Tanti Auguri A Me

September 22, 2015 - my 39th birthday. It started with a text message from my mom at 6am. I decided to do my hair in a sideroll and let my hair hang in curls. I've been lazy about doing my hair in recent weeks favoring a Gibson roll suitable for ultra hot weather. I decided to go pink for the day and wore my 1940s day dress that I purchased in Portland. 

Delayed Commute

As I was ready to leave for the CalTrain station, my gut feeling told me that it would be a bad day for public transportation; perhaps I should drive. I should've listened. While aboard the train, we stood for about 10 minutes; apparently someone was evading fare and was being cited and escorted. Cheater. Finally we were on our way. Then all of a sudden, the train slowed to a crawl and was ready to stop. I looked out and noticed we were in Mountain View. Wait a minute! This train does not stop at Mountain View. Is the engineer a rookie? Finally the train gained speed and I was off to Santa Clara.

Classes in Session and a Major Sugar Rush

Thank goodness I arrived with minutes to spare before student arrival. Each came one by one with one of those smiles that seemed suspicious. Of course they knew it was my birthday, but then one of my former students showed up with a cake. That was unexpected and a very pleasant surprise. I then showed my class an email from their fellow classmate who just had her baby. We were cooing over the pictures of her new baby boy. Then one of my students said, "you have a new email." So I opened the message and I was floored. I mean really, REALLY surprised. Apparently some of my students pooled money together and got me a gift certificate to one of my favorite shoe reproduction stores. They know my love for shoes and vintage. I truly was touched. So very thoughtful. The rest of day was filled with endless text messages from family and friends wishing me a Happy Birthday.

Part of the "mi" in my name cracked a bit.

Enjoying some cake

My afternoon class surprised me with yet another cake! One student made chocolate by hand and brought it for the class. I knew I was going to have a major sugar rush. A somewhat smaller class than morning one, we pretty much shot the breeze and did some literature discussion. It's a good thing it was the last day of the quarter before finals, so all content had been covered.

Mmmm...Mascarpone Cheesecake

Another Commuter Delay, Yet Adventurous

Now that classes were done, it was back on the Caltrain for my commute home before having dinner with some friends. Recall how I mentioned having that gut feeling earlier in the day. I definitely should have driven. It went smoothly until we stopped at San Carlos. The conductor stated, "And this is as far as we can go. There's been a collision on the tracks in San Mateo." I looked out and saw the marquee; 90 minute delay! It was already 6:45 and I'm supposed to meet my friends at 8:00. I immediately got off the train and arranged for an Uber ride.

The driver arrived in less than a minute. When I opened the door, I rambled, "Caltrain is down and I have to get to Burlingame. It's my birthday and I have to meet my friends for dinner." Then I sat and smiled. He was very gracious and smiled and continued driving. He was pretty quiet and suddenly I noticed there was Spanish music playing. He was ready to change it until I started speaking in Spanish saying that the music is fine. He was surprised - ¿hablas español? When I confirmed, a sense of relief came over him and he started to relax. We conversed about language and education as we were flying down Old Country Road. I completely forgot about the roadblock at Hayward Park. Since it was a small barrier I told him he could go around it as the car way ahead of us was doing the same thing. He sped through the first barrier and again the second barrier before we were legally driving down Delaware. By the time we caught up with that car, we realized it was San Mateo Police. Oops! My bad! But hey we got through, and we didn't get pulled over. He had a good sense of humor about it. Once we got to Burlingame, we noticed there were still no trains in sight.

Birthday Dinner

I'm very simplistic when it comes to my birthday, so when asked what I wanted for my dinner, I just said, "Mexican Food! I have a craving for tamales and champurrado!" So it was off to Taquería Vallarta, my favorite taquería in The Mission. I ordered my usual tamales de rajas (cheese and roasted chile) and smothered it in tomatillo salsa. Mmmm...heavenly.

Tuesday Night Jump

Then it was back to my usual stomping grounds. The Verdi Club. Tanoa waived the $12 as he does for all birthday folks. The other folks thought it odd that I was not having a Birthday drink so I went ahead and had a rum and coke and 2 shots of pomegranate tequila later on. When asked my age, everyone was shocked. They thought I was anywhere between 28-30. Nope. 39. It's the Latin genes. 

During their second set, Stompy Jones played a birthday jam. That is, the birthday gal/guy takes center of the floor and everyone else stands around clapping to the rhythm while he/she dances. Then a series of leads (or follows if it's a birthday guy) will cut in until the end of the song. I was hoping for a faster song, but slower BPMs are okay. I definitely enjoyed my evening of swing dancing.

Despite some of the hiccups, it was definitely a wonderful birthday. Lets see what my 39th year brings...hopefully admittance into a Ph.D. program...my main goal.

Ciao.