nothing like a birthday smack dab in the middle of what a recent ReMax ad calls, "The worst recession our, or our parent's generations, have ever seen." eeek. nothing like a little negative reinforcement to really get people out there feeling bad about things. but recession or no, generations or no, i had one of the most lovely birthdays i've had in a while (okay, last year on the 42' cat in the middle of the BVIs with some of our favorite people doesn't count in the running). steve started the day off with coffee, cookies and cafe rica (a liqueur quite like kahlua) in bed while we watched the plethora of birds (mainly those extremely vocal parakeets) out in the "A" tree. we have a bounty of trees outside and refer to two of them nearly everyday, and so decided to name them the very clever and endearing "A" and "B" trees. the "A" tree IS the view directly outside our bedroom sliding glass doors, especially from a supine position against pillows with fresh coffee in hand.
we lazed and drank and snacked while discussing the possibilities of the day: marbella? rincon? a farm to which steve's been wanting to take me? (this is much more fun and romantic than it sounds). so many choices, but i tend to be predictable when it comes to my favorites (i suppose that's the nature of favorites) and so i chose a stop at the french bakery, and a trip with the doggie to my favorite beach.
tide was mid, so we swam-waded across the estuary to a nearly deserted beach. there was a nice little eddy where we could all swim and play without being rushed out to sea, and so that's what we did. i got out for a beach-glass search, but came up empty handed, which is a rather unusual event for the day, but the cloud show was enough to make up for it and perhaps the universe was telling me my treasures were in the sky not on the ground.
i had made noonish plans with a couple of girlfriends to bake myself a bday cake, so we headed home. the girlfriends came, we baked, steve made coconut-cocoa-rum ice cream, which only finally set up today - too much rum, maybe?
then steve and i had to peel ourselves and said girlfriends off the very comfy couch to go get ready for a party, not one in my name, but one full of lots of friends, folks i like but don't get to see all that often, a live band, and tons of food. it was a great party, with more happy birthdays than i could have possibly expected - word travels fast in a small town at a large party! the food, company and music were great, but steve and i had to head out around 6:00 p.m. to get ready for our own little bday celebration here at the house.
some of my very closest friends came over for drinks and appies and we all lounged around, talking and eating. my friend lock played the piano for us, which i dearly love, and christi managed to talk (read: beg) me into playing as well. it was actually fun, once i got my hands to settle down and i think i'll try and do it again soon. that about wrapped up saturday night, we went to bed happy, tired and amazingly not too tipsy!
sunday brought a fabulous overcast morning, to which i awoke late, was poured coffee AND a bloody mary and proceeded to bake some coffee cake muffins for the continuation of saturday's festivities. the nice thing about a small town is you can and will see most of your friends at any given party, wedding, real estate opening, beach cleanup, etc. sunday's party was a baby shower for two of our good friends and about 40 people showed up to a table full of incredible food, good music (not live this time), a gorgeous thunderstorm and a fabulous patio on which to enjoy all of the above. we stayed for nearly four hours, at which point, i finally had to stop drinking, eating and talking! i came home happy and tired and spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching reruns (downloaded without commercials of course).
a perfectly fabulous bday weekend! though i just realized there are no photos to commemorate any of this, so i might have made it all up and just lazed around in bed for two days being brought food, drink and entertainment at my whim.
