It Wasn't a Pony; Or, Was It?

Well, then... we're another month into this new year, and that means that I had another birthday.

I turned 39, which means I'm now just one year away from being officially old and crusty.

Anyway, Athennia worked crazy overtime this past week; so, when she finally hit 86 hours just after noon on Friday, she decided to call it quits and clock out for the day.

She knew she had to stop at the grocery store on her way home, to pick up a box of "funfetti" cake mix to bake for tomorrow night's party before she swung by her mom's to grab Taylor for tonight's party.

But she wasn't anticipating our GIANT being fresh out of funfetti icing, and so she ended up driving around to three stores before she finally found some.

Then Taylor said she wanted to stop somewhere to get a present for me; so they made a pit-stop at Gabe's to do some quick last-minute shopping.

By the time they actually got to the apartment, it was essentially as if Athennia had just worked a full day.

Riley and Athennia are not so great downright terrible in the waiting until the right time to give or receive a gift department; and so Riley had already given me her gift nearly a week prior.

But Taylor presented hers—and the ladies gave me a card—and then it was time to feast like royalty.

It seems that "Kevin" here was judging my birthday choices...

But, see... The King doesn't care about anyone's opinion.

Until the unwashed masses are outside his castle door with their torches and pitchforks, he just does what he wants.

The gift bag insisted that it wasn't a pony...

But, dinner was from Burger King—and who can say for sure that the amount of horse meat in a fast-food burger is a perfect 0% every single time?

So, I mean... I think it's fair to say that there's at least some small chance that I actually did get a pony for my birthday; right?

After a few solid months of Riley letting us get some nice, normal pictures of her—lower half of her face and all—she suddenly rebooted after a system update and found herself back in Not by the Hairs on My Chinny-Chin-Chin mode...

But, for now? Let them eat cake...

After the four of us polished off my little surprise cake, Athennia shooed me away to the bedroom so she could get cracking on making my actual cake.

I think the instructions on the box say to bake it for 25-35 minutes; so, imagine my surprise when she was still slaving away at it three hours later.

And, I wouldn't find out why until the following night.

Saturday evening, we headed over to my parents' house for my family party.

But of course, the sucky thing about being king is that the peasants are always bugging you for stuff...

Nagging you. Begging. Coveting everything you have for themselves.

See? Just look at this little peon here...

It was all getting to be a bit much; so I did the only sensible thing.

I abdicated...

...and I'm happier for it :)

One of the stipulations of my renouncing my position though, was that everyone still had to pay me the full tribute they had brought along!

So, Riley got me Baker Creek's 2024 "Whole Seed Catalog"—which is a bit more than just your everyday seed catalog, being packed with all sorts of sowing and reaping tips, recipes, and other cool information. And Taylor gave me a bee-themed lazy susan that complements our bee-themed decor...

Liv was of course Queen now, and she demanded that I open her card first.

It was hard to argue with that: Who wants to be drawn and quartered on his birthday?!

Next up was Kelly and Steve's card, which claimed that my birthday was "a seriously important occasion"—and yet, photographic evidence of the moment would later show their entire family (except Steve) focusing their attention elsewhere as I opened it!

Yeah, well... you won't be sayin' that when you see what we got you. And also, I was only teaching the girls how to do The Wave in your honor. See?

— Kelly

Then was my parents' card...

Dear son,

Even though the grandkids all get a silver ducat on their birthdays, you're just getting a check to draw some phony funny-money from an arbitrary account in our Rothschildian fractional-reserve sham of a banking system.

Love, Mom and Dad

And finally, it was time for Kitten's gifts... and I had heard rumors that they would be plentiful.

First up was a quartet of Teenage Mutant Ninja Renaissance Artists...

The guy who makes these explained that he prints them onto pages from vintage dictionaries, so that each piece is effectively unique among any and all other versions that might ever exist.

If we ever get a house, these will look stellar on the wall in my office...

Things took a slightly dark turn at this point, however, when my dad momentarily mistook the picture of Raphael for a picture of Riley (mind you, from all the way across two tables, and lacking the context of the other three pics I hadn't yet opened).

