Thanks to the four RAGBRAI riders who stayed at our house Tuesday night and sang Happy Birthday to me (per Hiram’s request) on Wednesday morning, my 55th birthday was the hippest jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest ever.

(I know several of you didn’t comprehend a word past “55th” because you’re thinking, “She must be yanking my chain. No way can this woman be 55. She looks so young.” Your astonishment is a welcome surprise, but really, I am 55. And really, you need to track with the RAGBRAI riders story, rather than obsessing about my amazingly youthfulness, so you can become the hippest, jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest person on your block.)

The lesson in hip-ocity began when the last two riders arrived at about  8 in the evening. Now, they were later than the first two women riders not because they were stragglers, but because they rode the 70 miles from Carroll to our fair city, plus the 30 mile loop-of-torture designed for extreme athletes who wanted to add a 100 mile notch to their bicycling belts.

Andrea came to the kitchen first and was assembling her BLT before Matt did. Being both the token male and also the token Australian in the group, maybe he found it helpful to watch the proceedings before eating. Or maybe he was just checking out the cultural landscape. Whatever the reason, he hung back a bit until I said, “This is a self-serve operation. Come on over and get something to eat.”

He picked up a plate and said, “S’wayzee!” (pronounced “swaye-zee” with emphasis on the “swaye”) with the hippest, jiviest, and g’day-mate-iest inflection ever.

Hiram and I looked at the other three riders and parroted Matt. “S’wayzee?”

“Australian for ‘so easy,’” one of them explained.

Another laughed. “We say it all the time now, too.”

“Cool.” Hiram grinned. “S’wayzee!”

We practiced the word several times before going to bed,

S’wayzee,
S’wayzee,
S’wayzee,
working on our own hip, jive, and g’day mate inflection, while hoping our 55-year-old Swiss cheese brains would remember the word in the morning.

Our hard work paid off, and we woke up on my birthday morning with “S’wayzee” tripping off our tongues. We sounded almost as hip, jive, and g’day mate as Matt. But after we waved good-bye to our overnight guests, we almost forgot the word during our morning walk.
Between the two of us we eventually remembered. Then we swaggered home as quickly as we could while maintaining our aura of hip-ocity and jivieness. I hurried to the computer and wrote this blog, preserving our new word for posterity and officially preserving my 55th birthday as the hippest, jiviest and g’day-mate-iest ever.

Being 55 is turning out to be s’wayzee…as long as I write everything down.