Yesterday I had a birthday that turned out to be one of the more excellent ones in recent memory… It didn't start out so good — I had to clean the kitchen from the night before and then clean out the catboxes not once but twice — what is it about cats always choosing to take a dump the minute you've finished scooping their poop? Ticks me off…

Anyway, once I got the house and myself cleaned up and took Monstro to the tire place and drove him home and then took him to the dentist and drove around the area running errands and getting my free birthday rose from Nuttelman's Florist and picking up Monstro from the dentist, we went home, got my mom, sprung Lex from preschool and drove to Chandler's Restaurant at Yankee Candle, where I ordered my favorite entree: chicken parm from the kids' menu. We had an awesome lunch and BK sang “Happy Birthday” to me at least five times, which was so cute it melted the ice in my water glass.

Once we got home I opened a big pile of presents: some running accessories, a couple of books (“Booky Wook 2” and the last “Girl Who…” novel), some ukulele music including one with nothing but Christmas carols, and cards from far-away family members with generous checks therein. Mmmm.

I took the boys on a walk (my idea, not theirs) and then at 4:00 we all had some delicious black-forest cake. I made a wish and managed to blow out the candle. Everyone had cake for dinner. Then Monstro and I got spiffed up (you know, the clothes that used to be my skinny clothes now just fit regular, without the need for supportive or constricting undergarments) and left the rest of the family in the care of our across-the-street neighbor so we could go out and eat more food.

Not sure whether I've written about Bistro Les Gras in Northampton before but people, you have got to try this place. We were still pretty full from all the rich food of the past 6 hours, so instead of ordering entrees we got samplers of cheeses and charcuterie/pates and also a plate of salami that had been marinated in red wine. Speaking of wine, when I told our server it was my birthday, he brought half-glasses of sparkling wine to both me and Monstro. Then, it turns out that on Tuesdays, they offer flights of wine — three glasses for FIVE BUCKS. Yes, you read that right. Both Monstro and I ordered that, and recited lines from “Sideways” while waiting for the bevy to arrive. This evening, they featured Beaujolais, about which I know nothing except that it's a region in France, and I only learned that after asking our server. He brought a bonus fourth glass of wine, which was the Beaujolais Nouveau from the year before, to compare against the Nouveau that had just arrived the previous Thursday (“New new Nouveau, then,” I commented). So, for those of you keeping count, we had 10 wine glasses on the table, plus we each had a glass of water, plus there were three platters of rich French yummies and a bowl of sliced baguette. Monstro, the table, and I groaned with the volume of food and drink. Everything was delicious and the server was awesome; at the end of the night I told him he had been “attentive but not cloying.”

We took what few leftovers we had (hello, cheese!) to the van and then headed to East Heaven Hot Tubs, where I received a free half-hour tub for my birthday and Monstro had to pay $20. Note to the world: Beck's “Sea Change” is the world's best CD to accompany hot-tubbing. Monstro and I staggered out of the place all limp-noodlely. It was tremendous.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, a man who was waiting for his outdoor hot tub told me, “you don't look a day over 26.” Hell yeah, buddy. I'll take that to the bank!

We got home safely despite the buffeting wind, and I opened my last present, which turned out to be a much-coveted bottle of Maker's 46. I poured a fingerful over ice and sipped slowly, savoring the smoky sweetness.

All-in-all, it was a banner day, made all the better by the fact that I apparently look 14 years younger than I am. Thanks, universe.

My soul sista Becky sent me a link to a Mental Floss t-shirt. It reads: Fibonacci: As Easy as 1, 1, 2, 3

This is obviously the best t-shirt ever to grace existence. What a great b-day find!

The only good thing about your best friend living in New Zealand is you start getting birthday greetings the day before your birthday! I am gearing up for my birthday/Fibonacci day; have already scheduled a florist pick-up (it's for Thanksgiving, but I'll get a free rose 'cause it's my birthday). Don't know what else the day will bring tomorrow but I'm sure looking forward to it!

