My Birthday Week

My birthday was on Monday. I'm 27 now. Yay. I had a really nice week and I got to celebrate my birthday in different ways each day.

On Monday, I did go to work (suck!) but only because I had to take today (Friday) and this coming Monday (the 3rd) off. So Randy called and took me to lunch.

We just went to Panera, but he got me this delicious brownie/cake thing, with raspberry on top and white chocolate shavings. It was divine!

Then we took a romantic stroll over to Market Bucket to buy supplies for my birthday party:

Should I be offended?

The party itself went great. It was a low-key evening, with pizza and cake and ice cream. Doug called and gave me the best present he could give: a message on my answering machine saying he had been up too late the night before doing online gaming on Dark Age of Camelot and was too tired to attend.

My parents and grandmother were able to make it, as well as Jenna and Jason, Mike, Brandie, Shelby and Jason, and of course Randy and the kitties.

I got some really nice gifts!  Jenna and Jason gave me the first season DVD of The Muppet Show, my mom got me the Chronicles of Narnia series (I had read the first couple of books back in high school but I want to read the whole series before the movie comes out!), my Grammy gave me the cute black kitty change purse and a photo album and a Halloween bowl and candy dish for my upcoming Halloween party.

Awards for the best cards go to the gals from Workshops at work, who got me the card on the left. It says "A little bird told me you were another year older..." open card "so I ate him." And I am not kidding when I say Oocla looked EXACTLY like that the next morning, when she ripped the feathers off the card and tried to eat them.   The other card is from my parents- so cute!

I think Brandie's gifts took the cake (so to speak) though. Now I can grow my very own Dork, Nerd, and Geek, without all the mess of pregnancy and whatnot!   We all joked that Jenna is already growing her own nerd.

Brandie also gave me a Napoleon Dynamite keychain. Each button plays a different quote from the movie. Here's what they say:

"I love your sleeves. They're real big."

"Could you bring me my chapstick? But my lips hurt real bad!"

"A liger. It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed. It's bred for it's skills in magic."

"Gosh!"

"Frickin IDIOT!"

"Lucky!"

I've already begun using it at key moments in conversation with Randy.

My lamp got dressed up for the birthday party. I should've told it that it wasn't a formal occasion.  My mom gave me the gerbera daisy there, doesn't it look real? It's actually completely fake, including the water. My kind of flower!   I can keep trees and Xmas cactai alive, Mom used to give me potted gerbera daisies and every one of them died. Damn New England winters!  So this one should make it through the cold, score!

Mike gave me a $50 gift certificate to Bull Moose Music, which stayed in my possession for less than 24 hours. I bought the top five CDs the day after my birthday party.  I got Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits a couple of weeks ago but I just put it in the picture so the upside-down pyramid image would look right. Yes I'm a dork.  I got Tracy and the Plastics, Stereo Total: Monokini, Talking Heads greatest hits, Camera Obscura and Stereo Total: Do the Bambi. They're all awesome. If you like weird music like I do, they're sure to please!

Here's what I used the money my parents gave me to buy, a gorgeous Tree of Life wall hanging. I got it at Water Monkey (of course).

The cool thing about it is the tree itself, including all the leaves and the trunk, is all ONE piece of fabric that was painstakingly sewn onto the burgundy fabric. And the really awesome thing about it is that Randy actualy LIKES this wall hanging and it's now up in our dining room area.

On Wednesday, I used the money my grandmother gave me to get myself a MUCH needed haircut (especially since I'm going to a vow renewal ceremony and a wedding this weekend). Here's the Before picture. That's Heinemann in the background if you care.

And here's the After picture. I got about 5 inches chopped off and long layers, I like it. I went to Solari in Portsmouth, the hairstylist was really cool.  We bonded over Stevie Wonder.

After work, Randy picked me up and asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. I was like, "Well, Mike's coming over, right? So we should probably go home." And Randy said something like "Do you always behave yourself?" I was confused. Then he took the exit to get on the highway, so I was REALLY confused, since 90% of the restaurants I like to eat at are in Portsmouth. So we stopped at my parents' quickly to drop off the damn Coleman lantern that's been stinking up the car all week after the camping trip.

After we left my parents', we're driving home and the following conversation took place:

Randy:  "So, how would you like to get takeout from the spicy place in Dover?"

Me:  "Spicy place in Dover? What the hell are you talking about?"

Randy: "You know, when you're coming down Central Ave downtown and you take the sharp turn by Smiley's and it's on the right."

Me: "A Taste of India?"

Randy: "Yeah, that's it."

Me: <stares in total shock>

Randy: "I was thinking you could get takeout from there and I ... could eat something else."

So off to A Taste of India we went and we sat down to look at the menu, and then Randy says...

If you know him you may want to brace yourself here...

"I think I'll try the chicken curry."

So I managed to convince him to eat at the restaurant and we had a delicious meal! I got the Shahi Paneer (I think that's what it's called, with the cheese, SO GOOD) and we got some garlic nan and it was so awesome. Now I'm totally craving Indian food all the time.  But that was definitely one of my best birthday presents, since not only did I get to eat at a place that Randy would call "weird", but he TRIED SOMETHING NEW! And ate and enjoyed it!   I'm still in shock!

Continuing my week of birthday fun, yesterday Randy took me to see Beck at the venue formerly known as Harbourlights in Boston. I think it's called the Fleet Pavilion or something now.  We almost got killed on the way over- yay!

Yeah, I'm the dork who takes pictures of the jumbotron screens.  Here's Beck playing a hand organ for the song "Lonesome Tears", it was fantastic!

He had a dinner party for  his band on stage during a few acoustic songs that he did, and the band chimed into the music by tapping on their cups with their spoons, tapping the table, etc. What you're seeing above is images being spun by DJ Bonsai, who mixes DVDs, not CDs. There was a guy on stage with a camera who was filming the images that DJ Bonsai was spinning, it was fucking AWESOME.  Above is an overhead shot of the dinner party table and the guys making music.

Of course I bought a T-shirt. I really wanted a brown one with an image of a dog and tiger face on it, but they didn't have any XL and I'm fat.   But I like this one a lot so it's all good.

Then Randy needed to go back to the merch booth to buy himself some ear plugs (nerd ) and guess what he came back with?

Isn't he a sweetie?  Let's just hope it's a LARGE large.  Or that I drop a significant amount of weight in my belly so I don't feel huge wearing it.

The kitties gave the T-shirts their seal of approval as soon as I put them on the table to take pictures of the shirts.  Silly kitties.

On the way home from the concert, there was a detour so we couldn't go the way we came, and we ended up lost in Southie for a few minutes. That was kind of scary.   But then I saw the Prudential in the distance, pointed us in that direction, and soon we were back on Mass Ave and onto 93 North, in time for a MASSIVE TRAFFIC JAM. Yeah, they were merging all four lanes of traffic into ONE lane. Fucking bastards.

It all worked out though and we got home fine.

And to round off my birthday celebration week, I had today off from work so I could sleep in. Of course I didn't though, I got up after Randy left for work (he had to go in today since it's month end- suck!) and did some work online (I know, but I'm behind!).

Now I'm going to put up my Halloween decorations. The party is going to be on October 29th, keep your calendars free!