So Saturday was a great adventure. 160 miles of metro highways, biways, county roads and getting lost. So my sense of direction has not improved. In any case it was good fun.
Saturday morning, I picked Clint up and we went to the very illustrious Pep Boys to purchase none other than some super head lights - they weren't the "brightest head lights in the free world" that the Pep Boys clerk suggested but they are nice n bright. Clinton did his super boyfriend duty by changing them in the Sports Authority parking lot. Gold Stars were given. Then we decided to go to the Mall of America- due to road construction we get lost, We decided to go there cause it's big and we had random things to find and it seemed logical to go to the biggest conglomorate of stores. On the detour of getting lost we passed exits for the following shopping places: Riverdale, Northtown, Southdale, Eden Prairie Shopping, Ridgedale, so basically everything except for Brookdale and Maplewood. We finally arrive at the Mall of Too Many People. We went, we shopped, we got peopled out and left. My objective of getting a new spring coat was achieved the other items - not so much.
Then we were hungry, I was also hot and smelly as I was wearing a sweater that was not condusive to the warmer temperatures. It was then decided, I needed deoderant and a shirt after we indulged ourselves at pf changs.
On the way to lunch- my sister called and I answered the phone. She wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday. I get off the phone, Clint and I eat lunch. My sister had texted me this bizzare message - I call to get the drama - when I shouldn't have.
So the big 28 is just around the corner. It happens to fall on the last day of the first quarter, or the day before April Fool's day.
I love birthday goodness. But as this is not a milestone birthday - and it happens to fall on a Tuesday.
The best and worst of being 27:
Book:
Best book read this year - wasn't anything pulitzer prize winning or intellectually profound, nope it was probably the two books of essays by Cynthia Kaplan - funny anetdotal stories. "Why I'm like this" and "Leave the building quickly"
Worst book: I attempted on several occaisons to read Love in the Time of Cholera - and failed miserably.
Movie:
Best movie: I really enjoyed Nights of Rodanthe, I went to it with my mom.
Worst movie: Ironman
Song:
Best song: Lobsterman's Wife - Ingrid Michaelson
Worst song: Umm so many to chose from, I really hated that Kid Rock song about Summer. It made me barf a little in my mouth.
Life event:
Best: Revaluating was it is real and what isn't real and what's important. Almost a direct result of the following:
Worst: My dad passing away.
Meal:
Best: Oh well anything that didn't make me sick of course - donut wednesday was a nice staple for awhile til I started to grow my own version of a donut.
Worst: I got sick from Jimmy Johns once. And Chinese another time - but they were pretty close together so I could have had the stomach flu.
Love lesson:
Best: That love lessons present themself when one is on recess.
Worst: That secret relationships are only cool in the 5th grade.
Family lesson:
Best: That I've been promoted to the strong one.
Worst: That I've been promoted to the strong one.
So yeah - 28 can't be worse than 27. A few changes I'm preparing for: wrinkles, sore joints, and gray hair.
Now for the Kristen birthday wish list:
I could be like my brother and list a 5 page list of everything I've ever thought I once wanted and or needed. That would be annoyingly greedy and I really don't care.
I like cards. I like lots of random things and I am now too old to require a present. I'm not going to wear a pointy hat or anything.
But if you must - I like thoughtful presents, i.e. my brother or sister could get me books or dvds or music, as the standard what to get Kristen default gift and I'd be a o k with that.
A certain Alien could go with any of the standard "girlfriend" presents or something completly original. I'm not that hard to shop for, I like almost everything - and I appreciate the thought no matter what it is. And if this Alien was doubtful he could always ask Gwendolyn or Mackenzie for ideas.
My friends could call me on my birthday or completly forget - I'm past the it's all about me parade. I'd like a phone call or a card in the mail but I won't hand out demerits.
Sooo I love birthdays. I love making a big fuss and getting the perfect gift. Or so I thought.
This year for Dave's birthday -- I was at a loss - I had no idea what to get him.
I googled best boyfriend birthday gifts. I had a couple lame ideas...
1. cologne -- but he already smells so good - ps I love his deodorant more than his cologne. But never the less -- don't fix it if it ain't broke.
2. kitchen crap. i.e. a colander, new toaster, glasses to replace his plastic cups. lameness factor - 10. useful for when I'm cooking dinner and need to strain something 1. ok it's on the veto list.
3. a puppy. cute idea - but it'd be better if he picked the puppy out and gave it to me and then made me move in with him to take care of said creature. preferably small and well behaved along with adorable -- cats are preffered in my book but I've warmed up nicely in our discussions of having a dog in the Wonderland Future that we discuss from time to time.
4. I can paint him a cool picture of a classic car. Who am I kidding I can't paint real things -- I can paint abstract color blobs. And no offense to me - but I wouldn't want one of the only things hanging on his wall to be a crappy ass picture I pretended to paint. Plus - I might have fun doing this - but in the end result would not even be worthy of Country Kitchen art, no refrigerator -- unless it was some mini fridge under the bar - where no can see it refrigerator.
