They Say It's My Birthday ...
Though the weekend was not as originally planned months ago, it was nonetheless a fascinating and fantastically exciting one - one worthy of ringing in my 27th year and my 3rd here in Baltimore, thanks to a little help from my friends.
A second joyful week in lab produced another fruitful clone (this one has yet to be named - I'm looking for a girl's name, but am struggling to find one that has the same quirky power as "Harvey"), and thus Friday began the weekend with me belly dancing in the lab, across the front of my lab bench, shimmying with joy. I bopped off to a lab meeting in the morning, treated to some lovely strawberry-orange muffins and giggled and took notes. We ordered Chinese food for lunch, I ate entirely too much of my sweet and sour chicken (read: all of it) and then left work early, prancing out into the summer sun, donning my new UnFiction T-shirt, which was sent to me by SpaceBass.
I wandered down to the Inner Harbor (a mere 10 minute walk from my school) and wandered into The Gap, where I finally used a gift certificate given at Christmas and treated myself to a new pair of jeans. And they make my ass look very nice. There was much rejoicing.
I then wandered back to my apartment (just a short 15 minute walk from the Harbor), and took a long, luxurious bath with a Lush "Sex Bomb" bath bomb. Hobbes the Wonder Kitten managed to push things into the bathtub while I relaxed, splashing my face as the soap dropped into the purple water. He rejoiced in his deviant actions.
By this point in the evening, Kim had worked her way up 295 to Baltimore, fighting game-night traffic that extended her usual drive to 2.5 hours of gridlocked dookie. She tossed a pair of lovely emerald earrings my way, along with a few rubber snakes and another Lush bath bomb, while also passing on a lovely gift from
K_Sui, a Gift Certificate to Zingerman's! You know my weaknesses well, good sir. I raise my loaf of Paesano bread to you. It was also great to hear your voice on the phone and share some giggles ;)
We prettied ourselves up a little, and then wandered off to one of my favorite restaurants in town, Pazo, a NYC-style tapas bar. We had a marvelous waiter, delicious sangria and a martini of Limonicello and vanilla Stoli, saffron gnocchi, a marvelous goat cheese, warm bread and papas frittes with garlic aioli. We sat on the second floor along the balcony edge, able to look down upon the people below us, all revelling in good food, drink and wonderful company. Kim managed to convince our waiter to shove a candle into our dessert, though at first, they brought out the wrong dessert. So I got two candles and two desserts, and lots of hot wax.
We then jaunted off to the James Joyce Irish Pub, the location of many previous evenings of delightful debauchery with our favorite bartenders: Seamus, Dennis, and Colin. Once there, we started kicking back the pints of Guinness and Magners, flirting with the staff and randomly starting conversations with the Fantasy Football group in town. There we discovered some interesting shavers and shakers who provided us with a great many libations to our happy, drunken suprise. One scrotally shorn fellow attempted to follow us home promising good times and fluffed pillows, and reluctantly we left him at the Inner Harbor Marriott and wandered back to my apartment where we crashed until the morning.
Or afternoon. We really didn't get up until 11ish, and were slow in getting moving. We scheduled pedicures for ourselves, and hopped in the car to drive to the salon, stopping at a nearby Chick-Fil-A for "morning after" greasy sustenance. Our driving and pampering took most of the day (especially considering our late awakening), and so with polished toes we got ready to meet Ian, Tom and Tiff for a giggle-fest dinner at the aforementioned James Joyce. Dining traditional Irish and sharing many jokes and stories, it was great to see Tom and Ian again, and to finally meet Tiff, whom I'd heard so much about. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it to D.C. to join them at PubQuiz soon. Once again, the candle in the dessert was requested, though instead of arriving in the middle of a strange dessert, this candle didn't arrive at all until after, when it was lit and stuck in the remaining bowl for me to blow out. Again, a joyful hot wax treatment.
Ian, Kim and I returned to the pub after a short walk and after saying goodbye to T-squared, where we were "treated" to the most gawd-awful "live entertainment" - the guitar playing, falsetto singing, Italian pimp. Eschewing all normal renditions of your favorite Top40, Italian Pimp chose instead to "reinterpret" such standards as "Blister in the Sun" and anything by the Dave Matthews Band, creating what can best be described as "The Falsetto, Military, Nazi Germany Set." Every first beat in a measure was accented with a good, solid strum on the guitar. "Blister in the Sun"'s tempo was slowed down to a death camp march. If there was a moment in the song with a high note, Italian Pimp's balls were well viced and screeching. It was a beautiful thing that I'm sure Ian's ears will never forget. We toasted at midnight to the beginning of the 20th and the beginning of my 27th year with a big shot of .... something. It was pretty tasty though :D
This morning, Kim and I snagged brunch at the Midtown Yacht Club, and then came back to my place for a well-deserved nap.
I had a wonderful weekend, and I really must thank everyone for coming to Baltimore to help me celebrate my birthday - you went above and beyond my expectations and made this birthday one to remember for a long time. Thank you so much!
