Tag: Birthday

Birthday Party

The birthday party last night went off without a hitch. In fact, it might have been the best one I’ve thrown. I’m not quite sure why, but everyone who came stayed until the end, and everyone was talking with everyone else, which seems like a sure sign of a good party. A little oddly, everyone suddenly decided to leave around 10:30 (the party started at 7:00) – it’s only odd because literally everyone left at the same time (save for a couple of folks who left slightly earlier).

Shortly before the party Debbi and I debated who would be the first to show up. I put my proverbial money on Josh, who’s usually pretty punctual, but I should have put my money on Chris, who only lives a block away and who arrived just a little after 7! I think Josh was fourth.

I always tell people they don’t need to bring gifts to my party, but Chris brought one anyway – sort of. He gave me five packs of arguably the worst Magic expansion ever made, Homelands. He said he’ll have won if any of the cards ever show up in my decks at his Monday night Magic sessions. There were actually a couple of not-too-sucky cards in the packs (Abbey Gargoyles could be useful in our metagame), but yeah, it was a pretty weak set of cards. I told him I might be more likely to put the note he included with the packs in one of my decks!

I don’t throw many parties – pretty much just my birthday party once a year – and I always worry that we’ll try to cram too many people into our relatively-little house. There are always a few people I’d like to invite but I’m wary of going overboard (there are also always a few people I don’t think of until the day of the party, so my apologies if I left you out!). In fact, we managed to fill all our chairs and still have a few people standing or sitting on the floor, but we weren’t quite packed together, which was good. Getting through the living room without stepping on someone was a feat, though. I believe we had 13 people show up, plus me and Debbi.

As usual I picked up cakes from the Prolific Oven, and ice cream from Rick’s, and it all went over well. Rick’s is one of the best-kept-secrets in the south bay, it often seems, and I’m always happy to introduce new people to their yummy treats.

The cats retreated upstairs when the first people showed up, as usual, but three of them came downstairs to check people out. Newton in particular examined everyone’s shoes, getting a good sniff since they were all laid out in front of the hall closet. Jefferson needed a little encouragement to come down, but eventually sat and watched from the stairs. Blackjack is becoming our social cat, as he made the rounds several times.

My friend Cliff showed up about 10 minutes after the party ended – he’d had another commitment not too far from us, but it didn’t wrap up until after we did. But he hung out for a bit and we caught up on his holiday adventures and vice versa.

All-in-all, a very fun party.

Today we had a quiet day mostly at home, although I did go out to get my hair cut. Debbi kind of wanted to go out and do something, mainly because although she feels okay she’s dealing with an annoying cough and she’s just plain tired of being sick. After our very busy weekend last weekend, I was happy to have a day at home, and she didn’t push very hard since it’s my birthday weekend. We watched football, did some reading, and I came upstairs to pay bills and build some new Magic decks this evening. 🙂

This has been a pretty low key birthday, but I actually feel really good about it. It’s been a fun weekend all around, except maybe for the complex fire alarm we had to deal with yesterday (but it turned out to be nothing). I hope next year’s is just as good!

Forty-One

Age 41 doesn’t feel very different from the day before age 41, other than that my birthday falls on a weekend this year. None of the angst that accompanied turning forty (not that I was crying in my beer, you understand). The most awkward thing about 41 is coming up with a witty title for the Evite invitation for my party tonight; I expect next year will be easier.

Other than preparing for the party, today will be a pretty normal day. I actually have a couple of chores to work on outside today, because I want to get them done (or at least make some headway) before the rains set in tomorrow (we’re expected to get 8 inches of rain in the next week). Debbi baked scones (from Iveta) for me this morning, and I talked to my Dad for 45 minutes. But, well, for the most part birthdays aren’t very different from other days, at least, not at my age.

And that’s fine.

Birthday Weekend

I can’t complain about my birthday weekend: It’s been packed full of fun stuff.

Friday night Debbi took me out to dinner. We went to Sundance the Steakhouse, a local place that we’d never been to before, but which we discovered through the discount cards we get through our workplaces. (We’ve actually discovered several good places through them.) It was very yummy! They have an elegant decor with wood panelling and display cases of what I assume are memorabilia from Stanford, which is just down the street. We each ordered a steak dinner, with an appetizer of potato skins. Good stuff! We’ll definitely go back.

At home we watched 3 more episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and we’re now nearly caught up.

And that wrapped up my birthday proper.

Saturday we ran a variety of errands in order to host my birthday party in the evening. As always I didn’t send out the invitations until quite late – Wednesday evening. With my birthday falling so soon after Christmas it’s always hard to get myself to put it together early. I also have a hard time figuring out whom to invite. I worry about having so many people over that we won’t have space to cram them all into our house, but on the other hand I also consider inviting some people I know casually, enjoy hanging out with, but wonder if they’d feel peculiar that I invited them to my birthday party. Debbi encouraged me to invite more rather than fewer people, so that’s what I did. And then of course, there’s always some obvious person that I forget until a day or two later.

Anyway, despite my worries and despite the short notice, we had plenty of people show up. Which is itself rather flattering: I have lots of friends! Some folks I hadn’t seen in a while showed up, too, such as Lucy, Trish, and Mark & Yvette.

People were mesmerized by a frustrating puzzle that Debbi’s father sent her for Christmas: I think we managed to identify all the OCD people in the room with it. And our friends Lisa and Michael brought their daughter Isabella, who is now walking, and who loves cats. I guess she was able to pet Blackjack at one point, which left her completely delighted. She’s become quite the little flirt. Subrata and Susan brought over Ajay, who’s not yet crawling, but who seemed pretty happy to see all the people. He’s going to be quite the little charmer himself.

