euros. And I felt like I”d hit the lottery!

 

As he handed us the plants, we knew we’d reached the limit of our ability to carry stuff home. I, for one, suspected that perhaps we had surpassed it, but Em was undaunted. We had neglected to bring our trolleys – we were just going for my Birthday fan, after all – so it was the big schlep back home, with more people staring at us on the street. Sure, we looked a little unusual carrying an olive tree, some sort of climbing flowered vine thing complete with trellis, a pepper plants, basil, rosemary, and all the other stuff we got. My lovely Birthday fan wasn’t even being put to good use because it was stuffed in my pocket.

We finished off the night sitting on the beach watching the Blood Moon rise over the Mediterranean Sea. It’s been a great Birthday and I got to spend my 52nd celebration just the way I wanted. And that makes it the best kind of Birthday, after all.