Another year come and gone.

Yesterday, I celebrated my 27th birthday. I am now officially as old as my mom claims to be.

This whole birthday has been a rather bizarre one. For starters, it’s the first birthday I’ve had where I’ve celebrated it in the company of my progeny. But there’s other things going on as well. I was excited about my birthday, as usual, but when Friday rolled around, I felt a bit frustrated. In a bizarre coincidence, 4 of my friends all picked this week to do out-of-state travelling. Two flew to Florida to go to Disneyworld, One went to Oregon to see family, and one to Ohio to go to a wedding with a girl he’s about to break up with. Honestly, I really expected my birthday to blow by with no visitors and no fun and games.

Melissa gave me my gifts on Friday, which were some wicked cool presents. They included:

• a handmade (by her) brown denim wallet with a robot on the outside
• a really cool decoupage box with a tanqueray label & seal on the lid that contained two bars of Gin & Tonic (my drink of choice) SOAP in it!
• A game “Quiddler”, which she picked off of the Mensa recommended games list
• Six pin/buttons which featured various organic chemistry compounds (I saw a benzene ring in one of the compounds, so I have suspicions it may have been from some kind of pharmaceutical / drug information sheet)
• a really cute handmade birthday card
• A paperback book containing all the email correspondence between she and I for the first two months we dated (before she moved in). This is probably the coolest gift I’ve ever received. The book isn’t like an Officemax thing — there’s a company online (lulu.com I think) that does this service. I highly recommend! Great quality!

After she gave me my presents, we eventually decided to go to Red Lobster for dinner. I wanted to be sociable, and I wanted alcohol. We made some phone calls and Joe, Joe’s friend, and Satya all met up down at Red Lobster for dinner. It was lots of fun. I had a Lobsterita (which my friend John refers to as a “Gay Martini Drink”) which turned out to be more than enough alcohol for me that evening. We all had fun watching Sullivan chew on a lime wedge. (Some might consider that cruelty, but I figure if he didn’t like it he wouldn’t keep going for the lime/lemon wedges when we give them to him. Melissa says she thinks he has a memory like a goldfish though.)

On Saturday, Sullivan and I got to hang out together while Melissa was in class. We played Airplane, “toss the baby up and catch-him-or-else”, “Fun with Gravity”, and we did impressions of famous celebrity tantrums (He does a great Lucille Ball). When Melissa got back, she started making the icing for my cake. Gill showed up a little after 1 or 2pm, and it was then that I decided it would be a good idea to put on pants and a shirt (Sullivan and I were playing “Chippendales Dancers playing video games on an LCD projector”). Gill and I hung out with crabbypants while Melissa ran out to get a few more items she needed.

I have to say this much: Gill may be an eccentric person, but he’s a very loyal friend. He is one person I’ve been able to depend on time and time again, in a number of capacities. The Gill is t3h rockz0r.

After Mel returned, she made some queso and chips, and Gill and I played Carcassonne and Spite & Malice. My outlook on the state of my birthday was improving. A few more people and I’d be happy with the turnout.

Around 3 or 4pm, Satya and Sam showed up. Satya brought me a painting, courtesy of Andy Darr (the painting is, oddly enough, the one that he had on display at a recent art show that Melissa and I liked), and also some Indian food from Amar India in Dayton (Saag Paneer bitches!) We all agreed to play Risk and got out the board. Joe called and said he’d be on his way, and a few minutes later Jerry showed up. Finally, it felt like a decent birthday party.

As is tradition for our house and its gatherings, this was another funny-hats party. Funny hats are required. We have about a half-dozen for those who are hatless, but most people don’t forget to bring their own. Satya wore a hat that wouldn’t be out of place at a Parrot-heads gathering, Sam wore a hug-monkey around his head like a bandana, Joe wore a cowboy hat, Jerry a hat from Greece (with a LOOOOOONG tassel), Mel wore a bandana, Sullivan a cute cowboy hat, and Gill and I wore, at various times, a black beret and a British pea-hat.

The game of Risk was fun. I hadn’t played six-player risk in a long time. Long-story-short with that: I ended up being first out after I unsuccessfully attempted to conquer North America. Gill nearly lost in the beginning but traded in a mid-game book for enough armies to get him North and South America, and then later Africa, Europe, and then Asia and Australia.

All in all the birthday was great. I really hadn’t expected it to go that well, and I was really happy that some of my friends actually showed up. Birthdays are a lot different when you’re older — I think we all kind of forget that it’s fun to actually celebrate a birthday. It’s fun to do silly things like wearing funny hat for no good reason. It’s fun to play games, eat junk food, laugh and have fun (sans-alcohol).

And last, but certainly not least, here’s the awesome cake that my wonderful and darling esposita made for me. (cake from cake mix, icing from scratch, all decorations by hand. And yes, that is indeed 27 candles).

Tags: aaroween, PARTY!!!
Categories: Friends, Family & Pets, Humor