Birthday weather near work...um, mega-yay?

Yesterday was my birthday. It happens to me sometimes, usually approximately annually; I increment age. This year was a sleeper; though pressed by caring ones around me, I was loathe to commit to any festivities or even acknowledge the impending oldening.

Except that, despite plan-fail on my part, my homies were wonderful: my phone made pinging and dinging sounds all day, Twitter lit up like a switchboard, my Mail app groaned under the chugging weight of so many well-wishing missives.

Some highlights:

New Hair Color

• My sweetie took me to Paley’s Place for dinner. This started badly–it was an utter madhouse upon arrival, and despite well-made reservations, we stood like chumps for a good quarter hour by the front door while the hostess flew around with birdlike insistence and chirrupped maddingly about the cost of bottles of Nebbiolo. The dinner improved with age, though, crescendo-ing through a duck confit salad, oysters, escargot, marrow, sweetbreads, ultimately spurring vocal admiration from the next table, whereon were seated two very friendly, southern academics in town for a convention for deans of fine arts. It just goes to show you never know. Dessert was triumphant; Sauternes is pretty much one of the most wonderful things ever invented. By the end we were all great friends, along with the waiter, who turned out to be Much Cooler and Well-Thought Than I Had Previously Judged. Wine was an ’05 J. Christopher Pinot Noir, which was mostly great except I really wanted a musty, autumnal P.N. and ended up with a brighter, cherrier, more summery style.
• My friend Duncan made a relatively surprising drop-in trip to our Cloud Four offices and gave me a tripod he kind of had and didn’t need anymore. The punchline is that this tripod is eons better than my current one so I am quite, quite thrilled. More money for the camera savings fund diverted from tripod purchase!
• I drove out to see my friend Autumn at lunch so that we could choose a pair of designer sunglasses for me. The bad news is that this involved driving to Sunnyside and really poor music choices on the radio (was 94.7 trying to taunt me?! Pearl Jam? Stone Temple Pilots? Smashing Pumpkins?! ARGGHGH). The good news was that everything else about it fairly well rocked, as the kids say.
• I had pre-dinner drinks with my mom and Stepdad Bob. Always a treat, and mom gave me an Art Media gift card (local art supply chain). This is very good because my perhaps ill-founded (but very earnest!) aesthetic ideas have been going unfunded.
• The weather was…I have no words. Transcendent? Could not be improved upon!
• Speaking of Cloud Four, we timed my new MacBook Pro purchase to yesterday (though the negotiations started some time ago). New work laptop on its way!
• I have a newish hair color, thanks to Autumn last week. I tried to take a photo that didn’t involve my camera covering up half my face but it was Fail.

What I’m getting at is: thanks, guys. I don’t deserve you.