50 Days 'Til 50 Day 32--Halfway To A Smucker's Jar

On our way into San Diego I snapped this fast from the car. Reminded me of West Side Story, all the Jets on their scaffolding. Until I got closer...

...they were repairing the bridge...one man helping the other...it was musical.

Any hotel that has a dog guest list is my kind of hotel.

While walking the streets around the hotel I came across a cupcake lounge. Jeff told me to wait until after we ate...

the same cupcakes were waiting for me in the hotel room

and ate. (junifper and ivy's top chef master Richard Blais)

Stick me in anything Mother Nature and my soul is fed.

Needing some energy. oops...no wonder why everyone was buying this one instead.

if you hang around a makeup counter long enough...

hot dogs and plastic surgery...perfect, no?

more gifts from George's restaurant...olive oil...brilliant

I dont think so, Ill let you know in another 50.

50 Days ‘Til 50Day 32Halfway To A Smucker’s JarI have been so filled with gratitude having received so many birthday wishes, cards, messages and also how so many of you had mentioned reading my blog. I guess when I started out on this blog adventure, thanks to the nudges of a few of my friends, I didn’t go into it expecting the great American novel or anything even remotely similar. It was a way for me to do something I enjoy, writing. It was a way for me to honor people, places, and things in my life. To put to paper what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now as I approached this big milestone birthday. It has been a fun roller coaster ride this writing, and although I missed hitting the 50th blog on the actual day, having such great feedback from many of you just propels me to want to continue and finish it. It will now be a 50 days ‘til, during, and after I suppose.Willard Scott reminded me on the Today Show today that I’m just 50 years away from being on a Smucker’s jar. I guess that’s something to aspire to. Age is a funny thing. When I was 14 I just wanted to be 15 so I could get my drivers permit. When I was 15 I wanted to be 16 so I could have said driver’s license. When I was 17, I just wanted to be of legal age at 18. When I was 18, the drinking age was changed to 20 so I just wanted to be 20. Then I moved to Florida where the age was changed to 21 just days after my arrival so of course I wanted to be 21. Never seeming quite happy where I was at the moment I guess. I did many things along the way to appear older and sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t.Example #1. Four of us high school seniors took a trip to Florida. None of us being the legal drinking age we put our heads together to try and fast-forward the clocks on our ID’s. One of the girls had expert penmanship and we figured out if you carefully wrote over scotch tape that ran across the license and kept the ID inside your wallet behind the plastic covering it kind of worked. That’s genius we all thought, or at least according to our 17-year-old brains it did. We found out if you flashed it real quickly to any doorman at the Daytona Beach bars, you could slip in. We all felt instantly 21. Of course as the years have gone by and I’ve waited in many lines to get in the clubs I realized it was the lady on my arms outfit (or lack of one) that propelled you inside faster than any fake ID. What we didn’t realize is that although the bouncers may let it pass, the state police weren’t so forgiving. The day we left Daytona Beach to catch our flight home in Orlando of course we were running late and pedal to the medal had about 90 minutes to catch our flight. The siren signaled us to pull over in which my buddy that was driving immediately blurted out to the officer our urgency to get of Dodge. The officer wasn’t buying. He asked him to get out of the car and show him his license. As we had done all week at the clubs he automatically flipped open his wallet to show the officer his altered and scotch taped license. The office said to my now shivering friend, “Sir, Can you please remove the license from inside the wallet?” We all sat in silence thinking our vacation would now end in the county jail. The movie Midnight Express had just come out that year and all I could picture was all of us inside a Florida prison cleaning the concrete floors with a toothbrush dressed in our orange scrubs. Orange was not the new black back then. The officer pulled back the scotch tape and asked us what was going on? We all must have looked very frightened as he scoffed at us all to “go straight to the airport and think twice about ever returning to his town again.” Ironically as long as I would eventually live in Florida, I never returned to Daytona again.The years fly by and then you start hitting the milestones. The 30, 40, and now 50 birthdays always seem to me to need some sort of acknowledgment. Hallmark has built an industry on this same thought. The 29’s, 31’s, 39’s always seemed to be a bit anticlimactic but put a zero behind the number and its cause for celebration. As I went off for a few days to celebrate the big ‘5’ ‘0’ I was thinking I am ok being this age. I don’t want to be 29, or 18, or even 49. I have paid heavily to get this badge of 50 and I’m going to own it and wear it with pride. I’m ok (sort of) with the lines on my face and the grey hair. I’m ok with having to try on 40 pair of jeans before I find just one that fit me. I’m ok with younger people calling me “Sir.” It surely is better than what they called me when I was 18. I'm ok here. I’m ok with this half century. I have no idea what 50 is supposed to look like. This is what it looked like for me, unfiltered, unadulterated, and uncensored.jf