What now?

Well, there was a surprise party for me Saturday night. I turned 40, if that wasn't already apparent from the last post. My sister, enlisting my mysteriously resourceful friend, Roxanne, gathered a pretty impressive assortment of people together. All dressed in black, we packed into my favorite Indian restaurant and marvelled in turns at the weird, spicy foods and our impending old age.

I received a lovely ensemble of pirate-themed accessories to wear for the duration and a Hawaiian lei, as "every girl should get layed on her 40th birthday." Oh, dear. If I'd only known. After the inspiring kazoo strains of Happy Birthday To You, it was time to blow out the big, black "40" candle on my cake.

My sister, Lisa, baked a "Mima Cake"-the chocolate frosted yellow cake homage to the struggles of our mother and grandmother to master this most difficult of all cake recipes. No matter the frosting consistency, the cake is always delicious. mmmm. While our sikh host and hostess swirled around us with bright orange chicken, aloo gobi, sad lamb, murky green silt-like soups and more hot chutneys than you can shake a stick at, I opened a lot of cutie-pie cat-themed birthday cards and a lot of very expensive, thoughtful gifts. Sincere thanks, everyone! Not bad, considering I'd forgotten or was too poor to observe most of their birthdays this past year.

Afterwards, a few of us retired for adult beverages and then I was dropped off at my humble home to contemplate the end of this phase of life and the beginning of the next. I haven't gotten much of anything accomplished in life so far. Regardless, I'm now an adult. You can put it off only so long.

So...what now?