March 8 was Chuck’s 59th birthday. Yes, it’s his last year in the 50’s. We have decided to have a big blowout party next year for both of our birthdays (I’ll be – *gasp* – 50). As we plan on spending the semi-big bucks, we agreed to a moratorium on a somewhat whacky tradition we started a few years ago of trying to trump each other with better and more glorious birthday surprises. One year I took Chuck to Catalina Island for his first ever trip. He got daily massages and was treated pretty much like a king for three days. Another year he took me to high tea at the Beverly Hills Hotel, got me a massage at Burke Williams then topped it off with a new PowerMac G5. Another year I took him to Sedona AZ for his first hot air balloon ride, and another birthday he got a barnstorming ride in a WWII training jet. It was getting to be pretty expensive trying to one up each other.

So this year, like I said, we declared a truce. I was left having to come up with a low cost yet creative way to celebrate his b-day. My first stop: the local Hallmark store where I stocked up on $30 worth of birthday cards. I signed them then hid them all over the house (and even wrote a haiku in one of them!). Then I created a CD compilation for him: 59 songs for 59 years (iMix here). There are few things in life I enjoy more than making symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>music compilations. Then I made a cute little photo stand thingy for him, and also bought him a dozen baby Cadbury caramel eggs. Oh, and I got two cupcakes, one adorned with a gummy worm (he loves gummy worms) and sang him “Happy Birthday” and he got to blow out two candles (didn’t want to set the house on fire – ha-ha!). All in all, I thought I did pretty well, and kept the total cost of the celebration under $50. Yay me!

Meanwhile, our plans for next year continue. The current idea calls for the rental of the Casino Ballroom on Catalina Island with dinner and dancing (which means we need to take dancing lessons sometime before July 2007). As it’s my sister’s 40th wedding anniversary that year, we are incorporating them into the celebration. And Chuck’s sister also turns 50 that year, so she’s in there as well now. My best friend is also turning 50 (I won’t identify her as she dates online and prefers to keep her age, uh, undefined and/or variable) so she’s celebrating as well. We could use some folks celebrating 30 or 20 or even 70 events, too; that way we can turn it into a big blowout celebration of the decades.