Sep. 19: A birthday in review

Wanna hear how much fun I had yesterday? Alright!

• 7:30 a.m.: Katie and Jack present me with cards and a gift—the Fiddler on the Roof DVD—and don’t even do a lot of bickering before they leave for school. It’s Mommy’s favorite kind of treat.
• 8:05 a.m.: The kids are out the door and I can eat one of my Mickey Mouse birthday cookies, so I do. It is the perfect amount of chewy, with a frosting-to-cookie ratio that cannot be beat.
• 8:30 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.: I receive numerous happy birthday wishes in the form of emails, text messages, Facebook messages and phone calls. Some even have extra exclamation points, which is just fine!!!!! These notices come through on my phone all day, and are a constant reminder of how blessed I am to have the friends and family that I do.
• 11:00 a.m.: I go up to the hospital to work. Janet gives me a funny card, sings to me until I stop her, and dumps two handfuls of mini candy bars in my purse before I leave.
• 12:00 noon: Victor and I go to Burgerville for lunch. Burgerville is oh-so-yummy. And lunch with my husband? Even better.
• 1:00 p.m.: I arrive home to find a delivery of gorgeous oriental lilies and chocolates from my seester! Everything in the house smells so good, especially combined with what’s left of the cookie bouquet.
• 1:02 p.m.: Sunshine calls and we meet at Peet’s Coffee where she treats me to an hour of conversation and beverages. As we say goodbye she presents me with a gift bag from The Blue Butterfly—a fancy-schmancy gift store that I LOVE—and it’s got some fun little goodies inside with a couple of my favorite sayings (“I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world” and “‘A really good friend,’ she said, ‘makes you snort when you laugh, and will still hang out with you when you do it in public’”). There is also a pot of yummy bon-bon lip stuff that I’ve been trying not to eat, and a very sweet card. This hour with Sunshine is one of my favorite parts of the whole day. Her’s a sweetheart!
• 2:00 p.m.: I get my first chance to sit down with my new DVD. Just as Tevye begins to describe his dream to Golde, Katie and Jack get home from school. I pause the movie and watch it between their interruptions over the rest of the afternoon.
• 5:30 p.m.: We order pizza from Bellagio’s, a fab local pizza place. Chewy crust, basil-y sauce. Mmmmm.
• 7:30 p.m.: Dina and Jenn K and some other people I don’t know call and sing a very loud birthday song over the phone. Dina tells me Jack is at her house and we do the “it’s OK with me if it’s OK with you” mom dance.
• 7:40 p.m.: I walk outside to find Dina’s son at our house. I walk up to Dina’s to let her know this, and the boys follow me so by the time I get there I have nothing to say. But Jenn K is yelling at me to STAY DON’T GO NO YOU HAVE TO STAY WHERE’S VICTOR CALL HIM SO HE CAN COME UP HERE TOO SIT DOWN HAVE A DRINK. Jenn K can sometimes be very loud.
• 7:45 p.m.: I am introduced to the people I didn’t know who sang to me earlier. They all seem very nice. Someone asks how old I am now, and when I tell them, they use very loud and profane words to say they don’t believe me. I’m pretty sure they’re just being nice. I know I look my age. Also, now the entire neighborhood knows my age.
• 8:00 p.m.: Victor joins us. Katie disappears inside to watch a movie with the kids. We grown-ups sit on Dina’s front porch and drink refreshing grown-up beverages. Some of us get louder.
• 8:30 – 10:00 p.m.: In order to protect the embarrassed, I shall go into no more detail about what went on over the next couple hours. However, the evening involved a great deal of fun (for most of us), a little mystery, and a whole bunch of uneaten food. But good news; the need for a mop was minimal and everyone’s clothes stayed on.
• 10:00 p.m. – midnight: Victor and I watch Fiddler again. I fall asleep sometime after Chava is disowned and before everyone’s run out of Anatevka. It’s a long movie.

Thank you to everyone who sent their birthday wishes, in whatever form they arrived! I sure do loves me some nice people.