My grandma, Muriel, is a famous neuropsychologist. This is her book.

Just got home from my Grandmother’s 80th birthday party, whose revelry spanned three days and as many generations of my family. My grandmother is 80 years old this week. 80! Think about the World of 80 Years ago. It’s amazing what didn’t exist back then–things so crucial to our everyday life: The Internet, E-mail, broadband Internet, wireless Internet and Internet Pornography, to name a few. Yet, still, there were bloggers. The first bloggers posted via Pony Express and their vitriolic screeds sped over the newly-expanded country, from sea to racist sea. This was the Web 0.1: powered not by silicon and fiber optics, but the blood, sweat and tears of a thousand alcoholic cowboys and their millions of bed mites. In these heady days of the Web 2.0, it’s hard not to look back at those simpler times with a bit of nostalgia–if only because you have kind of a thing for cowboys.

BUT: This has nothing to do with my Grandmother’s 80th birthday. There are a lot of customs in my family surrounding birthdays. Most important of all is The Challenge. Each year on a person’s birthday we set up a series of physical tests which the birthday boy/girl must pass in order to prove that he or she is worthy of progressing to the next year (or “level,” as we like to call it) of life. My personal favorite of these is called Age Attack. In Age Attack, the birthday person is placed in a bare dirt ring and must battle two or more people whose combined age equals the birthday person’s. For example: A 12 year-old cousin might have to fight an eight year-old and a four year-old or, if he’s really lucky, twelve one year-olds.

Imagine my family’s collective surprise, then, when my 80 year-old grandmother managed to beat soundly four 20 year-olds in the ring. Then imagine our collective horror when she ripped their heads off and ate them. She truly is an amazing woman. I, for one, am proud that old age and high cholesterol haven’t dampened her spirit or her thirst for young, warm blood.