In Life and in Craps, 44 is a good roll, and pretty much means Happy Birthday to Me! Now somebody take me to Vegas.

Saturday night I got carded. The night before I turned 44 years old. Not a bad way to roll in the birthday festivities.

My sister, Jen, is in town, and she, Amanda and I had a fabulous girls night out for my birthday. We went to see Whip It, the new roller derby movie with Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore. Lots of LOLing going on at that movie. Drew Barrymore had way to much fun with her role. Jen, who has always reminded me of Drew Barrymore, is already smack talking about joining the Charleston Roller Derby League when she gets back home. Basically, we LOVED the movie, want to buy the soundtrack A.S.A.P., and will proudly wear our Whip It tee shirts they gave us FREE for attending the premiere (although I like to think they were just giving them out for my birthday) as soon as we monogram our new roller derby names on the backs of them.

After much collaboration over Tapas and a bottle of Spanish wine, we dubbed Amanda, Pandemic; Jen, Jen and Tonic; and me, Chemo-Sabe.

While our review would be simply put in the immortal words of DEVO, "Whip it? Whip it, GOOD!" we all were all a wee bit saddened that this song wasn't in the movie. We were so ready to sing it.

Yet despite the glaring omission of that one song, we managed to pull off a stellar night, not to mention, stellar start to my birthday. Especially, comparatively to last year's birthday.

Last year I had my port surgery 2 days before my birthday, started chemo 2 days after my birthday, and a prayer meeting sandwiched in the middle of all that and my recovery, to thank God for healing me of the cancer and asking him to help me during this long hard road of chemo. 43 was a hard year. I'm as relieved it is over, as much as I was relieved to celebrate a year's distance between me and cancer. I feel like I pretty much crawled from 43-44. But now I think I'll pick up the pace and try to widen the distance. If I could roller derby like Ellen Page, I think I could lap it a few times and get pretty far away.

Anyway, I like the sound of 44. For one, it is a good roll in craps, the hard 8. It is rolling an 8 the hard way, two 4's. I feel like that just about sums up how I got to 44, also the hard way. First of all, I would just like to thank God that I even got here. There were times when I wasn't so sure my dice weren't just going to retire. But he has graciously, mercifully, spared me, and rolled the double four. Which is kinda cool when you think about it. Not just any roll, but a hard 8. Not too hard for Him.

Now to see what I make of this roll. That is what I am praying like crazy about. If anybody would like to pray about this with me, I would covet your prayers and any words or pictures you feel God lay on your heart for me.

One last thing I'll say about 44, is that I really enjoy the symmetry of it. It might be a hard roll in craps, but it is easy on my OCDness when trying to tell you how old I am by holding my fingers up. 4 fingers on each hand, no fingers left behind, thumbs just take a coffee break. It's clear, clean, consise, cosmically pleasing, as in, symmetrical, non-competitive and just plain cool.