kthanx

You know what they say–only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. My hope is that nobody has ever ACTUALLY died from them. Although come to think of it, I may be on my way…

1) Someone “found” me on Twitter. BLOCK!

2) Bought my tickets to Comic-Con 2009, made my hotel reservations, and have been virtually stalking Travelocity.com for the cheapest flights to San Diego in July.

3) Attended a members-only screening party of the series finale of Battlestar Galactica at Seattle’s Sci-Fi Museum. (The finale was thoroughly satisfying, in case you were wondering.)

4) Submitted a Volunteer application to the above-mentioned EMP|Sci-Fi museum and have an interview next week. In one month’s time, I should be MASTERFULLY wrangling Muppets in the traveling “Jim Henson Experience” exhibit that shows up in May…

5) Feeling fatter than ever: time to hit the trail around the lake!

6) Have been sucked in to yet another fantastic series of books by my friends.

7) Subsequently, am planning a trip with said friends to the Scottish Highlands in October.

And what about you?

About a year ago, my car (a 1999 Volkswagen Passat) experienced the equivalent of a massive coronary heart-attack: the timing belt blew–and took the rest of the engine with it. In sticking with the metaphor, my car underwent a heart transplant of sorts: I had to replace the timing belt and all the cylindar heads that had been bent when the belt blew. The cost of this very major repair? $4500, which was more than I had left to repay on my car loan. It was PAINFUL.

A few months later I received a notice in the mail of a class-action lawsuit that had been raised against Volkswagon because of this exact problem, what they were calling “Catastrophic Premature Timing Belt Failure”. I remember reading the notice and thinking, “Gee, they could add EPIC to that and it would pretty much sum things up for me…”. I’ve received various Class Action notices in the past and never before felt the need to put my name in the pot. I guess I always assumed that it wouldn’t be worth the $25 that I would probably get out of it. But THIS TIME, I decided it was worth the 10 minutes it would take to fill out the paperwork and the cost of a stamp. So I sent it in.

A moth later, I received news that the court would be convening in early December to pass judgement on the suit. In December, I received word again that the court had met and could not make a decision at that time. They gave me a web address where I could go to check up on the status of the suit, but otherwise notified me that I wouldn’t be hearing from them again unless judgement was passed in favor of the plaintiffs (namely: my constituents and I). I promptly shrugged and thought, “So much for THAT.”, and filed the paperwork away.

I hadn’t thought about it again until last night when I checked my mail. Inside was a letter which, I’ll admit, looked like a collection notice of some kind. It said “Important Settlement Notice” on it and I groaned at the thought that some creditor from my past had tracked me down and was trying to collect on a ten year old debt. I hesitantly opened the letter:

Inside was a check…made out to ME…for the entire cost of my repair…to the penny. $4500 and change.

Cue the “Hallelujah Chorus”. Cue the confetti and balloons. Cue the screaming and tears at the realization that this couldn’t have come at a better time. Cue me on my way to the bank today to cash that sucker. Before they change their minds.

Everyone Else Is Getting YOUNGER: I’ve started to notice that the older I get, the younger everyone else seems to get. High School kids look like infants, and college graduates look like they should be heading to home-room, and not back to the bar for another round of drinks. Looking back at old photos of myself at those ages, I could swear that I never looked as young as the kids these days do. Which makes me wonder—how old do they think I look?!

Less Tolerant: Perhaps it’s because I’m now subconsciously aware of how little time I have left (god, that makes it sound like I’m dying), but I have discovered I have very little patience for a lot of things. Amongst them are slow drivers, oblivious people—the kind that come to a dead stop right in front of you at the mall to stop and tie their shoe/pick their nose/answer their phone, the generally obnoxious, and girls that I know are smart but that act like they are stupid because they think it makes them cuter/more charming (newsflash: it DOESN’T). There are so many other things that I have completely lost patience for that, were I to mention them all here, it would make me sound like a bitter and unhappy woman. And I’m generally happy.
Generally.

My “Legal Limit” Keeps Going…DOWN: As I experienced first-hand on Saturday, the number of drinks that I can have on any given night goes down significantly with every birthday. Similarly, the recovery time needed after a night of “heavy drinking” increases in proportion to my age. In my twenties, I could be 10-15 drinks in before I would consider myself unbelievably hammered. And even then, I was able to happily enjoy my buzz for quite some time before feeling like I was officially entering Pukesville via the Never-Ending Spinning Turnpike. Nowadays, I hit my limit around 5 drinks, and it goes a little something like this:
 Drink #1: Sober
 Drink #2: Still Sober
 Drink #3: Disappointingly Sober, waiting for buzz to kick in
 Drink #4: Sober—for the love of GOD!
 Drink #5: Take me home*, cause I might puke right here at the table
*over the course of the ride home, the alcohol I have already consumed continues to enter the bloodstream, making me increasingly drunker. No amount of water will slow this process.

