Birthday!

I had a smashing, stellar birthday. We descended on this fucking unbelievable Peruvian place, El Bodegon. The barbequed cow heart, the grilled shrimp, the calamari, the ceviche, and oh sweet Jesus the coconut caramel birthday flan - we came. After El Bodegon, the Orbit Room across the street. The band was . . . the band. Couldn’t remember the name before we went, can’t remember now. Don't care. The drummer from the Neville Brothers showed up and played a few songs, he was awesome. But the set list was all over the place. Nice when they did Bill Withers, and I didn’t take the AC/DC amiss either. However, the whole final set was crap. Never knew how long Led Zeppelin songs were until I had to listen to them while hoping desperately for some funk. I guess variety isn’t always the spice of life.

In closing, I know presents aren't the point of birthdays, but you must excuse me for going on about them a little bit. I can’t get over how thoughtful all the gifts I got were – how well everyone had chosen things they knew I would love from shared experiences, jokes, or enthusiasms. I leave you with the story of the first present I opened. It was from the splendid Miss S, presently in Tibet, mailed as she traveled through China. Using my amazing superpowers of Discipline, I managed to not open it for a week, and finally dug into it birthday morning. It was a scroll covered in beautiful Chinese calligraphy, apparently reading "May Mlle La Spliffe be strong like a bull”. Here’s her response to my thank-you email:

Spliffe! I was wondering all day if it had arrived in time. To your personal address, I'm sending a pic of the calligrapher drawing it for you. In terms of the message, I did my best given I was limited by a Chinese-English dictionary from 1960. Some folks gathered around to watch it being done and laughed and made muscles, so I suspect the translation is pretty much correct. :)