On the way to B’s birthday party on Smith Street, we wondered how old she was. We didn’t even realize it was a big birthday. Didn’t realize it was the big birthday. That birthday.

The guest of honor looked beautiful and cool in a vintage black and white polka dot dress over jeans with tall cuffs.

"I didn’t want to do the big bash thing. I wanted something smaller," she said.

Twenty, probably more, friends gathered at The Social Club, a truly cool bar on Smith Street that was at one time an Italian men’s social club.

It still has the brown forbidding door; a private "Do Not Enter" vibe. Inside it looks like something out of a Brassai photograph. Paris. 1934. Low light. Early jazz on the juke box.

"How do you know B?" was the night’s conversational ice breaker as friends tried to figure out who the other friends were. It was a six degrees of separation kind of crowd, with intersections, connections:

"YoulookfamiliarDon’tyouknowIt’sbeenawhile…"

A man recognized my husband. "Did you live on the Lower East Side?" he asked. Turns out they both went out with the same woman. At different times.

B. handed out free drink cards, her old "What’s Shakin?’" business cards with her old phone number from when she lived on Charles Street in the West Village.  "I’ve got hundreds of these" she said "Just give ’em to Ivan, the bartender for free drinks. Leave a tip, though."

The cards are left over from the days she was buying and selling vintage salt and pepper shakers. Now she’s got salt-and-pepper hair, a great cut, a wonderful significant other, a house upstate, 40 acres and a…

Who could ask for more? An organizer, an enthusiast with many passions and many devoted friends, B. is non-pareil.

Sitting in a dark corner of The Social Club, sipping a shot of Limonella (after a Cosmopolitan and a Diet Coke), I surveyed the crowd of friends and friends of friends and concluded that we’re a  little more settled now. Comfortable in our own skin even if we are as confused as ever. We’re braver. Been through a lot. Ballsier. More realistic. Practical. We look pretty darm good. We’re confident or maybe just a little less insecure. Shit, why not. If not now, when?

Happy Birthday B.