Birthdays

Happy Birthday Billy!

My friend Billy is celebrating a milestone birthday today, and I can’t be there to help, darn it. I could bake some lemon squares, and we could drink some tequila—I guess it could be Cuervo Gold for old time’s sake, but why be ceremonious. Speaking of tequila, sometimes I might be trying to enjoy mine, and I look around and realize no one is really challenging me (are you? you could!) or that Billy is pouring out every other shot, because he’s smart, and he still doesn’t weigh that much. But then, I’m not forty yet. I wonder if I will start to be more like Billy as I age. I hope so. In the year ahead, I am going to try to be freer with my hugs and emotions, buy a bar, watch baseball*, and let my back hair grow out again. Whoot!

*weather permitting

Japanese Vending, Jethro Tull, Special Peanuts

When I was very young and knew more about the world (or however Bob Dylan said it), I decided it would be a good idea to work in the travel agency at UVA, mentoring students who didn’t realize they could play beer pong in Europe or that Japanese vending machines dispensed pornography. One excuse I would like to offer for persuading one of my best friends to come work there with me for what seemed like about a year (do you care, LinkedIn?) sitting in a basement office listening to Jethro Tull, was that I believed we were going to end up doing a lot of jetsetting as soon as our IATA cards were approved by Head Office. I didn’t yet realize that being a travel agent wasn’t anywhere near as good as having an American Express Platinum Card for getting hotel room upgrades or imagining strangers admire you. It was all wasted on John anyway. I think he has always gotten things for free. Why is that?

It seems awfully linear to mention this, but only in the sense that I’m picking up a thread from my last post–it has nothing at all to do with the last paragraph, except insofar as the parties have met: It’s starting to look like I might not make it back to Concord Mall for hats before the weekend, when I have my next two birthday celebrations. If you are Katie or Stevie, and you love a surprise, you might want to stop reading this.
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So the good news is, even though, thanks to the snow, I will likely not be able to buy trucker hats for either of the above from Spencer Gifts–and I was kind of wanting to boycott anyway, because last time they were out of “I ❤️ the old Latin mass”–I was able to make each one a cupcake today. They are an homage to Christine’s birthday cupcakes from last week, with the same dark chocolate cake, chocolate ganache center, marshmallow buttercream frosting, and salted caramel drizzle (perfect for those avoiding sugar). I added candied peanuts this time, to commemorate the very special milestone birthdays we’re celebrating this weekend. Can peanuts be said to be wizened? No, no–I’m sure that’s not the word I meant to use.

Four Birthdays, Pfefferbeisser, Concord Mall

I’ve been learning to release my fascia, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that I’m becoming more open in other ways too. I’m finding, for instance, that with the right attitude, you can learn to enjoy other people’s birthdays just as much as your own. Tons of my friends have birthdays right now—what is it about, would it be May? June?–so I’ve been trying to think of creative ways to celebrate with them in this shitty weather. Damn it. I’ve been using too much unladylike language recently. I dropped a jar of whole grain mustard on the floor on Sunday, and what was going to be the perfect post-run avocado toast* ended up going limp while I cleaned up, so I said several of the best HBO words right in a row. “You know those are French words,” I told my children, but they had already learned them from their cousin.

When I was trying to feel Christine out a little bit about how she’d like to celebrate her birthday, she did this gently patronizing thing I’ve watched her do with other people, where she is so clearly not wanting to go along with whatever they’re proposing, but she lets them go ahead and give their whole pitch anyway. Ha! Chumps! Shoot, I didn’t know it could work on me, but I learned several days later that she really did not want to spend her birthday watching me sing karaoke. Anyway–and I’m pretty sure I had nothing to do with this, because if I had, I would have called ahead to order a whole suckling pig for the table–the next thing I knew we were all at Brauhaus Schmitz, drinking large beers and tiny glasses of fennel schnapps, and eating everything on the menu I thought I might enjoy trying to pronounce: Kartoffelpuffer. Apfelmus. Flammkuchen.

Oh, you know, now I’m remembering the non-fennel schnapps at the end of the night that no one else was enough of a German literature major to drink. One of Jay’s friends handed that to me, which reminds me that we were celebrating his birthday too, which is at least one of the reasons a big cool group of P.A.s showed up on their way out to [the discotheque?]. Yes, because I remember Jay was definitely not wearing the birthday hat we bought him at Concord Mall, but he will have plenty of chances. And now that I’ve been there, well beyond the shoeshine place, I’m thinking I might go back to Concord Mall for more hats. Because if you’re counting, you may notice I have two more birthdays to mention. TBC…

*trendy and delicious