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Posts Tagged "birthday"
I love birthdays. I really do. And not just my own. Birthdays are a time for self-reflection, for declarations of love, for yourself and for others. They are a time for new experiences and the search for new passions, for surprises and for new beginnings. I celebrated my 25th year a few days ago, and am happy to say that it was, by far, the best birthday I have ever had. Friends and family traveled distances to party it up with me on Saturday and to brunch with me on Sunday. It was a weekend filled with so much love. Unbeknownst to me, my boyfriend, Shannon, had something up his sleeve that would prove to be some seriously amazing icing on the cake. At 5am on Monday he woke me up, piled me into the car, and we headed for the airport. Thoughts raced through my mind: Where were going? San Francisco to visit old friends? Finally using the savings we’d been putting aside for a trip to Hawaii? Nothing could have prepared me for what he had planned for us that day. We hopped aboard a flight to Los Angeles (visiting family? sailing? …(gulp)… Disneyland?) and two and half hours later we were driving to an undisclosed location. As we headed south, Shannon instructed me to open a big box that he had put at my feet, and to unwrap the three gifts inside sequentially. I carefully picked apart the tape on the first, and pulling back the paper found a CD with a picture of me in a Steerman Biplane on the front of it (I took Shannon flying in Sonoma for his birthday a few years ago). I popped it into the player and was blasted with Berlin‘s Take My Breath Away. Laughing off what I had prematurely deemed as incredibly cheesy, I opened the second gift: a pair of aviators. At this point, Kenny Loggins‘ Danger Zone begins to play and I begin to understand that we might be headed for some more air travel. It wasn’t until I’d opened the third gift, a bomber jacket sent with us from my family and the Top Gun Anthem started to play, that I came even close to piecing together what was going on. We turned onto an airfield in Fullerton and drove past a giant sign that read Air Combat USA. In front of us sat a pair of Marchetti SF-260′s, Italian fighter planes originally certified in the 1960′s. I, of course, immediately began to freak out. While I adore flying, I was in no way prepared to be manning the plane myself (that’s right, you read correctly… myself!). Was I capable of safely operating this machine in mid-air? Did I trust myself to do so, not only for my safety, but for Shannon’s… and, perhaps, the people on the ground below? Let me tell you, knowing that you have an hour to prepare for such a feat forces you to ponder a wide spectrum of questions and possible outcomes. We were welcomed by two former military pilots, Nails and Smudge, who set us up with our own flight suits and ushered us into a small room with a couple of couches and a big white board covered in diagrams. You can imagine that I had a bit of a hard time concentrating on what was being said during this hour-long “flight school”, which was fine, in the end, because most of what we were learning were tips and tricks on dogfighting instead of how to, say, FLY THE PLANE, or what to do if the engine stalls (which happened to Shannon’s aircraft… fortunately, Smudge, who was seated next to him, flipped a couple of switches in the cockpit to connect to another fuel tank. Phew.). The only thing I really took away from flight school was that anything goes during combat and that cheating is a-okay. After donning a couple of Mae West’s and parachutes, Shannon and I kissed each other goodbye and hopped into separate planes with our coaches. I waved to him through the canopy while Nails, squished into the cockpit next to me, went through checklists, reading each aloud. We were in the air sooner than I had hoped, but as the ground fell further and further away I could feel my anxiety go with it. We flew ten or so miles out to the coast, at which point I heard Nails’ voice over the intercom, “Okay, Erin, it’s your plane.” I tentatively gripped the joystick. It is true what pilots say about the need for finesse when controlling a plane. Shannon told me later that Smudge was flying theirs with just his fingers and very slight pressure. While I have much to learn about this so-called finesse, I surprised myself in that moment with how at ease I felt, and after a couple rounds of practicing our yo-yo’s and split-s maneuvers, we were ready for our dogfight. And off we went! Zooming and tumbling after each other, Shannon and I listened to our respective coaches over the intercoms for guidance. Flying at around 200kn and experiencing almost 5g at some points, I experienced what is called “grey-out”. My color vision would go, then so would my peripheral vision, even when practicing a technique they taught us to keep the blood in our heads, which was to tense up like you were constipated (true)… I’ll have to work on that one for next time. Trying to keep Shannon’s plane in sight at all times, I did my best to follow what I had been told in flight school earlier: Cheat. So I did. I took surprise attacks whenever I could, faked him out every chance I had, and pushed him further and further toward the hard deck so that he would have nowhere to go. And you know what? I won, 3-2. Bang, bang! Never, ever in my entire life have I experienced anything that even came close to this. Despite my description above, there are truly no words for it. In a note that we received today from an acquaintance who’d helped set this up for us– a former pilot and father of a retired Blue Angel– the experience was summed up best: All of us who spent years doing this for a living always love to share it with people and let them experience the unbridled thrill of racing around in three dimensions, looking outside, checking your fuel, not stalling or running the airspeed to zero, not hitting the ground or each other, maneuvering the airplane into just the right spot for a shot, then coming back and landing and taxiing in to park. Walking away from the airplane after challenging yourself in so many ways at the same time was always a terrific feeling [...] It’s strong medicine for sure. It takes everything you’ve got – both mentally and physically. And it’s so true. After the dogfight had ended, we sidled the planes up next to each other and buzzed back to the airfield. After an hour of air combat and not knowing which way was up, all I could do was sit in my jumpseat and quietly relive my time in the air. We landed in formation back in Fullerton and taxied to the hangar. I felt such emotion all at once and it took every ounce of strength I had left inside of me not to dissolve into tears. I had done it. I had flown a plane… and not any plane, but that plane. That beautifully crafted Italian fighting machine. And I’d done it well… I’d even won the fight! I was ready to take on the next 25 years of my life with vigor and tenacity and a keener sense of self. Nails patted me on the knee and his voice came on over the radio. “Great work, girl. Great work.” Best birthday present ever, right?
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Firstly it is important to adventure with dental floss because adventuring with teeth is just better. Secondly, you can use the dental floss as string or ribbon. Today is my mom’s 60th birthday so I am visiting her for party time. I brought classic birthday decor with me including balloons, party hats and a banner. While she was out for 15 minutes my mom’s partner Keith and I speed decorated the house with the supplies I brought, post-its and my old toys. I made the toys say “Happy Birthday!” by cutting out “talking bubbles” and taping them to my stuffed animal’s mouths. We put inspirational sticky notes all over her room. Then, we wanted to string up the balloons around the living room, but there was no string or ribbon to be found. Luckily I remembered dental floss and now there is a jaunty balloon string hung above Tamar’s couch.
If you urgently need to celebrate someone’s birth but don’t have time to bake a proper cake, or you simply believe ice cream to be a far superior alternative (like me), you might consider this innovative Adventure School/Ben and Jerry’s hybrid birthday solution:
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