Look who's coming for jonmo din-ner

Tahiba is sweet enough to give me a birthday girl smile
everyday!  It's fun to come home to.

Jonmodin is birthday in Bangla.  I'm thrilled that learning a new language has opened up the door for bilingual puns that I never imagined before!
As many of you know, yesterday marked my transition from "mid 20s" to "late 20s".  I complained to my advisor, who is turning 70 on June 9 (in Paris!), and he had no sympathy for the burden of age that I was feeling.
I learned that my friends here tend to stay up later than I do--promptly at 12:03AM I got a text from one of my soccer buddies, and several more followed shortly.  Am I expected to reciprocate?  Because that's a late night for me these days.  I'm an old lady, after all, I need my sleep.  And now that it's getting nice and hot, I'm enjoying the convenience of turning my bedroom into a bikram yoga studio simply by turning off the fan.  If Baron Baptiste could see the sweat I work up to his podcasts, I think he'd be pretty impressed.  I'm still not crazy about the lack of hot water in the shower, but I'm certainly not shivering when I get out.
I tried to sneak the day by without letting too many people know about my birthday (I'm trying to write a book here, I don't have time for these frivolous celebrations).  I video skyped with my parents in the morning and they threatened to send someone to come sing, since I was predictably camped out at my second home/office at North End cafe (I'm kind of a fixture these days, at least until we get this first draft done). Little did I expect Richard Cash to show up, candle and matches in hand, order me a brownie, and sing full tilt to me.  That was a pretty awesome moment.

Party at my place!  Can't leave these folks at home without
a chaperone!

What, me? With this face?

Several of my (younger, male) friends have asked me, upon learning about my transition here into my "late" 20s, when I plan to get married.  I have scoffed at the silliness of their question.  "It's not like you just decide.  First you find someone, spend a few years with them, etc. so it takes time.  So I can't say."  But then, when finishing up my lesson with my Bangla instructor, he announced that his daughter had gotten engaged and that my parents and I were all invited to the wedding in September.  Evidently his daughter is quite tall at 5'8, so finding a suitor to her liking (he had to be at least 6'0) they found to be a challenge.  Last week though, a candidate from a good family had appeared, and after he and my professor's daughter met, within 48 hours the deal was struck.  Both families are really happy.  My professor was glowing a bit while telling me in that proud father way.  It dawned on me later that in Bangladesh, the question of "what are will you get married?" does make a lot more sense than it does in the U.S.  As long as you don't set your sights too high (6' feet is pushing it), you could be good to go with a little searching.  I'm pretty sure crowdsourcing originated here.

My host family had many people who are moving to the U.S. over for a big lunch, totally unrelated to my birthday (which I hadn't mentioned to them).  I had some of the leftover singara (veg samosa) for tea and am psyched for leftover main dishes for lunch today.  Tahiba is growing quickly and recently learned the trick of climbing on chairs when no one is looking and grabbing fragile things, like bowls and pottery.  She is like ninja fast!  She also loves having her picture taken and says "Aaaar" after I do it.  No, she's not a pirate (at least not to my knowledge), she just wants me to take another one (It's two-year-old for "Abar).  Hard to say no, at least the first five or so times.

You want a pizza me?!  Did you want fresh lime soda
with that?

For dinner I went out for pizza.  While better than the variety at the American club, there is something about the cheese and sauce ratio here that is just doesn't hit the mark for my tastes.  You would never need a napkin here to wipe off the extra grease, nor does the cheese ooze and burn your fingers and mouth horribly when it comes out of the over (ohh, you can avoid that by waiting a few seconds?).  Nonetheless, time and distance have a way of lowering one's standards, and it's nice to know that there is a decent option.  If Dhaka gets a bagel shop and a good (chicken) hotdog stand, it'd practically be NYC.  Times square on a caffeine high.  On New Year's.  Minus the naked cowboy.
As I lay in bed, contemplating whether it was finally warm enough for me to close my windows (love the night breeze and occasional misting of rain) and turn on the AC, yet another two text messages came in.   I felt properly sandwiched with birthday love and relieved to know that they could be sent throughout the day.
Thanks for all the thoughtful emails and SomeECards--I am guessing that my humor will just get darker with age, so keep that coming (also that's how I learned about Rapture--it's tough to keep up with it all from here).
Now that I'm old I get to say things and other folks are supposed to listen (isn't that how it works).  I came across this saying the other day on a blog and thought it was a good mantra, for here or anywhere else.  A little affirmative action that we can all get behind:

We'll take turns on the carrying.  I'm letting the
rickshawallah go first.

Affirm life.
We’ve got to carry each other now.
You are either with life, or against it.
Affirm life.
-Suheir Hammad
Back to the book!  Boi, oh, boi!!  (Guess what--boi is bangla for book.  I know that you're as thrilled as I am at these new forms of pun-ishment).  North End Coffee Shop is closed on Tuesdays, so I had to find a new location--this place has slower internet and less interesting foods, but it has caved to my pressure to make a "cold coffee slush" with chocolate (asking for a mocha never seems to work), which is the closest thing I've found to a frappuccino out here.  Hey, a girl's got needs, at any age.