Truly, I had one of the best birthdays ever, several weeks ago.

We women tend to want very little fuss once we hit a certain age: no reminders, please, that soon we’ll be free-basing Oil of Olay and embarking upon the exciting adventure that is Kegel exercises.

Birthday cards with, “You know you’re getting old” jokes, featuring an old woman with body parts sagging so severely that she could begin using them to play hacky sack, really aren’t viewed as funny and we loathe hearing the family doctor use that despised phrase, “You know, as we get older,” before addressing complaints of aches and pains.

Well, as my father would say, “Sod that.”

I decided I was going to have a lovely birth day this year. Not birth night, when the family carts you out to either the obligatory Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory, and the entire time beforehand is spent at work or doing laundry and not very special at all, but Birth Day. Paul was going to be out of town.

“I’ve been offered a speaking engagement in California, but it’s over your birthday.” “Are you nuts? Money is money, take the gig; we’ll do something when you get back.”

So the idea began to percolate in my head that, instead of having just a birth day, I would now attempt an entire birth weekend.

All by myself.

The Friday before, after a book signing in Spartanburg, my old pal Ripcord Rose came by to say hello and then and there, we both learned for the first time that we shared Sept. 30 as our entry into the world. After squealing, “You’re kidding me!” and “I don’t believe it!” at an octave, which was tripping garage door openers all over the state, we declared that we deserved a lavish, exotic lunch at a local restaurant. Half hour later, over steaming plates of Pad Thai; great, fat, glasses of white wine and some sort of rich banana dessert that was greeted with, “Oh, no, I couldn’t… and ended with, “Oh, alright, just a little more,” we told our lives’ stories and were grateful for our long jackets that concealed very full tummies as we stepped, blinking, back into the daylight and onto street to bid adieu.