Salt dancing

I am so much prettier now than when I was in high school. Maybe that's why I didn't feel the need to go to my 20th reunion a couple years back. I'm self assured, relatively successful, have a house full of monkeys and a heart full of joy most days.

*puke*

I know, I know. Shut up already! "She's one of THOSE people, always happy..." Well, sue me.

Why would I want to spend a momentous occasion - the reminder of 20 years removed from gym class, popularity contests that I never won and straight A's? - with a bunch of people who weren't very nice to me the first time around?

So I didn't go. But that doesn't mean that I don't celebrate things in my world. I'm not big on anniversaries and spend most of the hours of any given anniversary reminding myself how much I've grown. Go me.

Christmas is a cute holiday. I celebrated in church for many years and came to realize that even at church it was about presents. The church wanted presents in the form of big fat donations from all the extra sheep they drew in for the guilt factor (you have to go to church or you'll rot in hell - now get out your checkbook and we'll make it all better!!) Not that all churches are like that, just this particular church that shall remain nameless. LAME. Besides, EVERYONE gets to celebrate Christmas, everyone gets gifts, everyone is the center of attention.

BIRTHDAYS, however, are different. Birthdays are a really, really big deal. A birthday is a special day, just for you, where everything is about you. I spoil on birthdays. Birthdays are never forgotten. Birthdays are very, very special. I will make you dance in salt.

Back when I was a kid, in the 70s, we had some wonderful neighbors in our neighborhood. My parents were friends with everyone. The Rackanellis were a large, fabulous Italian family. The Brewers were rather odd but their kids still hung with my crew. The Teckenbergs got divorced and I used to babysit their kids - plus the oldest was my little brother's best friend and they caused lots of trouble together. The Williams, Lena and Art, were like grandparents to me. They yelled at me a lot the way good grandparents will do. "Get off our fence" or "don't you dare go stomping through my rose beds" and especially "give me back my boxer shorts!" They hung laundry out on a line to dry - they never had a dryer, and I was notorious for putting Art's brightly patterned boxer shorts on the bird house. Little minx that I was.

Anyway, my favorite neighborhood family didn't speak a word of English. I believe their name sounded something like Braunschwager. They were Russian Orthodox with the lace on their heads and everything. Their kids were amazingly well behaved - except when their parents were out of earshot and they would cuss in Russian and spit. I learned to spit very far the year they moved in.

My birthday is smack dab in the middle of winter. It's almost immediately after Christmas. Yes, I got combo Christmas and Birthday gifts. At the time, it was very upsetting. Now, I think my parents taught me a very good lesson about expectations. You see, the most meaningful gifts for me are the ones given from the heart. A note, a card, a box full of silly things that cost nothing and mean everything. A receipt saved from a special moment together and mailed to me weeks later. Dancing in salt.

Did you have to read that twice? You see, my birthday was often forgotten, usually celebrated with leftover cupcakes from some Christmas get together (which is probably why I dislike eating any dessert themed green).

But I digress.

The Russian Orthodox family had a strange but cool birthday tradition. At the appropriate moment (he exact time of birth), on the appropriate day, they would celebrate in a small way. The box of Mortons (or Leslie, since Art worked for Leslie salt forever and we all got boxes and boxes) would come out. A line would be drawn all the way across the room in thick salt. Not a space would be left - that would be bad luck. And the birthday boy or girl, man or woman would dance around the room to the clapping of the adults and step ceremoniously over the line of salt, officially becoming a year older. We'd all laugh and drink homemade lemonade. The salt would be spread from one end of the room to the other because everyone would join in the dance.

When I was 11, I celebrated with them and had my first salt dance. I also realized, accidentally, that the lemonade being enjoyed by the adults have Vodka in it and mine did not. Also that I didn't like Vodka much at all.

So for years, as a kid, I'd celebrate my friends birthdays by forcing them to cross a line drawn in salt. They all put up with my silliness because they knew they'd also get homemade cake. Made with Rum. Now rum cake was nothing like Vodka. Trust me on this one. You never wake up in the morning with a rum cake headache. The cake would be hand carved in the shape of something meaningful to the person. For Jodie, it was a fiddle, Jill got a piano keyboard, Todd the face of a character from a play (did I mention I hung out with the geeks?) Sean got a helmet with his favorite football team's logo and colors. I had a crush on Sean. I spent two weekends practicing the carving. He wasn't all that impressed and said crush went away quickly. Especially after he said "I'd have preferred a cake from Albertsons". Ouch.

Anyway, happy 39th to a most important person in my world. Where'd I put the salt...?