And, yet, with all of that, I still have yet to see Snakes on a Plane.
A second joyful week in lab produced another fruitful clone (this one has yet to be named - I'm looking for a girl's name, but am struggling to find one that has the same quirky power as "Harvey"), and thus Friday began the weekend with me belly dancing in the lab, across the front of my lab bench, shimmying with joy. I bopped off to a lab meeting in the morning, treated to some lovely strawberry-orange muffins and giggled and took notes. We ordered Chinese food for lunch, I ate entirely too much of my sweet and sour chicken (read: all of it) and then left work early, prancing out into the summer sun, donning my new UnFiction T-shirt, which was sent to me by SpaceBass.
I wandered down to the Inner Harbor (a mere 10 minute walk from my school) and wandered into The Gap, where I finally used a gift certificate given at Christmas and treated myself to a new pair of jeans. And they make my ass look very nice. There was much rejoicing.
I then wandered back to my apartment (just a short 15 minute walk from the Harbor), and took a long, luxurious bath with a Lush "Sex Bomb" bath bomb. Hobbes the Wonder Kitten managed to push things into the bathtub while I relaxed, splashing my face as the soap dropped into the purple water. He rejoiced in his deviant actions.
By this point in the evening, Kim had worked her way up 295 to Baltimore, fighting game-night traffic that extended her usual drive to 2.5 hours of gridlocked dookie. She tossed a pair of lovely emerald earrings my way, along with a few rubber snakes and another Lush bath bomb, while also passing on a lovely gift from
K_Sui, a Gift Certificate to Zingerman's! You know my weaknesses well, good sir. I raise my loaf of Paesano bread to you. It was also great to hear your voice on the phone and share some giggles ;)
We prettied ourselves up a little, and then wandered off to one of my favorite restaurants in town, Pazo, a NYC-style tapas bar. We had a marvelous waiter, delicious sangria and a martini of Limonicello and vanilla Stoli, saffron gnocchi, a marvelous goat cheese, warm bread and papas frittes with garlic aioli. We sat on the second floor along the balcony edge, able to look down upon the people below us, all revelling in good food, drink and wonderful company. Kim managed to convince our waiter to shove a candle into our dessert, though at first, they brought out the wrong dessert. So I got two candles and two desserts, and lots of hot wax.
We then jaunted off to the James Joyce Irish Pub, the location of many previous evenings of delightful debauchery with our favorite bartenders: Seamus, Dennis, and Colin. Once there, we started kicking back the pints of Guinness and Magners, flirting with the staff and randomly starting conversations with the Fantasy Football group in town. There we discovered some interesting shavers and shakers who provided us with a great many libations to our happy, drunken suprise. One scrotally shorn fellow attempted to follow us home promising good times and fluffed pillows, and reluctantly we left him at the Inner Harbor Marriott and wandered back to my apartment where we crashed until the morning.
Or afternoon. We really didn't get up until 11ish, and were slow in getting moving. We scheduled pedicures for ourselves, and hopped in the car to drive to the salon, stopping at a nearby Chick-Fil-A for "morning after" greasy sustenance. Our driving and pampering took most of the day (especially considering our late awakening), and so with polished toes we got ready to meet Ian, Tom and Tiff for a giggle-fest dinner at the aforementioned James Joyce. Dining traditional Irish and sharing many jokes and stories, it was great to see Tom and Ian again, and to finally meet Tiff, whom I'd heard so much about. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it to D.C. to join them at PubQuiz soon. Once again, the candle in the dessert was requested, though instead of arriving in the middle of a strange dessert, this candle didn't arrive at all until after, when it was lit and stuck in the remaining bowl for me to blow out. Again, a joyful hot wax treatment.
Ian, Kim and I returned to the pub after a short walk and after saying goodbye to T-squared, where we were "treated" to the most gawd-awful "live entertainment" - the guitar playing, falsetto singing, Italian pimp. Eschewing all normal renditions of your favorite Top40, Italian Pimp chose instead to "reinterpret" such standards as "Blister in the Sun" and anything by the Dave Matthews Band, creating what can best be described as "The Falsetto, Military, Nazi Germany Set." Every first beat in a measure was accented with a good, solid strum on the guitar. "Blister in the Sun"'s tempo was slowed down to a death camp march. If there was a moment in the song with a high note, Italian Pimp's balls were well viced and screeching. It was a beautiful thing that I'm sure Ian's ears will never forget. We toasted at midnight to the beginning of the 20th and the beginning of my 27th year with a big shot of .... something. It was pretty tasty though :D
This morning, Kim and I snagged brunch at the Midtown Yacht Club, and then came back to my place for a well-deserved nap.
I had a wonderful weekend, and I really must thank everyone for coming to Baltimore to help me celebrate my birthday - you went above and beyond my expectations and made this birthday one to remember for a long time. Thank you so much!
And, yet, with all of that, I still have yet to see Snakes on a Plane.