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My birthday is coming up and it looks like it may be a good one! Some of you know my theory on people who make a big deal out of birthdays. You'd better be under 12 or over 80 in order to avoid incurring my ridicule (exceptions will be made for those of you celebrating your 21st and 40th OR 50th, not both--you only get one "holy crap I'm middle aged" birthday). A good defense would be, "I just want an excuse to party." Hey, I can understand that. But let's not act like celebrating my ability to live another 365 is in order, because clearly it's not. I would, however, be more than willing to have a party to celebrate an actual accomplishment.
For example, I am now officially over halfway done with grad school, and I got straight-As! This is definitely not something that ever happened in undergrad. The girl who got a 2.6 gpa after her first term in college has now gotten a 3.96 (A- from research, thanks Corcoran) after her first year in grad school. Sweet. Amazing what motivation will do for you. Just had to slip this in because I am proud of myself--I've worked hard.
But back to my birthday. I just got finished saying how it shouldn't be a big deal, but who's the hypocrite now? My friends are taking me out for Indian food on Sunday (technically, today, I s'pose) and on my actual birthday Arian is going to cook me a bunch of my favorite foods: eggplant parm, trofie (pasta from Liguria) with pesto, and grilled artichokes. And after his hockey game that night we're going for pie at Shari's (it's like Denny's). Doesn't that sound awesome? Best birthday ever.
By the way, I'll be 28. Not so sure how I feel about that. I think good.
Drama happened! A vagabundo (one of my clients taught me that word) downtown asked me if I were pregnant (I'm not). I attribute this mostly to what I was wearing at the time--one of those babydoll shirts--but it was still extremely demoralizing. Oh yeah, I suppose it may also have had something to do with the fact that my excitement over my upcoming birthday is the direct result of the prospect of good food. Hmm.
Here is a weird thing that is happening to me right now. Through a combination of practicality and the economy, I am not working this summer, barring therapy one day a week (I am carrying a caseload of three over the summer). And then one day a week I have a 9-hour class (yes. It sucks to have a 9 hour class. But the teacher is pretty good). That's it really. When's the last time you had a summer off? Yeah, me too. Not having any set schedule is surprisingly depressing, but I think I'm getting into it.
Today we went to the June beagle meetup. I love the beagle meetup, almost as much as Pancake does. It's really fun to see 15 or so beagles in one dog park. They're pack dogs, so they enjoy being with others, and it's just funny in general because they have such houndy coloration (and of course, the dipstick tail). The best part is when someone with, like, a black lab comes to the dog park and sees all these beagles. {:-o
We were just about to go to the Mississippi for dog food and coffee when our neighbors showed up and had a drink with us out on our deck (for like, 2 hours). We are enjoying being in a neighborhood as opposed to like an apartment complex. We know about 6 of the houses around us and it feels nice and familiar to be in a large city, but at the same time it feels very small town in our little neighborhood. It's a very walkable neighborhood (we walk to one of two grocery stores daily in addition to walking the dog, getting coffee, going to the lightrail etc), and when you can say hi to people on the way, it feels like a home. May have something to do with the fact that most of us own instead of rent, so there is a greater investment into the community because we're just gonna be there for awhile by design.
Theo came over yesterday and watched the draft with us--he was excited because he is a Habs fan and the draft was in Montreal. Arian's team did not pick in the first round, but he likes prospects so he still had fun. I am very thrilled that the Avs got Matt Duchene, I preferred him over Tavares. I think that with Stoa playing well, and Stastny so emergent, Duchene gives us great depth at center. Wojtek Wolski is also a natural center. These are all very young players and/or prospects. Now if only we had someone in goal. Anyone. Anyone.
Right now it looks like we will be in California in the third week of July and Colorado in the first week of August. Very excited. Too bad it means we have to fly.
Oh yeah, as for Michael Jackson, I do feel bad for those who will miss him. I have great admiration for his work; he was amazing--really. But in a way, I feel like he died years ago.
Final note, and I'm not putting this in the cut because I'm so freakin' excited over it, we got our "hotel" for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next February (I think I've probably written about this, but we got tickets to three of the hockey games--we won't know who is playing until the day before due to the format of the tournament). Actually, it's a crappy motel. In Burnaby. For the price, you'd think we were staying at the Hotel Bel-Air. But it was about half the cost of everything else. Man, do people turn into jackals when the Olympics are in town. Hotels were booked out and prices jacked up as far as Bellingham. I imagine you'd have to stay in like, Kamloops in order to get a decent room at a realistic price.