Golden

Internet, it was my birthday last week, and it was lovely thanks to a lot of family and friends. I think it started out in a pretty entertaining way thanks to some co-workers, who brought home that whole "you live in a zoo" concept by giving me animal crackers. But to make it easier on me now that I'm an old lady, they gave me junior mints to keep me young...I'm not sure if I should tell myself that they're super thoughtful fellow laborers? Or that they just visited the vending machines down the hall from our offices. Because on the one hand, they don't really care about me...but on the other hand, they think I'm a monkey and smell like one, too. (And Ed, since I know you're probably reading this, I won't even begin to talk about that "birthday card" you got me.)

Anyway.

There was something new this year (besides the actual number being a new one). I had candles three times that day (thankfully no one tried to put the full number of candles into anything):

Breakfast (courtesy of my roommate K)

Lunch with cousin R followed a showing of Inception, a movie I enjoyed thoroughly and think everyone should go see

Trying to keep my eyes open for once!
(p.s. how convenient is it that my birthday is on national cheesecake day? Very convenient, that's what, especially since calories don't count on one's birthday)


And dinner at Muffuletta, my favorite restaurant (with my dad in this picture - see where I get the quick reflexes from? Too bad I forgot to take a picture of the desserts with the actual third set of candles)

Other parts of my birthday were very nice, too, as lots of kind people remembered and wished me well.

Birthday gift from the rowing side of life (from J, via M): Oh, Grasshopper Club, how I do love your team logo

Birthday gift from the parents: a Harp
(Well, this is a book of music to learn how to play it...in the meantime, my dad has to build me my harp. I'm pretty excited about this gift...but the card, Internet? Apparently my dad now thinks he gets to make fun of how old I am...how wrong is that?!)

Another gift: a ticket to the Lowertown Music Festival on Saturday night (the violinist had a hard time keeping her instrument in tune, what with all the humidity and heat - but it was pretty fun)

Enjoying some outdoor music (and painting!) with K

And the celebration continued into Sunday:

Sunday brunch with E, a classic

Internet, I had a great weekend. It was a good golden birthday.