happy 29th birthday to me!

i was out to dinner last night and on the way out saw a fellow student and a prof having dinner and stopped to chat. when the prof heard it was my birthday she said "how old are you going to be, 24?" i told her she was sweet but that it was 29, and she said "ah, the last fun birthday." maybe for you, bitch. naw, but really, ALL the birthdays are fun. you kidding me? presents, cake, people telling you you're wonderful, happy birthday postcard from the dentist?

so, the last fun one. it was a lovely birthday, as usual (kids, if you have a choice, schedule your birthday in the summer). mom and i spent the morning wandering through antiques shops in center city.

we had planned lunch for 2pm and were shopped out about 1.20 so found a shady bench in rittenhouse square and watched the people. among the ladies who lunch, homeless people who need lunch, tattood hackysack players, and child prodigy violinists playing for change, there was a well-groomed 50-something man in a suit, standing by an envelope propped against a frog statue and smoking a cigar. he was there when we sat down and still there half an hour later when we got up to leave. he looked for all the world like a spy, standing there waiting for his contact to come up and say the right phrase and take the envelope. he mostly stood calmly, smoking, but watched carefully whenever someone came too near, and seemed a bit put off by the string of children who came by to play on the frog statue. i'll never know if his papers made it to the embassy or not...

lunch was at the "three-martini lunch" capital grille, complete with a stuffed moosehead in the entrance way. i had seared salmon in a 2-mustard sauce with mashed potatoes. the salmon was deliciously juicy and the sauce was more mustardy than i had expected, to my pleasant surprise. the salmon was preceded by a bowl of lobster bisque with lots of pieces of lobster floating in it. i had high expectations, with it being $11.95/bowl, and it lived up.

mom and i battled our oncoming food comas home on the trolley while poor karl had to go back to work. back at the apartment, i went out on the balcony to wave mom off when dad called. we'd been playing phone tag all day. mom took some pictures of me on the balcony, talking to dad on my birthday, then drove off for the 3 hours home. dad and i didn't talk very long since his phone battery gave out. it was probably for the best, since he has a tendency to really wax on about how special i am to him and how 29 years ago today was one of the two happiest days in his life (the other one being the day my sister was born). it's very sweet, but he can go on a bit.

after dad's phone gave out, i set off to the local bakery to get a baguette to go with the fruit, cheese, and wine that we were taking to the concert (more in a minute). on the way back i was on the phone with b---- about ugh having lost a ticket to the concert and i'd have to just buy another one when i saw some money on the ground. it looked like a $10 bill and i looked all around to see if there was someone around who may have dropped it. there wasn't anyone in sight, so i picked it up, thinking that this would pay for that ticket that i'd misplaced. turns out it was, get this, $100. a hundred-dollar bill on the sidwalk. this never happens, right? happy birthday to me! extra concert ticket is no problem! ah, the benefits of living in the 'hood, where business is often conducted in cash...

aight, so, bread obtained, mystery birthday cash found, we're off to the mann center to see the philadelphia orchestra play a concert of cartoon music. they show old looney tunes cartoons ("what's opera, doc?" "baton bunny" "high note" "the rabbit of seville") and play the music live, including the iconic "that's all folks" music which puts you right back on the floor after school in front of the tv. the concert was lovely, as is always the case at the mann. we sat on the lawn at the back, under the open sky, drinking pinot grigio and eating a double creme on baguette, and enjoying the cartoo--i mean, music.

at home afterward, i got a good birthday fuck which was the perfect end to my last fun birthday.

so what about the rest of the year?

i bought a saddle, which i still adore even a year later. i found a horse on which to put that saddle, random. i've started competing with random, as much (more, really) than my budget can allow.

travelling this year, i've been to ocean city, tenerife and england, on the annual trip to st. thomas and to visit grandma for her 80th birthday, back to england for thanksgiving, to steamboat again to ski (update on toenail: still attached, though threatening to come off at the slightest stubb), and to tucson for the 7th bi-annual family reunion. pretty good year, travel-wise.

karl and i have been together nearly 3 years now. i'm more in love with him now than ever. surely the biggest news for us this past year has been buying the house. we're terrified, we're excited, we're expecting to spend lots of weekends at the House Station. my parents, who initially said they weren't going to lend us any money to help with the down payment (getting that 20% to avoid PMI) surprised me by giving (not lending) us $5000. mom wants us to use it to do something nice with the kitchen instead of using her cabinets. we'll certainly try.

a large portion of this year was taken up by The Car. chapter one saw me get a new distributer then break down TWICE on i-95 between philly and washington, once on the way home for xmas, once on the way back. chapter two sees me limping to the garage again, in 19� weather. chapter three is basically a repeat of chapter two. chapter four features the mechanic not having a clue. chapters five and six have me getting a new alternator, and having that not solve the problem. feh. two months after the initial problem, and the car is now in the shop full time. i've given up on it. chapter seven ends our story, at least for now, when i get my car back, nearly four months after the problems started. all it cost me (ha!) was $900 (well, this visit) to replace the fuel pump and correct all the stuff that needed fixing after the safety inspection: new front brakes, new disc rotors, 4 new tires, some wiring work for the lights in the back... sigh...

just last week, we had the epilogue, resulting in me having to buy a new license plate because some deadbeat ripped mine off. fer fuck's sake.

all in all, except for the whole car thing, it has been a good year. i look forward to the surprises of the next one.