I was honored to be asked to act in this year's Northampton 24-Hour Theater Project. Friday night I went to the “pull,” where the playwrights learned how many characters their play would have, and the general characteristics of the actors who'd be performing, and what the “trigger line” would be (that's the line that each play had to have in common).

My best-case scenario was a three-person play, mostly because the dynamic is ripe for theater. And then I won the jackpot — my super-talented friend Meryl drew a three-person play, and then drew me. Totally awesome. I booked over to a family dinner at Friendly's for Lex's birthday with a very broad smile on my face.

I'd like to say I got a bunch of sleep on Friday night and actually, I probably did, because the dream I had was long and involved.

Monstro dropped me and my bags (one of uke and uke music, another of basic-black costume pieces) off at the rehearsal site at 8:20. I found Meryl in-conference with Tim, the director, and Steve, the stage manager for her play. I went across the room, got a bagel and some coffee, and then sauntered back. Meryl handed me a script.

“Whatever you've written, I'm sure it's better than the play I dreamt you wrote,” I told Meryl. She laughed.

I dug into the script. “You're Maggie,” Meryl said.

Her play was called “The Cure” and I laughed aloud many times during the read-through. My character (Maggie) is trying to convince her brother (Matt) to donate part of his liver to to their desperately ill father. Problem is, 18 months previous to the play's action, Matt's dad sent Matt away to “People Can Grow,” a de-gay-ification program run out of Doris's apartment.

(Meryl is the founder of our town's Playwright Lab. A fellow founding member, Toby, was also writing for the project, and upon learning that Meryl was writing for me, put in a request: “Please make Lynn sing.” So, I had a bit of a song on the first page, and a bit more on page four.)

It's surprising how much you can get done on a play in not many hours. We had our tech rehearsal at 1:00, and then our stage manager scrambled around for a better sofa for us to use (the one the props people found was way too big). Much of the time before that was spent blocking our action and the stage fight between Doris and Maggie — the end of that fight finds Doris atop Maggie on the aforementioned sofa.

(A gentleman in my Playwrights' Lab sent me an email this morning: “The image of you and 'Doris' on the couch is indelible.”)

All three of us carried scripts but I mostly didn't need mine, which was a great personal accomplishment. It was the #1 thing I'd been warned about, so it was a comfort to be mostly off-book but still have it for reference when needed.

Our show was second in a lineup of six. We had a full-house for the 7:00 show and a mostly full house for the second show at 9 p.m. The audience found us hilarious and we got big laughs. My mom came to the first one and now she can cross off “watch daughter proposition another woman for oral sex on stage in front of 120 people” from her bucket list. Hey, I was trying to save my father's life. A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do…

So, yeah, making art for a full day and being around actors and writers and directors made for my best Saturday in recent memory. This morning my quadriceps were burning — my character spent a lot of time getting up off the floor after being down on one knee; I must have done the equivalent of 400 squats in 12 hours — and I feel as though I've been beat up a bit, which I was, but applause is a tremendously therapeutic balm and the warmth of our generous audience will have me smiling for days. Brava!

Lex goes to a preschool within an elementary school. Basically, we pay for it, but then the kids get to use all the resources the elementary school has to offer: music room, art room, library, etc. It's a sweet setup. Also, the teachers are amazing, and Lex LOVES school (good thing, he's there everyday).

Yesterday morning was an all-school assembly. It was hosted by the preschoolers, and they were going to sing a couple of songs, so Monstro, BK, and I piled in the car to attend. We sat in the back and watched as Lex's class filed into the auditorium/theater/cafeteria.

Lex sometimes has problems with staying in line; frequently, he takes cuts in front of the line leader so he can be first on the yellow swing. So I was a little concerned when I saw him in the middle of the line getting up to the stage, but then front-and-center ahead of everyone once they were all settled.