All that being said, I made the following vows to myself as I was nursing my hangover on Sunday: In my 30’s I will drink less, smile more, and remind myself every day that I’m only as old as I feel. Now if that isn’t a recipe for happiness and contentment, I don’t know what is…

I know what I like and what I don’t like. For example, in my 20’s I experimented with a variety of different ways to have fun—from which I have deduced that I do NOT like clubs. Therefore, when planning a night out on the town with my friends, “clubbing” will not be on the agenda. If it is, I’m calling it an early night. And I’m ok with that.

I no longer get carded when buying alcohol. In fact even when I’m with a group of people, and everyone ELSE at the table gets carded, generally the waitress/waiter won’t ask for my ID. This is fine by me, because my driver’s license photo is ATROCIOUS. However, when I start getting offers for senior discounts on movie tickets or buffets, I’ll start to worry. Hell—the minute I start eating at buffets, I’m in trouble.

I’m average. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mean “average” in the lame sense of the word: quite the contrary! I’m an exemplary human being in more ways than one. What I mean is that, for all the ways that I freaked out during the “Quarter-Life Crisis” years of my mid-twenties, I am perfectly average. Yes, I’m still single—but there are MILLIONS of 30-somethings happily riding the “singles train”, and I’m glad to be among them. So I don’t own a home—good thing, because with this economy, I’d likely be in over my head right about now. I have a great, professional job in the financial sector—and with record numbers of Americans being out of work right now, I’m happy to be ahead of the game. No, for all the catch-up I thought I had to do when I was 25, I’ve realized that I’m right where I’m supposed to be…and I have been all along.

My social circle is shrinking a bit. In my 20’s, I still felt the pressure to have a BUNCH of friends and a buzzing social life. The older I got, the more I withdrew from that way of thinking…almost to the point of becoming a recluse. Luckily for me, I work with a really GREAT group of people. So I feel like being at the office is a bit like hanging w/ my friends…during which time I also get work done and collect a paycheck. That being said, I don’t travel in such large social circles that my evenings and weekends are being pulled every which way. No, I’m free to enjoy 5 episodes of Battlestar Galactica back to back on a Tuesday night if I wish, or spend an entire Saturday on the couch watching a Top Chef marathon. I’m not obligated to anyone, can do as I please, and have to apologize to no one. Life is bliss.

Time flies…by which I mean it moves at a snail’s pace. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been on this planet 30 years. 30! Depending on which way I look at it, time either seems to be flying by, or moving very VERY slowly. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been around for 30 years: so much of that time has been a blur. But when I think back to where I was at this time one year ago, it seems like a decade has passed. And when I consider the fact that, barring some freak accident or a tumor, I will likely live well past the age of 60—well that means that my life isn’t even half over yet!

All that to say, in 5 days when the clock strikes midnight, I won’t be in mourning for my youth. No, if I’m shrouded in black on Saturday it will be because it makes me look thinner…NOT because I’m depressed. Turning 30 is going to be a GOOD thing—and here’s to 30 more!

The highlight of the weekend COULD have been the genuinely pleasent meal that we had at Red Robin, wherein the youngest ate all of his dinner, and they both politely asked the waitress for balloons before we left. (And I might add that the waitress was amazing with them).  Or, the highlight could have been when the oldest started bawling during “Hotel for Dogs”…because he was worried about all the puppies. But it wasn’t. Instead, the highlight of my weekend went like this:

G: (calling from the bathroom) AUNTIE! You need more paper!
ME: More paper? What do you mean?
G: More toilet paper!
ME: What?!*

*At this point, I am confused: the night before, I’d put a brand new double-roll in the toilet paper holder. There was no WAY we could be out already. I go into the bathroom where G still sits on the toilet and, sure enough, the paper roll is empty.

ME: Where did all the paper go, G?
G: Points behind his bum into the toilet bowl.
ME: All of it?! Lemme see…

G leans forward so I can see into the toilet bowl–which is FILLED with soggy toilet paper.

ME: You used ALL the toilet paper? Why?
G: (holding up both his hands in exasperation) I had to take a really BIG poop!

I died.

After arriving late at night (and surviving our own near-“Texas Chainsaw Massacre” moment), we spent the night at the Forks Motel. Our real adventure began the next morning when we coalesced along with a dozen other grown women (and one reluctant boyfriend) at the Forks Chamber of Commerce at 9 am, and were greeted by our host and tour guide, the very dapper Mike:

Mike, formerly a park ranger with the US Forest Service, came out of retirement to become Forks’ foremost expert on everything Twilight. He started off by giving us an introduction, explaining in painstaking detail who Stephenie Meyers was, how she came up with the idea for the books, and a not-too-brief chronology of the book’s rising popularity—including visual aids of the actors chosen to play the coveted roles of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.  Apparently, he forgot that he was talking to a group of women so obsessed with all things Twilight that we had come all the way to FORKS, WA to go on a tour! In January!