We all laughed and acknowledged Raphael's decidedly feminine presence and demeanor... but then we realized that Riley had run to the bathroom and was crying because she had misinterpreted the whole ordeal as, "Oh my God; they must all think I'm totally UGLY if they think I look like THAT guy!"

So, Athennia and Kelly went back to try to straighten things out and explain the actual sentiments that we had expressed:

It wasn't at all the case that we were saying Riley looks like Raphael, but rather that Raphael straight-up looks like a teenaged girl—which Riley happens to be. (Hence, from across the table, Ron thought he was seeing a picture of a teenaged girl, and the rest of us were sort of like, "Yeah; you know? You're not wrong.")

Kel—what's the verdict? Just a tad on the dainty side, would you say?

Exactly.

What was next?

Unlike with the Zelda II wall art that I'd already known I was getting from Kelly and Steve, I was thoroughly not expecting a matching map of the game's overworld from Athennia!

I thought it was awesome; but, apparently, Liv was less than impressed...

For a split second, it had looked like Liv was threatening to be a real Kevin and judge my birthday choices; but, having used compelling arguments to make my case, I think I swayed her over to my side.

See?

Look how intrigued she was all of a sudden! Like, she totally wants to play the crap out of this game now.

Somewhere around this point, Kelly told me I was "the slowest present-opener of all time."

Right.

So, I told Kelly to cram it up her cramhole, because I still had one more present to open.

Not just any books though!

These are hardcover first editions of the first three novels from what will eventually be a series of seven—autographed by one of my long-time mentors Doug Casey and his co-author John Hunt :)

I read each of these within days of their initial publication, but that was back when they were only for sale as paperbacks.

If we ever get a house, these will look great on one of the bookshelves in my office :)

Little did any of us know that Athennia had baked a triple-decker funfetti cake (and some cupcakes)!

My mom decided to extol the virtues of excluding everybody else, and started a private game of Candyland with just Liv...

Looks like it backfired on her though...

Moving along to Sunday, Athennia had made plans to drop Riley and Taylor off at the mall for a couple hours so that she and I could have an afternoon to ourselves.

Then when she went to pick them up later, she got Chinese food from Mister Wok in the food court for all of us for dinner.

And later in the evening, I helped Taylor with a bunch of algebra assignments and some questions about a few scenes from Hamlet.

After work on Monday, Athennia stopped by Lou's to help Taylor make a phone call to activate her health insurance—although this ended up being fruitless when the call dropped just after the insurance center's business hours ended (but naturally before the person on the other end had given them a case number that would let them pick up where they left off, next time they called in).

We had fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes for dinner, and Athennia and I enjoyed a quiet evening together after Riley retreated to her room to play Fortnite with Kassie.

Then, starting around 10:00 P.M., Taylor began calling Athennia's phone repeatedly. (Athennia wakes up for work at 4:30 A.M.; so 10:00 at night is decidedly not an appropriate time to call unless someone is dying.)

Finally Taylor resorted to the time-worn "I'll just proxy through Riley" trick—prompting Riley to come knock on our door to let us know that Taylor had been trying to get in touch.

Well, who died?

Nobody?!

Weird! Didn't see that one coming.

It turned out that Lou and Taylor had no food in their household... and, being only 69 and 19 years old, how could they be expected to know how to rectify such a problem on their own?

Athennia offered a few simple solutions: GIANT was open for another hour...

Wawa and Taco Bell were just around the corner...

Domino's pizzas start around $7 a pie...

And ultimately? This was not an insurmountable problem, and we would not be treating it as such.

On Tuesday the 6^th, Athennia stopped to do a BJs run on her way home from work to stock up on some supplies for the house. By the time she finally got home, neither of us felt like cooking or waiting for a home-cooked meal; so she suggested we treat ourselves to Qdoba (with a pit-stop at McDonald's to pick up some McSponge nuggets for Riley).

But, happy belated birthday to me :)