Once the music started, though, I realized that was probably arranged by design. Lex knew every word to every song, and every hand motion, and even did the cutest cha-cha-cha I've ever seen. He was also right in front of the standing mike so we heard every word loud and clear. Basically, there might as well have been no other children on the stage. He was captivating. The sixth-grade girls sitting on the floor in front of us were charmed by him.

“When the piano goes 'BOM BOM,' that's when you bow,” Lex had told me while brushing his teeth that morning. He had that down pat, too.

When their songs were over, I waved to him. He waved back, smiling. The sixth-grade girls thought he was waving to them, so 10 of them waved at him. It was like he was a teeny tiny rock star.

It's amazing how he's growing up into his own person. Today is his birthday. He's five. I took BK and my ukulele to his classroom and sang a bunch of kiddie favorites (plus my “show-off” song, You are the Sunshine of my Life). He sang every word to all of those, too. And BK joined in with “Happy Birthday to You.” Oh, how I love my boys.

The 24-Hour Theater Project is happening this Saturday. For those of you who don't follow my blog as obsessively as, say, I do, this is a marathon day where actors rehearse from 9 a.m. until showtime at 7:00 that same night. The playwrights write all night Friday. Hence, it's a 24-hour cycle of writing/rehearsing/staging/show. I'm trying to stay cool about it but damn, this is a big deal for me. First off, they asked me to act; I didn't have to audition. Secondly, it's the weekend before my birthday. Thirdly, it's a whole entire day and evening of doing nothing but making art. No kids, no caregiving, just delving into a brand-new play.

The six playwrights choose actors and number of characters at random on Friday night. It's a quick little party I intend to attend, even though it coincides with Lex's fifth birthday. That's OK, I'll make it work. It will be good to know who will be writing my play (I'm familiar with three of the playwrights and friends with two of them) and how many other actors will be in “my” show. 🙂

A friend will take my mom to the 7:00 show and then Monstro and a few other friends will be there for the 9:00 one. I have a babysitter all set for that evening and a friend from church will take Lex to our church's family fest that afternoon (which will help take some of the caregiving strain off of Monstro).

I had to submit a questionnaire for the playwrights; in it, I told them “on stage, I am fearless.” I really really hope they put me through my paces. Until then, I hope I stay healthy (Mom has a cold) and manage to get some sleep on Friday night!

Of the two women who helped me deliver my sons, one now works for Planned Parenthood and the other appears in an advertisement for Permanent Birth Control.

I had pretty high hopes for today, what with being able to tell my mom that the Giants won the World Series, and then Lex spotted a cardinal outside our window (hi Grandma!), but then it just turned out to be another crappy day in New England. Better luck tomorrow; oh wait, what, we'll have full election results?

Nevermind.

People who live in Vermont are “Vermonters.” I know this because my family and I just spent a bucolic five days in the Green Mountain state. I've got to tell you, Vermont is spectacular. God has been messing with the color balance there — the grass is chartreuse, and the leaves are safety orange and road-warning yellow. I don't think it's a good thing when school busses are essentially camouflaged by the local foliage, but whatever.

We had a timeshare (thanks, Dad) in the Mad River Valley, easily the most beautiful place I've seen since I moved away from my beloved Santa Cruz Mountains. The Mad River must be a good place for kayakers, because there were people in the frigid waters even in mid-October. Crazy people, yes, but people, nonetheless.

The first full day we were there, we went to that mecca of all things ice cream, BBen & Jerry's. BK distinguished himself on the tour by actually answering a question. The tour guide asked us, “where does our ice-cream process start?” BK answered (loudly), “Cow!” Of course, there is the chance he was just reacting to the image on the video screen, which happened at that moment to be showing a cow, but I prefer to think he's an ice-cream prodigy. The tour was great: we saw a movie, we saw the production floor (not as big as you'd imagine), and then we went to the free-sample room, where we each were served a scoop of the new-for-2010 flavor, “Milk and Cookies.” Damn good. So good that when three samples remained, we took them. Mmmmm. BK was rhapsodizing about “ice cream cup!” and “cow!” for the rest of the day. We took some photos after the tour and then I took the kids to the wet playground, where BK shot down a slide so fast he landed three feet away on his butt. We left, kids under my arm and screaming at the injustice of the world and their tyrannical mother. We couldn't visit the “flavor graveyard,” a graveyard with tombstones commemorating long-lost B&J flavors (trivia answer: the shortest-lived flavor was Sugarplum. People kept sending it back because they thought something was wrong with it. It was in stores for only two weeks). Monstro bought a coffee shake. I didn't get a taste.

