So, Yeah... It's Today.

On this day, when I was:

13, my eight best girlfriends and I went swimming at the country club and then had lunch around our large circular dining room table, spinning the lazy susan and posing for pictures. Twenty years later, some of those girls are my oldest and dearest friends.

16, my high school boyfriend gave me a tiny sapphire and diamond ring he bought for $100 and then he left with his family for a three week vacation. I cried after he left, and then went to see Pretty Woman with Tyra. Afterward, we went to Hastings and I bought the soundtrack on cassette and played "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxie twelve hundred times.

22, my new friends on a summer program in Oxford threw me a surprise party in the Brasenose College pub. After many pints of Strongbow and/or Blackthorn cider, I "fell asleep" on the lawn and later threw up on my pillow, which I then hung out the window to dry. When I walked in for breakfast the next day, the English boys cheered, "Hooray for Scully! She chandered on her pillow!"

27, I celebrated my golden birthday - 27 on the 27th - as a homeowner in the townhouse I closed on the week before. My sister brought her bf (now my B.I.L.) from D.C. and all my friends were there. Ms.Lutty made brownies to bring to the party, but her mother told her they were ugly and made her do another batch before she came over.

30, I was in Granada, Spain eating dinner on the terrace of El Mirador, overlooking the Alhambra. When I blew out the candle on the dessert my friends surprised me with, I wished it was only one of many birthdays I'd spend somewhere I'd never been before.

33, I'm celebrating almost two years in NYC - can you believe it? Happy hour's today at a bar in Chelsea that serves my favorite cider on tap, although this time there will be no sleeping on the lawn or "chandering" of any sort. I'll be the one in the corner checking for gray hair.