Journal blinder's Journal: My Birthday: Revenge Is Sweet? 21

gene wilder, sielwolf, jacques cousteau and myself all have the same birthday (june 11 for those keeping score at home). anyway, a typical birthday for me, over the last many years has been... a card... perhaps from my ex... but for the most part birthdays come and go with little or no acknowledgment. i got used to it... and then i came to accept that then appreciate it.

well, this all changed yesterday.

revenge was on the dragon's mind. revenge for the california trip. she took it upon herself to change what my concept of what birthday meant. i was summoned to boston.

saturday morning was spent helping do last minute preparations and receiving birthday cards... the next thing, around mid morning was that i was told we have to leave immediately to go on an "adventure." we drove to the train station... paid for a parking spot and made like we had to catch a train... all the while sol had this huge grin on her face. i had no idea what was on her mind... but i knew something was up. we walked across the parking lot and got to the entrance of the train station and out walks buffer-overflowed!!!! holy crap! i couldn't believe it! sol flew buffer in just for my birthday! i was just completely blown away!

so, from the train station i was told we have to run another errand. okay... fine, lets do that. to central square. after making a few wrong turns and going through harvard square a few times... i made it to central square where we ended up at pancho's house! pancho baked me a chocolate cake!!! OMG!!! by this time i was just completely off my rocker.

we drove back to sol's apartment and finished making preparations "for company." i wasn't told anything more than that. i cleaned... buffer helped take garbage out while sol frosted a cake she baked, made us a pizza and cream of mushroom soup (all of my favorites btw). i was commissioned to put a dent in the dishes, which i was doing when i heard an additional voice come from the living room... umm... who is that?

i come out of the kitchen to see sielwolf!!! Wow!!! sol flew in sielwolf for my birthday!

we all just kinda hung out in the living chatting about random stuff... while i helped sol get things ready... serving the pizza and soup and oh yeah... i don't think i mentioned the poached pears with the cherries. i need to take a moment here to talk about poached pears. if you have never had poached pears... stop now... find a recipe and do it now. its okay... i'll wait.

good eh? "good" isn't the word to describe these pears. i swear... i do NOT know why people do crack or H when you have treats like poached pears.

so... anyway, back to the shindig. it was approaching 2pm when there is a knock at the door... it was daoine! she stopped by just for my birthday! how cool is that? everyone was introduced and well... when daoine makes the scene... she has a tendency to liven things up just a tad. the poached pears were consumed *rapidly* when there was another knock at the door... about 30 minutes later... it was pancho!! yay!! wow! an entire apartment full of friends... for my birthday. how... completely unusual... and wonderful. i've never known this before. not even a little.

there is an important thing to note here. this was my first actual birthday party so when the cake came out, it had but a single candle (not the 32 to represent each year). this was my first birthday.

after pizza and cake was consumed (both cakes... remember the cake pancho baked? yeah... that was not just your average chocolate cake... it was a chocolate truffle transformers cake. it had the autobot insignia stenciled on the top... with chocolate circuit board piping decorations... yeah pancho is *that* amazing) and watching pancho and buffer play with the party hats (yes, party hats) we all wanted to relax to a little Mystery Science Theater 3000.

buffer quickly... and i do mean quickly... fell asleep... i mean out like a light. the crazy kid went and had about two hours of sleep prior to flying up saturday morning (at 6am). sielwolf didn't last that much longer... he was out like a light as well... pancho had other plans that evening and took his leave... it was simply a wonderful thing having him over. i likes teh pancho.

so... with a sleeping sielwolf on one end of the couch and a sleeping buffer on the other... sol and i just watched the MST and chatted about birthdays. i was and still am very appreciative of the amazing amount of effort and consideration that went into this. even now thinking about it just overwhelms me. did i mention there were seven birthday cards? all spaced out about over the course of the day. completely splendid.

after a couple hours... sielwolf came to, and so did buffer... we all chatted about music and other random stuff (trust me, when you put buffer and sielwolf in the same room... i do mean random... its amazing). it was getting late and sol had burned through all of her spoons including those in reserve so i drove sielwolf to the train station so he could get to his hotel room.

i just have to say that this birthday was something i will never forget. to have my friends fly 400 miles away just so they could hang out with me on this day, and to have sol go through the effort to make everything go without flaw and smoothly and comfortably just simply leaves me utterly speechless. i do not know what to say... other than "thank you."

thank you

i received an education on how things are supposed to go on your birthday. that its more than just a day... that it is a day where your friends and family appreciate you. i never really knew that. oh sure, my mom always wanted to make my birthday's special, but from the age of 13 on, she was just never strong enough to really do anything, and i simply lacked the interest to do anything myself. yeah... that has changed. i get it now. i get it because sol had the patience to teach me. its pretty amazing to have such amazingly good and wonderful friends. again, something i haven't known a lot of... but am really and truly learning the value of.

so this birthday will go down as a learning experience and a reminder that having good friends is worth the investment of yourself in cultivating that. it really is.

oh yeah... did i also mention i wore a crown the entire day? yep. i sure did :)