By JANE LOTTER

Last month was my birthday and I'm happy to report I turned fif- GrrrBurrrDurrr. Oh, excuse me. Something goes wrong with my fingers every time I try to type how old I am. What I'm trying to tell you is I turned fif - GrrrBurrrDurrr.

This isn't working, is it? I'll tell you what: Excuse me for a moment while I put my head out the window and scream.

There, that's better.

Anyway, as I was saying, I turned 50. And I'm fine with it. Really. Although, as my friend Amy says, the best thing about turning 50 is the zero (you have to think about that one for a moment).

Many of you are now saying to yourselves, so Jane, darling, explain this: If you're 50 years old, how is it you and your husband Bob have young children? Did you adopt?

No, we did not. Although I think adoption is a wonderful thing and from time to time I consider putting myself up for adoption. But I must tell you that in my case it was hormones. Somehow, when they were passing out the hormones I got more than my fair share. I would have preferred brains, looks, or even an exciting real estate investment opportunity, but what I got was hormones.

So when I was 41 and the doctor told me I was pregnant again, and looked at me like I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, all I said was please don't tell me it's twins. The week I turned 50, we had out of town visitors and one of the many fun-filled things we did was visit the Museum of History and Industry. The museum, by the way, also turned 50 this year.

Although MOHAI welcomes over 60,000 visitors a year and I don't (can you imagine the dirt?), I, at least, have the good taste not to keep the stuffed remains of Bobo the gorilla in my basement.

Lest you think I'm dissing Bobo, I am not. I remember Bobo when he was alive and swinging on a tire at the Woodland Park Zoo. I just think MOHAI should take the big guy out of their basement and put him upstairs where he could enjoy pride of place and perform a somewhat spooky meet and greet.

Speaking of birthdays, if Bobo were alive he'd be 51. That's right, Bobo was a baby boomer. If only Bobo had been of my species - and, really, who could tell? -- we might have dated.

Even now, looking back, I'm thinking how Bobo could have escaped from the zoo and carried me off to the top of the Smith Tower where together we could have stuck out our tongues at passing aircraft, worked for animal rights, and maybe gotten a TV-movie deal.

Well, I guess there's no sense reliving the past; especially when it's not even remotely grounded in reality.

Anyway, I'm a happily married woman now. The night before my 50th birthday, I was cooking my signature dish, linguine with clam sauce. Bob came into the kitchen, helped himself to a taste, then threw his arms around me and declared, "Almost 50 years old and she cooks more beautifully than ever!"

To which I replied, "Honey, this is what 50 cooks like." (You know, it's really sort of painful to have to stop and explain the jokes, but that last one was a nod to a famous remark Gloria Steinem made on her fortieth birthday. Oh, just do the best you can and try to keep up.)

So what exactly did I do on my actual birthday? Did I stop and smell the roses? Did I eat dessert first because life is uncertain? Did I count my blessings and not the years? Did I hug a child today? Did I read the bumper sticker on the car ahead of me?

Of course I did!

Babe, I do that stuff every day. And you should too. That way, when your birthday rolls around, all you really need is the cake.