35 Things I'm Grateful For On My 35th Birthday

Thirty-five years ago today, I was born with bright orange hair.  Why is this significant?  Well, about eight months before I popped out, my mother proclaimed that if she had a baby with red hair, she'd flush it down the toilet.  The mere fact I'm even alive should top my list of things I'm grateful for.  Being a Ginger is dangerous business.

So as a show of gratitude on my birthday a few years back, I sent my mother a dozen roses with a card that read:  Dear Mom, thanks for not flushing me.  Love, Kris.  Needless to say, she had a lot of explaining to do when the delivery guy dropped off the arrangement.  I guess one could surmise I've been fucking with her since day one.

Anyway, here it is - a list of 35 things I'm grateful for (in VERY particular order):

1. Being alive.
2. That I managed to make it through my twenties without contracting any life-threatening diseases. (Seriously, you all read my blog.  This is truly a feat within itself).
3. To that end, I'm grateful for my health.  And, might I add, that as a former smoker of thirteen years, my wrinkle situation could be so much worse than it is.
4. So I guess I'm also grateful I have a mother who insists wrinkle creams make the greatest birthday and Christmas presents.
   
5. And, while I'm at it, I'm pretty grateful for Botox, and the blissful ignorance that accompanies Science not having concluded any significant side-effects… yet.
6. My parents - although they didn't make the Top 5, their significance goes without mention.  I mean, I'm here, right?  You're welcome, world.  (I just made myself vomit.)
7. My brother.  Without him, A LOT more attention would have been paid to me. 
8. Twitter.  This piece-of-shit platform introduced me to my boyfriend.  No, that's not normal.  But then again, neither am I.
9. Vaccinations.  'Nuff said.
10. Therapists.  I've had a life, people.
11. Birthdays - because if they stop, I'm dead.
12. Sobriety.  Saving lives, relationships and genitalia since forever.
13. My extended family and the rich history that preceded them.  I'm related to some very questionable people, and I love them all.
14. Little earthquakes.  They really shake things up.
15. Friends that stick like glue, even after I disappear.  I have a tendency to fail at communication, and there's a few who remind me of this character defect frequently.
16. LOVE.  Broad, vague, ambiguous love. 
17. Vibrators.
18. My furry baby, Charlie.  
    
19. Alice in Wonderland, for stoking the embers of my imagination and creativity at such a young age.
20. That I am lucky enough to work in an industry I love, pursuing my spirit's passion. 
21. I'm a female living in a country that does not practice female circumcision.
22. My childhood - it was "normal" (for whatever that's worth).  Subsequently, I have no real excuse for my reckless behavior in my youth.
23. Accountability - Understanding what that really means has truly set me free.
24. I'm not starving.
25. I'm not homeless - although if I didn't have the supportive family I've been blessed with, I most certainly would have been homeless many times over.
26. For all my relatives, particularly Uncle Gumby, who opened their home to me and let me crash on their couch so I could chase my dreams.
27. Orthodontics.
28. Health Insurance.
29. A big shout out to the two Angels who reconnected me and my mother after she goddamn LOST me at Santa Anita Racetrack when I was two years old.  (She just kept trying to cut loose of the Ginger, but we ALWAYS come back.)
30. Facebook - as much as I hate to admit it.  I'm shit at keeping in touch, and this thing has really pulled through.
31. Rainbows - mainly for inspiring so many great YouTube videos and idiotic Tweets.
32. Unicorns - for their majesty and healing powers.
33. Grateful I learned to read good.
34. Beyond grateful I have codependent enablers for parents, who never have and never will give up on me.  
35. To have had the privilege of experiencing unconditional love, especially during times when I could not love myself.  
36. And for good measure - humor, laughter, jokes and irreverence - without which, I may not have a shot at a career.

Oh, and just in case you weren't sold on #18 :

MY BROTHER'S ON FIRE! (No, really. He caught on fire.)

Tis the season to be thankful.  Good thing I like my brother so much, or the ending of this story would be a real disappointment to me.  As it goes, he lived.  So here's what happened:

It was 2000, and the whole extreme sports craze was just heating up.  I lived in Huntington Beach at the time, which seemed like the epicenter of non-conformist, white tattooed punk rock kids, eager to give a big "fuck you" to any type of authoritarian.  Johnny Knoxville made being a jackass SOP, and Fred Durst was doin' it all for the nookie.

I lived with a few pro-skateboarders for a stint, and then came the Crusty Demons.  Those crazy sons-of-bitches were fearless, and before I knew it, everything was dirt bike this and dirt bike that.  I got a KX125 and found myself on frequent camping trips to the desert so my poser boyfriend could channel Seth Enslow.

My brother, on the other hand, is a legit rider.  But on one such trip to Ocotillo Wells, he demonstrated some less than legit decision making skills.  Namely mixing alcohol consumption with a game of "watch me make rings of fire in the sand using this gas can and the campfire!"  Invented by my much older boyfriend who should have known better, my impressionable and inebriated brother apparently felt the need to make his mark...

…Which he did.  Physically.  I sat and videotaped the following chain of events:

• Brian, sans t-shirt, twirling the can of gas through the campfire
• An illuminous trail of fire dashing across the sand as it ignited the gas around my brother
• Brian tripping over himself, splashing said gas across his body
• Flame igniting Brian
• Brian screaming, and beginning to run
• My boyfriend tackling him to the ground, extinguishing him.

It took a few minutes to register what exactly just happened before I put the camera down and ran over to find my brother, layers of skin curling off his back and torso, in immediate shock.

No cell reception meant a car-ride that felt like an eternity to the Ranger Station, where I used a pay phone to dial 911, and then my parents.

*Side note: this story is the reason they hate 2am phone calls, because mine went something like this, "Hi mom.  Brian caught on fire.  Here, talk to my boyfriend."

Brian clung to me, shaking, until the first ambulance arrived and peeled him off of me.  The kid went from wanting to die to a euphoric smile the second the first shot of morphine was administered.  After the chopper Medevaced him to San Diego, I looked down at my shirt, covered in his skin, and threw up.

Brian, upon arrival at UCSD Medical Burn Center

He was burned 1/4 of his body, deep tissue 2nd and areas of 3rd degree burns.  He was in the hospital for a month, and released, appropriately, on the Fourth of July.  The above picture is the only surviving evidence of the incident, aside from scars that turn purple whenever he drinks.  He's like a personified Hypercolor t-shirt.

Anyway, I know this story isn't necessarily "funny," per se, but it does serve as a reminder to:

A) Be careful, and

B) Be grateful

Also, "If you can't be a good example, be a fair warning."