5. crochet him a sweater. again, not going happen - too much time, bad execution of yarn projects that aren't just big rectangles. Plus he's never even used the scarf I made him -- but he has it still - we do use the afghan I made him - it doesn't match his couch but he went out and got a new couch - and I'm sure his thoughts weren't what will match my afghan...
6. bake him peanut butter heart shaped cookies. he loves my peanut butter cookies. but I have not been motivated to bake. alas veto list again.
7. movies. although nice-- also pretty lame.
8. books. although nice-- also pretty lame.
Ahhh! So what in the world do I get the fantastic boyfriend for his 34th birthday?
9. 34 powerballs? nope lame
10. nothing.
But this is the most fabulous result from google:
MANGROOMER Do-It-Yourself Electric Back Hair Shaver
SO what did I get him? Nothing. Well, I made him dinner: Alaskan King Crab and New York Strip Steak, Baked potato, texas toast and then I let him have full reign over the tv.
SO What did we watch. Well, Friday night, we watched a good 35 minutes of Amatures. It's about a bunch of townies making an amature porn. Dave gave up on this attempt of a man-comedy on his own, but I was happy he turned it off. Then on Saturday, we watched a couple episodes of Sunny in Philadelphia and House and the cheesy movie What happens in Vegas. It was a good lazy weekend mostly spent in front of the tv.
For Dave's birthday we went out for breakfast to eat and read the paper. How adorable right? So we sat and read the paper - ate our breakfast, I shared my bacon with him as he didn't have any and I had 5 pieces. Now, I love bacon- but 5 pieces in addition to hasbrowns, eggs and toast is a bit much. So we read the paper and chit chatted over breakfast. I didn't get to do my puzzle but that's ok -
I'm going to pick up a suduko book today or tomorrow so we can do puzzles together. How sick is that?
We lounged around most of the afternoon on Saturday. He took me out for dinner for being so fantastic and not making a huge deal out of his birthday, okay maybe that wasn't the reason - but anyways we went out for dinner and had a Saturday night date. Then I went home cause he had to work overnight last night.
In the Vegas movie, there was bit about putting the toilet seat down, I let him gently know that we can talk about this later since it's his birthday but I think he got the hint, he needs to work on putting it down.
I did sing to him on several occaisons my annoying birthday song. He plugged his ears as expected since my singing voice - well it's not pretty.
So this weekend was Gwendolyn's fantastic birthday bash weekend. It has been a nice weekend -- however not the usual for what I expect for a weekend in LaCrosse.
Let's start with the usual -- Usually we end up drinking, a lot, or more than my poor liver likes. (so in my terms that means more than 2 beers in a 24 hour period.) This also involves going from bar to bar sampling the fine establishments in downtown LaCrosse. Seriously -- there are bars everywhere -- and alcohol in LaCrosse is kept at competitive prices to suit the needs of many college students and 20/30 somethings who live here. Ok so one must be prepared -- somewhat sensible shoes are must, and 20 dollars is normally enough to get you good and drunk off your ass -- but for a birthday weekend, fancy drinks or shots might be required so maybe 40 tops and that should be enough to have a cab ride home. SO very economical for the weekend binge... how delightful. After consuming large amounts of alcohol, I'm normally up at 5:30 with horrible post-beer poo poos and a headache. This was not the case today.
Our Saturday birthday extravaganza was off to bad start when I spent hours -- wasted on listening to NPR. Now, mind you I like my radio with a certain kind of element, most will call this ridiculous -- but I like songs. I was mildly entertained for awhile -- but then craved TV, or real radio - not just podcast after podcast after podcast. No joke -- 9-5 of talk radio is enough to make me well, eager for alcohol. After we all got dressed for the day - we headed to Buzzard Billies - had a delightful meal -- followed by ice cream which I was to overstuffed to partake in. And now at 7:30 in the morning I have a sweet tooth and ice cream sounds delicious.
After dinner I inquired as to what we were going to do -- well we were going to go to someones house and watch tv and veg out for a little bit, maybe play games and start drinking. Woo hoo -- ok a plan. I love plans. After we have flipped -- or Jamie has flipped rather, we are all in tv la la land and are entranced by the happenings on Degrassi and Queen Bees- The Soup and some all in a week show -- we're laughing and playing games. Pretty soon the clock was way later than it should have been and we are going to McDonald's, quarter to midnight-- to get a snack, I'm not wasted and it's almost midnight, this is not how I envisioned this -- I'm sure Gwendolyn has not pictured this either- --but we are at McDonald's getting snacks -- I'm not hungry at all really -- but I know if I don't get anything -- I will suffer a horrible case of McDonald's envy and so alas I get the old stand by - the number 1. It is fantastic. I love it.
We return to the house with the air conditioning and tv and no NPR Podcasts anywhere to be seen. We eat. Now we are in the current moment. I'm wide awake. I've been up for almost two hours with painful stomach clenching gas that is both loud and smellier than Jamie's fridge, and a headache. It's like I'm hungover from McDonalds. I had a great time -- it was very mellow -- but I was a little pumped to be reckless and intoxicated. Yep, maybe I'm too old for that Shenanigans.