After consuming the USDA-mandated quantities of cake and ice cream, everyone staggered off home. But we had a great time. Even the cats had fun!

Today we headed off to Half Moon Bay for brunch and an hour walk along the seashore: It’s been quite warm here recently, so it was perfect weather for it. Then we came home and sat around watching football and putting the house back together.

I couldn’t really have asked for a much better weekend. How was yours?

Forty

My Mom sent me an e-mail this morning that began, “I know what I was doing 40 years ago. I also know what you were doing, probably crying. Well, we both made it this far.”

I have mixed feelings about reaching the big four-oh. On the one hand I lead a comfortable life, I enjoy my job, I have a great girlfriend, great friends, and more to do with my time than I have time. And I still have all my fingers.

On the other hand, the older I get the more I feel like certain things are slipping away from me. It’s unlikely I’ll have a significant writing career at this point (and there’s a whole post I could do about my writing skills, aspirations, and failures), and I regret that my drawing skills have lain fallow over the last 15 years.

Of course, there are also things that I feel like I “should” have done, such as travelled more widely, but I don’t really regret not having done because they’re not things I’m really into.

Age 40 is something of a landmark age: If you haven’t had kids yet and want to, you’re probably thinking seriously about getting moving on it. On the other hand, if you had kids in your early 20s, then they’re starting to head off to college around this time. 40 is an upper bound for even most world-class athletes to compete at the highest level, so what about the rest of us? Not to mention that in past centuries, many people were lucky even to make it this far. Those factors, combined with it being a round number which our monkey-brains like to treat as something special, make this birthday a little melancholy for me.

But I really shouldn’t be gloomy about it, because really things are pretty good. Turning 30 seems like it was a long time ago now, so I have lots of time ahead of me, too. And maybe I’ll get to some of that stuff over the next decade.

Plus, I managed to keep my birthday under wraps and it looks like I’ll escape being suddenly embarrassed by all my cow-orkers today, the way we embarrassed my friend James on his last birthday. Thank goodness!

Sure I wouldn’t mind being 30 again. But this ain’t bad.

Mini-Birthday Party

I decided not to throw myself a full birthday party this year. With everything I’ve been doing, I just felt like chilling this weekend and watching the football playoffs rather than putting in the effort to host a party. (Maybe when it gets warmer I’ll throw a “just for the heck of it” party.)

However, since my birthday fell on Wednesday this year, last night a bunch of us gathered at Subrata and Susan’s house for gaming night, and Debbi went by the Prolific Oven and picked up a couple of my favorite cakes, as well as ice cream. Chad’s wife Camille brought some homemade ice cream as well. Ten people showed up and we polished off most of the cake.

I bought a copy of Blokus a week ago, having enjoyed playing it on New Year’s, and I brought that along and we played a round before cake. Despite having not played it before, Chad ended up running away with the game, making some excellent blocking moves. (I came in third, not being helped by the fact that the other three players all seemed to make blocking me out a priority. I do well at seeing available moves, but I don’t have the blocking part of the game down.)

After cake we played a game of Union Pacific, which I often term “The best game I own that Subrata doesn’t also own.” I somehow managed to pick up the majority stake in the Union Pacific “super-railroad”, which ended up being enough to claim overall victory despite Chad making a late run and nearly catching me. The final scoring-round card ended up being on the very bottom of the deck, probably making this the longest UP game we’ve played. Nonetheless it’s still a nifty game in that it only took 2 hours for us to finish (maybe less).

Susan also gave me a birthday present: A print of a painting in a series by Sarah Clemens, who is doing a series (and writing a book) about a couple raising a cat and a dragon together. (Specifically, they gave me a copy of Shaking Hands. They have a copy of Joyride themselves.) I’ll have to frame it and put it up.

This was just the sort of birthday party I wanted this year, something low-key and simple with my friends. I’ve thanked Debbi repeatedly for putting it together. I really appreciated it.

Another Trip Around the Sun Completed

Today I’m 39 years old!

Where does the time go?

For my birthday, Debbi bought me a Mosquito RC helicopter, which I spent some time flying around last night. Roulette and Newton were both fascinated by it. I managed to get it hovering pretty good, but wasn’t so good at moving it where I wanted it to go. Practice practice! I’m impressed with how long a charge of its battery pack lasts – it gave me a good long time to figure out some of the basics (like “don’t run into the ceiling”).

Dad, meanwhile, bought me the James Bond Ultimate Collector’s Set, which will keep me busy for a while. Plus, now I can finally see the two Pierce Brosnan Bond films I haven’t yet seen in their entirety!

Turning 39 doesn’t feel much different from those other late-30s years. We’ll see how I feel when I turn 40. Mostly I think I should go to Hawaii or something for my 40th, since I have some friends who are already 40 who have been marking the days until they can give me a hard time on my own 40th. So it’d be good to escape from all that! 🙂

Thirty-Eight

If it’s January 16, then I must be another year older! I turn 38 today, which is probably more amazing to only my parents than it is to me!

20 years ago I was mid-way through my senior year of high school. 16 years ago today the US launched Operation Desert Storm, thus making me profoundly worried that we’d institute a draft and I’d end up in the armed forces (it’s hard to imagine a career with which I’d be less well matched). 8 years ago I was more-or-less on the path to coming to California to work at Apple. Did I expect to still be there 8 years later? I probably didn’t think about it that way at the time.

This year seems to be off to a good start: I’ve been feeling generally upbeat and in an unusually silly range of moods (even for me). I must be feeling pretty comfortable with where my life is these days, and what I’m doing with it. You can’t put a price tag on that!