Eventually, we all piled into the van which we later discovered had mold growing in it (yes! white, fuzzy mold) and set out to discover the various locations featured in Meyer’s epic books. Our first stop, the Swan House…

I should probably take this opportunity to mention that NONE of the movie was filmed in Forks: not one…single…frame. So how did Stephenie Meyers choose the setting for her books? Did she conduct painstaking research, looking high and low for the perfect setting to drop her characters into? Nope: she Googled “rainiest place in the US”. She’d never even set foot in the sleepy abandoned lumber town until after the success of the first book had kicked in. Had she made the trek out there, she likely would have chosen another rainy town for her vampire leads to thrive in. ANY other rainy town.

But Mike (and the rest of the Forks residents) decided that, had the movie actually been filmed locally, this would likely have been the house chosen to provide the façade for Bella Swan and her Police-Chief dad. Look how “official” the sign makes it…

Next stop on the tour was the hospital where the patriarch of the Cullen family, Dr. Carlisle Cullen, worked. Why the people of Forks didn’t see anything amiss with a world-class doctor taking up his practice in a hospital made up of mobile trailers (with their MRI machine out in the parking lot) is beyond me. But at least he gets his own parking spot.

Had the movie indeed been filmed in Forks, and had Stephenie Meyers really been aiming to keep the setting for her books as true to life as possible, this would be the Police Station where Chief Swan would have worked and this would have been his cruiser:

Except that it wasn’t, and she didn’t…so they aren’t.

This also isn’t the Cullen house:

In fact, the only reason this house was chosen to stand in for the Cullen house on the tour was that it is the oldest house in Forks…and apparently the novel makes mention of the Cullen’s living in a 100 year old home just outside of town. Unfortunately for this Cullen house, it doubles as a B&B…and is right next door to the police station. But that doesn’t stop the owners from playing along. For all the Twilight fans out there that might actually be hoping to catch a glimpse of the real Cullen family, they’ve posted a sign:

Next stop: Forks High School.

Probably the most authentic stop on the tour, the movie tried to stay true to the real Forks High School by making an exact replica of the sign to feature outside the fictional high school in the film. Finally! Something I recognize…sort of.

As we made our way towards the final destination on the tour—the La Push Indian Reservation and First Beach—Mike entertained us by reading Twilight Trivia, which he’d come up with himself. This was, by far, the most HILARIOUS part of the trip. It had been pouring rain all day, and we were all miserable and cold…but warming up our brains with trivia questions like “What kind of trees did Edward and Bella sit under on page 453 of Eclipse?” really helped boost our spirits.

Finally, we arrived at First Beach—location of the infamous “Bonfire Scene” in which Jacob tells Bella about the vampire legends of his tribe. Do we look cold? Cause we WERE.

 Here are the cliffs that Bella would have dived from in New Moon:

 Notice how the angle of the drop makes it impossible for her to ever have hit the water? She would have been a bloody, pulpy mess before a drop ever hit her…but who’s paying attention to little details like that at this point?

At the end of the day, we were soaked to the bone, freezing, and fogging over the windows in the mold-infested van on our way back to the Chamber of Commerce. It was a GREAT day. Worth the 5 hour drive from the city? Absolutely! Worth our $20? Maybe. Would I recommend that people make their way from various other countries just to experience Forks? NO!

Because you see, as the title of this post suggests: when it comes to Twilight, Forks is the place where nothing actually happened…EVER.

Remember when celebrating Valentine’s Day was a mandatory thing back in grade school? Back then, you were required to give everyone in the class a Valentine. BUT that didn’t stop you from sifting through all your Valentine cards ahead of time to find the “best” ones to pair up with the biggest pieces of candy to give to your real friends. And the one meant for your crush? Well, that Valentine card had to speak VOLUMES about your deep love for them…without, of course, revealing your deep love for them.

The older you got, the number of Valentine’s that a person received said something very different about them. Instead of saying “We’re all equal…here, have a piece of candy!”, it said:

While there’s nothing wrong with those who choose to celebrate the holiday with flowers, candy, and a romantic evening out, I’ve just always been of the opinion that one shouldn’t need a holiday as an excuse to do those things. After all, a boquet of flowers somehow says more when it’s delivered out of the blue on a Tuesday, than when it’s expected. Or worse yet, when it’s expected and doesn’t arrive at all.

So on this Valentine’s day, instead of lamenting over my singlehood or stressing over whether my “man” will extend the right romantic gesture, I’ll be spending the evening with my girlfriends. We’ll be gorging ourselves on buttery popcorn and sugary sweets while basking in the glow of “He’s Just Not That Into You” at the local movie theatre. Because THAT is my idea of a great date. And I don’t have to worry about some sloppy kiss at the end of the night.

Win – Win.