Forever Young: best 40th birthday cocktail ever

Oh, who cares that it's Monday and I'm posting a drink recipe?! Take a few ibuprofen and keep reading, friends.

When I put the call out to The Facebook for suggestions of pink cocktails with gin that could be dispensed from something classier than a scrubbed out garbage can but didn't have to be shaken in 6-ounce pours every four minutes, I knew there was someone who would take the challenge seriously. Of course, it was Ilina of Diry & Noise. 

Ilina posts drink recips every Friday that make me suck down my afternoon coffee with a fervor that would probably give anyone standing near my desk the idea that I am perhaps maybe probably pretending there is more than cream in that cup. She and I, we should be neighbors. But we're not and I don't ever open the liquor that waits patiently in my freezer with frostbitten caps, hoping some impromptu party will happen. So instead, I read and guzzle coffee and Ilina leads a glamorous life of cocktail recipe experimentation and happy  hour envy. 

The good part is that when the party did happen, Ilina was still there for me. She threw out ideas and recipes and it was this one that caught my eye. She calls it the Writer's Block. I liked the gin and lime part and was intrigued by the St. Germain. When a few other friends recommended St. Germain, I knew I was on the right path to signature cocktailing of the pink and ginny -- and St. Germainy -- kind.

Here's what we mixed up in big batche -- simple, delicious and so pretty. I raise my glass -- not now but once or thrice at my party -- to Ilina and all the others who made this not-coffee cocktail find its way to my celebration.

Forever Young

1 part gin (ohhh, how Hendricks delights, and we chose Bombay Sapphire this time)

1 part St. Germain (smell the elderflower, so fragrant)

4 parts sparkling pom juice (it adds a lot of richness and is so delicous, we upped the proportion from three parts to four)

A bit of seltzer (it was that or call a long line of cabs to wait outside my apartment)

Some chose to top it off with prosecco (lovely), all had lime garnish.

I added frozen raspberries and pomegranate seeds to the dispenser. They were pretty but clogged up the spout and then made sipping a little less than ladylike. Still, they made the blood-red (not so pink after all) drink look summery and delicate.

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The 40th birthday bash: For the record, I AM STILL 39

My mom has this fear of dying the week before her birthday. Sure, I inherited her flair for drama about things like this. But really, this is not an example of that fine quality. She says that when people die dramatically just before a birthday, news reports always round up.

She can point out specific examples of this that go back years. Like when a woman in Chicago sadly died when icicles fell from a downtown building and crashed into her car's windshield. She was out in the city with girlfriends, celebrating her birthday. 

"A woman died downtown today," my mom recalls the anchor saying, "one day shy of her 30th birthday."

"SEE?!," I remember my mother saying into the phone. "It's like I say. You can't even die with the dignity of that last day of being 29." 

And so, please God, if I kick it before all the dishes from this party that are currently soaking in my kitchen sink are dried and put away, please let the nice lady in the blond bob and huge lapel pin tell the world I was still 39. 

My parents threw me this party that no one was sure I'd want to have since I haven't exactly embraced this whole WOOHOOOO, 40! time. But I am not a lady who will pass up the opportunity to throw down pink sequins and create a signature cocktail. Not even for a birthday year that feels bigger than I am. 

So my mother laid out a spread -- pulled pork sandwiches, quesadillas, salads, cupcakes from Dinkel's. I rallied guests to help mix up batches of what my dad insisted on calling the Forever Young (for the record, ladels of it will make you feel Wayyyy Old in the hungover hours, so be wise and hydrate like you never did when you really were young).  There were fifteen people in the my home who I really adore and for a few hours, there wasn't any worry of what I age I was...about to turn.  It was just fun and these were just my friends and family and those were just sparkly dollar-store glasses and plastic rings and tiaras and wands nested in a hot pink boad I definitely do not pull out of the closet enough.  

Oh, and there was a new pair of shoes for the occasion. Ridiculously high, crazy-neon suede heels that make a downstairs neighbor insane and make short ladies look delightfully leggy. Those shoes may have made the rounds to a few other ladies' feet late in the evening.

There was laughing and raunchy stories and bottles of prosecco popped after gallons of the Forever Young faded. After my parents slipped away and my friends left, I stretched out in bed with the gift bags left there for me where the coats and purses once were.

There were many thoughtful and unnecessary and wonderful gifts. In one envelope marked "for your spirit," one friend put a gift certificate for five yoga classes (ahhh) and in another marked "for your habit," she tucked a gift card at a favorite shoe shop. There were delicious smelling bath stuffs, a big floppy Samantha-esque sun hat, a credit at the shop where Lil E pores over Lego watches while I study cases of carefully-made bangle bracelets and handmade clutch purses. 

