30 and..............

30 isn't so bad. Lots of people would love to be 30… Especially the ones who are 40!

Today, I am 30 years and 10 days old. So far, so good. According to my hubby, I shall be branded a “cougar (in-training)”. Cougar or not, I think I’m loving thirty.

7/7/07 was reputedly my luckiest day. So we bought lottery tickets, and wished that we’d wake up millionaires the next day. (By the way, we won $10. Dang it.) I made my birthday noodles for lunch (rice and vermicelli noodles plus shrimps) for more lucky streak. Born in 1977, I am considered a Fire Snake. But according to Chinese horoscope, the year of the Pig is not lucky for me. Oh well, what peculiarizes luck? Million bucks? Getting ALL that you wished for? Winning the lottery? Getting filthy, obscenely rich?

For me, being lucky means waking up to a new day beside someone whom you genuinely love and care about, and not wake up next to somebody whose face you cannot tolerate. Luck means being able to go into the day well without the discomfort of physical pain and illness. It also means having peace of mind- free from nagging guilt, bitterness and resentments. Luck means having true friends who share your happiness and sadness, and not make you a slave of their own capriciousness and self-centeredness. Luck is being able to taste, feel, hear, see and touch all that comprises life- aches and emotions, warmth and chilliness, roughness and smoothness, relentless loudness and deafening silence, the sweetness, tanginess and bitterness of living, and to witness all the bright colors and all the gory details of life.

It was a pretty nice birthday weekend for me. The hubby took me on a trip to the “Kwik-E-Mart” in Bladensburg, MD. It was a treat for us huge Simpsons fans. And we went to the AT&T National golf tournament hosted by Tiger Woods at Bethesda, MD on July 8. We're a few meters away from touching Tiger Woods, hehe. And then of course, I had a surprise party on my birthday night! Our friends Darko and Janet threw the surprise bash for me at their house, and they conspired with my hubby. It was a nice party! Yummy food, a birthday cake with a conspicuous 30th birthday candle, presents (yay!), and margarita (of course!). Would it have been fun if I had a piñata, too?! Janet was so sweet because the day before, she told me she wanted to cook for my birthday, because I made her look bad (she doesn’t cook at all. Or at least, cooking is on the bottom of her list of favorite things). Ploy or not, I fell for it, and it turned out that most of our “non-family family” and friends were there. I felt loved. How many horseshoes, rabbit’s foot and four-leaf clovers needed to feel that cared for and doted on?

To be thirty and loved is not an unfortunate event at all. New expectations and newer perspectives await, taking in surprises and tributes from dear friends like this, and the new understanding that I am in a different stance in life, yet I am still “me” and I could be so much more! Thanks to all the people that I love, and love me, too. Especially to David and Mom.