The Kick-off

According to my grandmother, my mother has always been an advocate of "the Birthday Week". A person shouldn't just get to feel special for one day -- we need to stretch the celebration out. After all, every child of God is a unique and remarkable creature, right?

Well, my birthday week officially started on Thursday, when some of my co-workers took me to lunch. I chose Romano's Macaroni Grill, and invited two awesome women from IT, Cindy and Kim, to join Beth, Michele, Emily (who are all in my department), and me. The waiter was kind of slow -- we probably ought not to have taken a two hour lunch. But we ate our delicious food and chatted. It was nice! Beth was kind enough to treat me, and encouraged me to even get a dessert, which our waiter put a candle in so I could make a wish. It occurred to me that my birthday wish from last year totally came true. I usually don't remember what they are, but that one was rather special to me, so now I take great stock in the wish. I may make a different one on my actual birthday, though. Is it allowed to make a different wish if I have multiple cakes? Hope so. I'm doing it anyway!

The group all sang "Happy Birthday", and then the hostess sang it again in Italian... she changed keys about three times which made my smile kind of freeze on my face, but it was still a lovely song. She was singing for me! It's my birthday week! Woo-hoooooo!

And you better believe I finished that huge slice of chocolate cake... even if it was at 1 a.m...

After lunch, Beth, Michele, Emily and I briefly toured a Halloween costume store. That's a fun thing about my birthday: it heralds the approaching holiday! We laughed about the slutty female costumes (they even had slutty costumes for young teen girls, which is sad), and the funny and well-made guy costumes. These were not your plastic-bag-with-a-mask deals they had when I was a kid (thank goodness my mom hand-made all my costumes). Meanwhile, I may need to buy some fake eyelashes with feathers on them. Sleeping Beauty would totally wear feathered eyelashes, right?

Hooray! It's my birthday week!

me, Wendi, Michele and Beth last month at the Cheesecake Factory