Birthday Week Shenanigans

As most of you who read this already know, my birthday was last month.

It. Was. Awesome.

It was on a Monday (which kinda sucks), and I had to work (which kinda sucked), but our Project Coordinator brought in doughnuts!

The Boy was instructed to surprise me--I didn't care what he did or got me, but I wanted him to put effort into it. I wanted the time capital. When I told The Boy and Superman that I had asked my parents for a massage and even sent them a link for a Groupon that magically appeared in my inbox minutes later, Superman accused me of being unnecessarily harsh by instructing The Boy to come up with something special. I told them that my parents had already come up with plenty of special ideas for my birthdays past. The Boy said, somewhat grudgingly, "Dude, it's a test." I don't like to think of it that way, but whatever, if it was, he passed.

He picked me up (major points, I usually meet him at his apartment and we carpool from there because it's on the way to wherever we're going 95% of the time, and mine would be in the opposite direction, which it was in this instance). He took me to dinner at a nice restaurant downtown. We had a really nice time and I was very pleased.

Then, the real kicker--he had gotten us tickets to see the live stream of "One Man, Two Guvnors" from the London National Theatre (featuring the original, Tony-winning cast) that was playing at a local theatre. He took the time to find something that was so me that I would really enjoy. The show started out a little rough--we weren't sure it was going to be good for the first 5-10 minutes, but it picked up pretty quickly. It ended up being hilarious, and we were really glad we got to see it. He did so well, and everyone was so impressed that he did such a good job planning something that worked so well for me.

The day after my birthday, Bestie came and spent almost a whole week with me! It was awesome, and I was so glad she did. She and Superman had planned a sunset hiking adventure for me that was so beautiful (even if I almost died...twice) and included a lovely (if illegal?) swim and a picnic with margaritas. They took me to this lake that was so pretty, but had gates around the main beachy part, so we just decided to take a little detour through the woods and get in on the "wilder" side. After that, we hiked up to this beautiful observation tower that gave us the most amazing, breathtaking views of the mountain and nearby town, and the last vestiges of sunset. We would have seen more of sunset if I wasn't SUUUUUUPER out of shape and if it wasn't a mile and a half of stairs straight up the mountain (and maaaaybe I have sports-induced asthma. I don't know because I don't do enough sports to really notice, but all I know is that when I do a lot of cardio, I feel like I'm breathing through one of those tiny coffee straws, even for a while after I stop doing cardio). On the way down, Bestie, The Boy and I all walked within less than a YARD of a baby rattle snake and completely missed him. Could have stepped right on him and not even noticed. We were all shocked when Superman stopped us to point him out. It could have been disastrous because 1) We had all left our phones in the car, assuming that someone else had one 2) We were at the very top of the mountain (and let's face it--I certainly couldn't have carried any of them down) 3) It was very quickly getting dark, and 4) It was a baby, and if it hadn't just eaten, it would have dispensed a whole crapton of poison into whomever it might have bitten. BUT! We were all fine.

After we finally made it off the mountain (just as it got too dark to really see), we tried to leave the campsite where we may have been parking illegally. I say "illegal" in the loosest sense of the word, because, really, it was just frowned upon. Unfortunately for us, they had locked up the campsite before we had made it down the mountain, meaning we were locked in. Right as we were getting out of the car to see if we could somehow bust out, some hic state trooper pulls up behind us and gives us this big lecture about reading the signs. We read the signs, Mr. State Trooper, we just chose to ignore them. It was ridiculous. 

Bestie threw me a birthday party the next night, which was awesome and included delicious salsa (mine and Ms. Congeniality's*), delicious hamburgers (courtesy of The Boy and Superman), and delicious, if inappropriate, Funfetti cake, ala Bestie. I may have had too much tequila. Maybe.


The next night, Bestie and I met her mom in Myrtle Beach for her high school reunion. She went to school in Germany, because her dad was in the Air Force, and all of the Military Brats that went there have these annual reunions, which seem to me to just be a weekend of drunken debauchery and older people feeling like they're 18 again. Bestie's Mormon mother didn't drink, nor did she engage in the debauchery, but she did shake it on the dance floor and sing Hot in Here (which was HYSTERICAL).

I got to see/swim in the Atlantic for the first time, which was pretty cool. Also, the Atlantic is approximately 80 degrees warmer than the Pacific. I do not know how this is possible, but it is. It was lovely.

I had a great birthday week, and I really appreciate all of my family and friends who made it so great!

*The nicest girl in our program. Who may rank among the nicest people in the world.