So I'll admit it -- I'm not the best descion maker, ok let me re-phrase, I like making descions but I'm not so speedy at it, and when it comes to where to eat, what to do -- I'm at a loss, mostly because I enjoy myself the most when surrounded by the proper company.
I'm A o k sitting on the sofa - playing with yarn, whining about supermodels and fasionistas and whiny designers, and bad brides on TV-- obviously this sofa was set in Gwennie's house, I am also a o k with playing cards, sitting around drinking beers, being silly goofy me, I don't need fanfare - yes, it's fun to get out - see & do new things, but make the decision to do so - is a little overwhelming -- what's wrong with the couch, dinner and movie, playing some game that I will try and cheat at...?
So for my birthday - it is my job to take command of the weekend before and plan something... Dave asked me what I want to do -- and honestly, as sick and disgusting as this is -- I just want to be with him. He's ditching me for a baseball game on my birthday proper and I have a family dinner ritual to attend to anyway so I am supposed to think up something special and fantastic for my birthday, yet at the same time -- not lame.
My problem with this whole thing is the pressure -- I've never been in a relationship on my birthday, I've had the curse of March since dear god, well always -- if I've been in a relationship at Christmas - it has surely failed by the time my birthday rolls around. In addition, I have never had birthday sex -- I know this is lame, but it's never happened on my birthday, and I was very convinced that I'd have fantastic wonderous birthday sex this year, but alas -- due to the way the calander fell --- and baseball season... another year will have to pass.
So I'm trying to decide what to do the weekend before my birthday... We will be celebrating Friday and Saturday. Friday night - I'd like to eat something, watch a movie or tv and have a couple beers, maybe play monopoly or scrabble. Saturday, I want to do something fun -- but it's MARCH in MINNESOTA and there's snow and nothing fun to do outside -- so this is what I've come up with courtesy of citypages.com: so yep, I've decided -- I want to get either pizza or wings and spend time with Dave, that's what I want to do for my birthday. Or else that Polka Dancing looked fun... I can't decide.
Now, what I want for my birthday present is going to be viewed equally as lame -- I just want a card, yes, that's it - a birthday card - preferably something more sweet and less funny -- but I'll be happy either way -- with some sort of heartfelt message handwritten to me. If he wanted to be a show stopper he could get me 4 cards one for friday - saturday - sunday and of course one for the real official birthday monday... but I'm only really hoping for one and that's all I really want -- and I know he hates shopping for cards so I'm almost expecting him to not get me a card, but he can never complain that I'm hard to shop for.
So my birthday is coming up -- and I've been recalling the best and worst of the birthdays of the past.
The worst birthday -- by far was 2004. I was in Winona, my friends had moved away - my parents forgot it was my birthday -- kind of hard since it's my Grandma's birthday as well -- but they forgot to call anyway -- I walked to the grocery store, picked up a round birthday cake -- and ate the whole thing while watching Seinfeld re-runs.
My kindergarten birthday party was fantastic -- my parents hauled me and my friends to the Chucky Cheese in a Motorhome and we ate pizza and played games.
Once in awhile my birthday will fall on Easter -- it's happened twice so far, once when I was 8 or 9 and I spent the Saturday before out with my Grandma -- we went shopping and I sat on the Easter Bunny's lap for a picture. The second time it fell on Easter -- was not so fantastic -- it was my 21st birthday -- and since I was older than most of my friends -- I ended up going to the Gay 90's with 2 underage friends but it was ok since it was 18+ night and one of the friends sister drove us there --- and I was inebriated - gone with the wind, or two sheets to the wind -- and apparently I was sharing my drink and was kicked out. We went back to the friends house- and then we got up at 4 in the morning -- only for me to drive us back to Winona, hung over --- and tired and I had to work at 7:30. Not so much fun.
The following year included one two many drinks as well and I learned the valuable lesson that one should not eat macaroni and cheese after consuming large quantities of alcohol -- as it will liquefy and want a show stopping exit. I hate to vomit, so lesson learned.
Last year for my birthday -- I had a quite weekend away at Gwen's -- I probably disappointed her - because my loud obnoxious drinking phases has ended --- I can still be loud and obnoxious mind you-- I'm just not a good drinker -- a couple beers or a couple bloody mary's and I'm good.
I don't remember a lot of my earlier birthdays -- or they all blur together -- a bunch of girls watching Annie or some other cheesy movie in sleeping bags out in the living room floor, I remember going to a religious shrine and meeting a bishop for my birthday, I was thrilled then - but I was also probably 8 -- how lame were my parents!
Once thing has remained constant --- my mother is obsessed with getting multiple birthday cards --- I've also adapted this practice - but I limit myself to two, she will get 8 -- and we get a birthday card each day for the week of our birthdays.
This year for my birthday --- I just want to go out to dinner and cuddle on the couch with Dave watching some wonderful Monday night TV- -- it's bad enough my birthday is on a Monday. God knows I don't need the cake or the fuss -- maybe some anti wrinkle cream? OK not yet.
