4/20

so tomorrow is my birthday, april 20th. in my first year of teaching, i remember my students asking me, "ms. marbella, when is your birthday?" i told them, and they were like, "huh huh, huh huh -- 4/20." and me, in all my infinite innocence, replied "why, children, why does it matter so?" because i was teaching right outside of boulder, colorado, which is most likely the marijuana capital of AMERICA. (for those of you who are *still* blessedly green, 4-20 is the police code for a drug bust or something. april 20 is a popular day to smoke up to honor this code. brillant, right? :P) what a day to be born. i share my birthday with hitler, luther vandross, and the most popular day of the year to get high. sigh.

so in a scant hour i will be 30. i actually glanced at my reflection in the car window today as i was unlocking the door and thought to myself, "this is what your 30 year old face looks like." i freaked out a bunch about hitting the big 3-0 last year, and now that it's here, i guess i can deal with it. you're supposed to try and age gracefully, right? i guess i take solace in the fact that you're only as old as you feel (i guess that's not a fact, it's a belief, but whatever), and that i surround myself with people every day who will likely prevent me from ever feeling old.

here are the two best birthday serenades i ever received:
1) senior year of college, right after a wren singers recording session in the wren chapel. or maybe it was right after a concert, i don't remember. anyway, they realized, oh hey, it's margie's birthday, and broke out into song -- except when a small chamber group breaks out into happy birthday, they harmonize like crazy and ended up with a like, 8-10 part chord at the end. it was BEAUTEMOUS. too bad we didn't record it.
2) my first year of teaching, doug, my band teacher, sent over his percussion class to sing happy birthday to me. they all had different instruments -- claves, cabasa, ratchet -- and would sing a phrase and then bang on their instrument. "happy birthday to you" -- BANG! BANG! BANG!!! i was ridiculously pleased with this.


my favoritest birthday card to send