Lex loved the gameroom at the resort and spent quite a bit of time at the air-hockey table — truly, he is a chip off the old block. We also let the kids roll billiard balls across the pool table. They thought that was pretty much the shit, as it were.

On Monday, we went to the world's busiest cider mill and enjoyed hot cider and the best cider donuts that have ever graced the planet. Then we stopped at a little mall of local-products stores and ate our fill of free samples at the Cabot cheese outlet. We were plagued by tour busses from Louisiana — Monstro queried why anyone from Louisiana would visit VT in October — and so beat feet back to the resort.

The boys slept together on a futon and it was a high point of the trip to watch them nestled together like two halves of a walnut. It was the low point of the trip to go to them every morning at 3:00 a.m. because someone's knee hurt, or someone wouldn't shove over, or whatever. One of these downstairs visits was punctuated by my fall down the stairs. My bruises are blooming and they're just lovely. I haven't had an elbow scrape like this since second grade. In a way, I'm kind of proud.

Monstro left on Tuesday but before he could go, I piled the boys and my mom into the minivan and we trucked out to the Vermont Teddy-Bear Factory. BK had seen a lobby card at the clubhouse the day before and augmented his vocabulary to include, “teddy-bear house! teddy-bear house!”, so even though it was an hour away we drove to Burlington and had a wonderful time. Lex was reluctant to go (“I want to do something FUN.”) but asked questions at every stop on the tour and had a hard time containing his glee. Mom bought both of the boys teddy bears and Lex even got to work the machine to stuff his own bear; he filled it with magic and a red felt heart. I wanted BK to have a honey-colored bear but they didn't have any forms for stuffing one's own, and all the pre-stuffed ones were just too flat, so the customer service folks ended up cutting a bear down from a rope. Excellent customer service at the Vermont Teddy-Bear Factory, in case you were wondering. That building is also the home to the Pajama-Gram outlet so I bought jammy jeans for me and mom for five bucks apiece. Can't wait to wear them to drop Lex off at school.

By the time we left the factory, scoured a secondhand bookshop for a hardcover Gravity's Rainbow (no luck), and had lunch at a McDonald's that posted the Canadian exchange rate and featured people who spoke English with a Vermont/Canada accent (tres weird), and got home, we'd missed BK's nap window, so instead we watched “Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue” because Lex has a thing for Tink and wants to be a fairy wizard when he grows up.

The drive back to the house seemed much longer than the drive to get to vacation. We stopped in Barre (“Is it pronounced Bar or Bar-ray, I asked a man sitting one table over at the Ladder Grill downtown. “It's Barry,” he said, “the biggest producer of granite in the world.” “Then why is New Hampshire the Granite State?” I asked him. “Guess they yanked it out from under you, huh?” He had a response but I couldn't understand it because he spoke English with a Canadian/Vermont accent even thicker than Monstro's fake New-England-speak) and had a pretty good lunch, even if Lex did tell our server that the Halloween window-clings were scary every time she came over to bring us something, and asked in a loud voice as two bearded gentlemen walked past us, “Is that Ben and Jerry?”

We arrived home at 4:00 and our neighbor gave me $20 to reimburse me for Monstro's overpayment of the neighbor kids who fed our cats and scooped their poop but apparently did not clean up the kitty-puke on the floor.

So, we're home, and truth be told, I'm a little foliaged out, but at least there are still leaves on our trees and it's not yet winter.

I'm no “mommyblogger,” but this seemed pretty newsworthy. It only took him 20 minutes and eight books. Yay!