.38 Special

I celebrated my 38^th birthday this week.

My mom wanted to take me out to lunch the day of; so, I recommended The Pines Tavern in Bristol. And when our waitress asked if I wanted a 6-ounce or a 10-ounce patty for my burger, I innocently said, "Oh, I guess I'll do the 10: I'm celebrating my birthday." ...And she brought me a complimentary piece of, like, quintuple chocolate cake for dessert—because that's just what my stomach needed after killing a 10-ounce burger :)

Be Excellent to Each Other

The rest of the day and evening were relatively low-key: Since my birthday happened to fall on our laundry day—and we had already planned to have the "party proper" on Saturday—we pretty much treated it like an ordinary night.

Athennia made chicken alfredo with penne pasta for dinner, then gave me the gift which she had hinted weeks earlier was "something you've raved about on numerous occasions since I met you."

I purposely hadn't put too much effort into trying to figure it out and spoil the surprise; but, even still, I couldn't imagine what that might be. And then, incidentally, she and I were talking one night last week, I confessed with a laugh that the only thing I could think of that I had mentioned to her numerous times with high praise was a monthly newsletter that a top mentor of mine publishes.

I never suspected that that was actually the gift; and so, I was thoroughly surprised on the evening of my birthday, when Athennia revealed that she and Riley had gifted me a one-year subscription to Free Man's Perspective | Parallel Society :)

Party On, Dude

Then yesterday, we celebrated with Kelly, Steve, Olivia, Hannah, and my parents. We had a bit of time to kill while we waited for the pizza to arrive; so, we all got to visit... and I may or may not have encouraged Liv to run, jump, stomp, cartwheel, and do triple backflips off the couch to pay back the assclowns downstairs for their shenanigans as of late ;)

I tried to get a shot of all the ladies, but it turned out that Liv just wanted to slink out of the frame to go eat the chunk of watermelon she had snagged. (Why eat a nice, drippy slice of watermelon at the boring old kitchen table, when my cream-colored couch is just a few feet away in the living room; right, Stinks?)

I have no idea where the molerat was for those pictures, either. (But, check it out: I got a pretty sweet picture of Athennia's Linux laptop!)

Then Liv went off with the molerat to check out her room: Riley's a teenager now, after all; so, she has a kickass teenager bedroom. And luckily, she hasn't yet put away all of her childish things; so, she was able to unearth some crayons so she and Liv could color together...

No Time Like the Presents

Athennia and Riley hadn't given me a card on my actual birthday; so, I knew I still had one of those coming... and they did not disappoint!

If you've watched Letterkenny, you'll appreciate the reference. Otherwise you'll have no idea...

Stinks didn't quite get the concept of it being someone else's birthday, but I was happy to enlist her help in opening my other cards.

I had already suspected that Kelly, Steve, and my parents were giving me books... mainly because it was just last month that I sent them some Amazon links and said...

Hey, these software-engineering books I want are deeply discounted at half price right now; but, I literally just spent $300 on other books and can't really justify buying any more right now. So, if you guys need a birthday idea for me, there you go ;)

...But, Kelly surprised me and said "their" book was just from Steve and the girls: She had made me something else... and she did not disappoint either!

One last card (and book) to open from my parents...

...and then it was time for cake.

Let Them Eat Cake

If you know anything at all about me, it's probably that I'm a lifelong, card-carrying member of the Funfetti Cake Forever Club. Even a few years ago when, due to Covid shortages, my mom could only find a funfetti kit themed after rainbows and unicorns, I told her flat-out...

If you think I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality and my love for funfetti cake that I would risk looking like I'm leading a gay furry pride parade in order to eat it... then you're absolutely right ;)

So, even though I've recently discovered—upon pooling all our photos taken during my party—that we collectively managed to take exactly zero pictures of the cake or our devourment of it, you can be sure it was a funfetti... and that it was GD delicious!

And then—since we're quite sensitive to ensuring that we never act like neighbors from hell—our wild, crazy party was over by 7:00 P.M. But, of course, when the downstairs street trash returned home a couple hours later, they naturally started right in with the club music and the excessive carrying on... because that's what you do when you're living in a society: act like complete assclowns with no regard for anyone.

Fear not though: I have a sneaking suspicion that this behavior will soon come back to bite them in the ass!

(...And that may or may not be the result of some additional insight I have, authoring this post a full month late. But, hey... it's my party, and I'll scry if I want to!)