Almost Twenty

Well. Today I turn twenty. I'm very pleased about it, and thrilled that the sun came out for the occasion and reminded us that the sky is indeed still blue up there :) Oh, beauty! It was a great birthday present.

I thought about it, and if you get technical, you could really say that I'm having my birthday on the 12th this year instead of the 11th. I entered the world at 4:09 pm in Shreveport, LA, and Feb. 11th, 4:09 pm is Feb. 12th, 12:09 am here. So I'm not twenty yet.

I'm having supper with the Crowes tonight. This morning the three older boys greeted me with cards, very special cards. Tucker even made is with pink paper because he thought I'd like that best (being a girl and all.) He also glued it shut.

Masha said that Ukrainians celebrate 20th birthdays like Americans celebrate 21st birthdays...a crossing over into "adulthood." So I'm an adult in Ukraine, but not necessarily anywhere else :)

The package my family sent is still sitting unopened on my bedstand, waiting until I have time to dig into in a leisurely manner, peeling off packaging tape, wrestling with cardboard, maybe popping bubble wrap (oh please let there be bubble wrap!). Hehe. I almost hate to open it...no more anticipation. But Masha would kill me if I waited another day. Connor sounded both disgusted and incredulous when I told him on the phone this afternoon that I hadn't opened it yet. It's like he thinks I'm weird or something. Doesn't he know that waiting for good things just makes them gooder?

Of course, you don't want to wait too long in some cases, such as the time I saved a treasured Snickers bar on my flight to Hong Kong and arrived only to have it smeared and squashed into my carryon. Instant gratification would have been a better option in that instance.

I'm trying think of the earliest birthday memory I have...and I think it's of getting books. Two huge, exquisitely illustrated Graeme Base books from the first guy I ever had a crush on. His name was David and he was bald and possibly older than my dad, but to my four year old mind, he was the ideal man. What can I say? He gave me books. I planned to marry him, (a solemn declaration that's on tape somewhere) but my dreams were shattered when he married somebody named Gloria a few years later. I think I've recovered :) I still have those books though.

Ok...it's close to supper time. Away I go...