So, moving right along. (This is all epic, by the way, so get comfortable.) At lunchtime, I was totally into heading to my favorite restaurant… McDonald's. Yes, it's sad, I know. But I looooooove McDonald's cheeseburgers. I actually snuck out of a vegan restaurant during a friend's birthday once to go have a Mickey D's burger instead… sad, isn't it? In any case, just as I was about to leave, my boyfriend showed up. He had taken a long lunch from work, and asked me where I wanted to go-annnnnnywhere I wanted, the sky's the limit. But alas, I had already worked myself up into a fixated frenzy, concentrating sooo hard on that burger-n-fries. And he was like, "Ok, but… well, your co-workers are gonna think I'm a cheap-ass for taking you to McDonald's on your birthday." "Have no fear, they are aware of my addiction," I said, and away we went.
Later in the day, my mom called me (as she always does) at 3:33pm, the time of my birth… with the same familiar announcement as I picked up the receiver: "Do you know where I was TWENty-FIVE years ago TODAY?!?" This year, she conferenced my dad in, too, so I got to open my cards from them while they were on the phone. And no, that's not a typo. Cardssssss. They sent me four. They were sequentially numbered, too, and I soon found out why… each one got funnier and had an increasing denomination of the numbers 2 and 5 in it. I was peein' my pants laughing, lemme tell ya. It was really great. They rock, man, my parents rock the house. That's right.
So, then, right before I was getting ready to leave, I was trying to finish up a Flash demo that I had been working on all day. I was totally engrossed in it, until I noticed that I was the only one singing and dancing in the office… in fact, I was the only one in the office. I looked around, and discovered my little office of twenty-five freaky-ass advertising people were huddled in our little (albeit very cool) conference room… They called me in, sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and gave me a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cake. I love Ben & Jerry's. In fact, I don't eat any other kind of ice cream EXCEPT Ben & Jerry's. Oh my, I was in heaven. I love my job.
So, then The Boy (aka, my boyfriend) showed up to pick me up from work. He'd been picking on me all week, saying we could "prolly hit a movie or rent sumthin' for yer birthday… or sumthin'." And when he picked me up, he said, "Listen, we can do whatever you want, but before we go home & drop off our stuff, I wanna hit that grocery store down here. The one where we can buy the good pasta." This is no uncommon occurrence; he's very picky about many, many things, and I've just learned to play along and humor him. "Right, honey, Skippy peanut butter is SO much different than Jif… mmmm-hmmm." In any case, we went over the grocery store, and said, "Now, where do they have it again?" I told him - since I'm in charge of navigation in this relationship - Aisle 3. And as we got over there, I saw my friend Jenn waiting there, looking inquisitively at potato starch. And then she saw me, and said, "Oh my, what on EARTH are you doing here?!?" I learned that it was my task to shop for my friends, and the merry band of us gathered right there in the store. We went on to meet up with more people at my favorite pottery store in the city - Our Name Is Mud - where you can also paint your own pottery. (Crap that reminds me - I gotta pick my mug up). We were transported back to fourth grade art class (and it wasn't a happy trip for all of us, was it, Jenn?!?) for a few hours. I painted a mug that said, "THIS IS MY BIG FREAKIN' BIRTHDAY MUG. WOOHOO! 1975 - 2000." Can't get any more obvious than that, huh?
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