I felt an ache of loneliness. I wished the Not Boyfriend was beside me while I laughed at the cards and untied the ribbons. I would have loved my girlfriends to stay just a little longer. My apartment felt empty. Lil E had checked in on a call, asking loudly over the sound of my 40th Bash Soundtrack blaring Gotye and then Michael Jackson, followed by Nicki Minaj and Nine Inch Nails, how it was going, what we were doing and if we were having fun. But that felt more than hours earlier.

It wasn't a bad ache to feel. Those people who'd been in my living room, drinking gin from a dispenser and eating my mom's cooking know me have known me for years, some decades. They know me from camp, high school, grammar school, the first parents' meeting of preschool. Life and parties and weddings and divorces and births and our kids' kindergarten graduation have happened and things are pretty much the same between us as they were when I was 37, 27, 17, 7. 

That ache is familiarity and love and wanting more time together in the future. It also may have been a bit of gin and pomegranate juice working itself over on my emotions. But mostly it was lovey-gooby stuff. 

I was exhausted. But I thought about the icicle lady just before I fell asleep. I prayed for her 29-year old soul. Then thanked my lucky stars for my 39-year old self and all the good people who are with me, even after they are gone.

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Five until 40. (And furry after 40)

I'll just put this out there -- I haven't been doing well with turning 40. The email I sent to my family saying that my one birthday wish was to not have to endure any old jokes? Yeah, that was a real thing. A real thing that apparently none of them read. 

The person giving me a hard time has been Lil E. He already thought it was hilarious to put a significant quiver in his voice, shake his hands over an imaginary cane and say old-goodies like, "Ehhh, sonny?" and "Dagnabit!" It was funny for a while. Then just fine. And finally, I asked him to stop. 

"It hurts my feelings," I explained. He couldn't get it. "I feel fabulous and in a great place in my life. And I'm not thrilled about this age's number. So I want to focus on the good part -- how wonderful I feel. And also how pretty I am. Let's focus on how pretty I am."

He apologized. He can't even fathom what 40 means and I know this. In kindergarten, he announced that he loved being six so much he DID NOT want to turn seven. Until I mentioned that would mean not getting the piles of Lego sets he usually unwraps after parties and then he was completely fine with his birthday being eleven months away. Still, he tried to relate.

A few nights later at dinner, we were talking about my birthday, the party my mom was throwing me, what I was excited about.

"I wish the Not Boyfriend could be here to celebrate, though," I said. He'd be leaving for National Guard training the day of my party and coming home the day of his own 40th. No birthday celebrations in person for us this year. It wasn't making the transition into the next decade any easier to have my man out of reach. "That makes me a little sad."

Lil E cocked his head compassionately, smiled and said brightly, "Don't worry, Mommy! You have lots of birthdays left to celebrate!"

I smiled. It was sweet of him to say. But he wasn't done.

"...since you are only going to be TWENTY-SEVEN!"

And then he winked as if I wasn't clear on how he was choosing to un-hurt my feelings about all the previous teasing. He followed that up with a chipper, "You should really enjoy the last days of being...TWENTY-SIX!"

He said it loudly, drew out the number like he he was making sure the Russian spies next door heard every word and would cancel their mission, foiled by the Not-Forty-Year-Old one thin wall away. Well done, 007-1/2, I thought. Kind of well done.

One day, if life goes as it should, he will call me up and tell me how he feels about his 40th birthday. Maybe he'll remember how ancient he thought I was and that looking back on pictures, he realizes how youthful -- and pretty -- I was at this age. And for a few more days, this age is blissfully 39. Or 27. However you look at it.

To enjoy them, as the boy who didn't want to turn 7 suggested, we made a list of words that could describe 40. All beginning with the letter F. 

You can see my optimism -- reframing, my therapist calls it -- in the first three that I chose.

Fabulous

Fantastic 

Fierce

Lil E interrupted with his own and it delighted me.

Fancy

Then he followed it up with a word that hit a little too close to home. Or the chin. One that made the shaking hand over the invisible can reach confidently for the tweezers.

Furry (like Chewbacca)

Oh yes, he added in that last part and asked me to please write it down. And spell it correcty.

Next came tangential F-words that I was obligated to write down.

Fresh

Fruit & Fruity

I countered with something less first-grade.

Fun! 

Exclamation! Necessary!

He ended it all with one of his own.

Flippy.

Why not? Better than flippy-offy. Especially at your own goofy but somewhat well-intentioned kid. 

I'm not sure what to do with all that exactly, except laugh. No, not at him with his insistence that I am steps away from requiring a walker. Not even at my parents who have all kinds of jokes to chuckle over in the car and with their friends. 

I can laugh at myself, for wanting to see myself and this time as FABULOUS! and FUN! and FIERCE! but really being mostly fuzzy (OK, furry) about it all. It's a number. A number I don't love. But myself and this time, I do love. 

I just won't be laughing too loudly. Or around my son. Nahhh, I will let him keep *wink*winking* and telling me in an exaggerated voice how PRETTY! and FRESH! that TWENTY-SIX is. 

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