happy birthday to me!!!

I used to not care much about birthdays.   It was just another day  in just another year.  However recently I have had a spat of friends that have put a lot more faith into birthdays than I do.  I'm starting to see their point.

It started with arranging birthdays for a few other people.  I really enjoy this aspect.  I like getting into the emotional nitty gritty of it all, cataloging the looks on the faces of gift recipients, basking in that moment when you know that you got everything just right.  Not to mention that the whisky fountain was quite exciting :-).  This got me thinking about other aspects.  For instance, if I was getting so much joy and satisfaction out of helping other people enjoy their birthdays, and those people believe in the magic of birthday moments, who am I to be a birthday Scrooge?

So, this birthday I resolved to put myself first for one day and to let others in my life have the satisfaction of making me feel special in their own way.  I was surprised by how difficult this was at first.  I felt guilty whenever anyone spent money on me or even went out of their way to wish me well.  In hindsight I'm not even sure  why I felt this guilt.   As the day progressed though I began to embrace the spirit of it it's been the best birthday ever!

I got amazing gifts, had amazing food, a baseball game is in the near future and I have the world's best friends, led by my amazing, wonderful, beautiful girl.   

Maybe the best part is the notes though.  I used to think that the facebook note's that flood in on your birthday were silly.  Why just one day?  Why just one line?  This year is different though.  I've taken it as a challenge.  I'm going to reply to all those notes.  If even ONE good conversation develops as a result it will be another magical moment, another wonderful birthday gift!

So, thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday.  I appreciate you all and look forward to a note in the future in return!  And please do enjoy your birthday when it comes round this year.  Let yourself be spoiled, let go, be happy, be you!  You deserve it!

Night of the Chicken Dead

For a friends birthday we all went out to Brookline last night for dinner at Zaftigs -the almost Kosher Jewish deli and then to see a midnight screening of the Troma film release of Poultrygeist, Night of the Chicken Dead...

Dinner was awesome. There is not much better than going out with friends of a similar intellect and imagination. Especially when that imagination tends to run along the lines of surviving zombie attacks. On the downside there was SO much good conversation that I didn't really even know where to start paying attention... overload!

Conversation snippets that I caught:
• "I've seen so many zombie movies at this point that a group of zombies could walk by outside right now and I would be like 'oh, zombies' whatever.' Then I would be like 'wait those were zombies!'"
• A great deal of time was spent arguing (good naturedly) about how to save the economy
• Spam (the food) ... as per usual... came up more than once, including a grand plan for a spam focused restaurant and carving boats out of spam, filling them with deviled egg mixture and giving them little sails made of bacon
• A great deal else
Birthday gifts included an entire book filled with zombie haiku.

We expected the movie to be terrible... terrible... terrible...
It was indeed infinitely terrible. Enough said. Check out the preview at the bottom of this page.
Thanks everyone for an awesome evening!