When I was a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to see the Harlem Globetrotters. How fortuitous and or serendipitous it was then that they always rolled into my hometown the week of my week of my birthday. Surely this was destiny!
Every year, I begged my mom, "Please! Harlem Globetrotters!" And every year, it was explained to me that the show was only good if you could afford to get the seats in the very front, and we just couldn't - not on a teacher's salary.
But I was a relentless child. "Harlem Globetrotters are coming again this year! ON MY BIRTHDAY!" And, of course, the answer was always the same.
I don't remember how, but a few years ago, Galen, one of the guys on my mom's bowling team found out about my childhood dream. And he now also teases my mom about this. How could she never fulfil such a simple dream? Every time I go back for Christmas, he asks me when the Globetrotters will be there, and I supply the dates, and we give poor Mom a hard time. I'm surprised a bowling "accident" hasn't happened by now.
Tuesday of this week, I called Mom, elated. "GUESS WHO WAS JUST ON TV!"
"Who?" "THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS!!! They were on the midday news!"
"That's great! You got to see them! Now you can shut up about it!"
"No, Mom. It doesn't count. It wasn't a game."
"Oh."
"Well, I'll buy you a ticket."
"To WHAT?" (I DO know her, after all)
"To SOMETHING!" She dies laughing. (See? I told you I know her!)
Of course, I had to call her tonight to give her a hard time.
Me: Guess what I COULD be doing tonight?
Mom: What?
Me: Seeing the Harlem Globetrotters. But I'm not. Because my mom didn't buy me tickets for my birthday. AGAIN.
Mom: That's true. I didn't.
Me: Wouldn't it have been easier to have just done that once?
Mom: Yes, it would have had I know you have bugged me FOR THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS! Next time I have a kid and they say "You'll regret this," I'll know what they mean!
So then I got to laughing. I told her that my poor kids will be dragged to the Harlem Globetrotters year after year and will probably hate every second of it. "MooooooooOOOOOOOmmmmm!!! Do we HAFTA go AGAIN? WHY????? I don't WANNA! They're STOOPID!"
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday. Show all posts
11 March 2011
16 January 2011
Birthday Celebration, Part Tul
Ria and Curt were in Philly today to drop their daughter Angelique off for the Spring term. The residence halls opened at 10:00 a.m., they arrived at 10:02 a.m., were shooed out by Angie shortly after 10:30 a.m., and arrived at my place at 11:00 a.m. straight-up. We exchanged Christmas presents, and they gave me my birthday presents.
I gave them some Candy Cane Joe-Joe's from Trader Joe's. To understand why, you have to understand the backstory to this. Last month, Ria and I went to Philly TJ's for some because I'm not allowed to go to Missouri without these. But they didn't have them. But Ria and I spied ONE box in a display on top of the freezer. The display was a sleigh full of boxes, one of which was a Candy Cane Joe-Joe's box. But we needed some kind of stick-like device to poke the box down. So Ria found a chip clip that was empty in another aisle. But an old lady was standing in our way. So before we knocked down the entire display, we decided to ask if the box was even full. She hands me the big stick and wanders off to ask. So here I am standing in the middle of frozen foods with a big stick. Thanks, Ria! Come to find out, it was an empty box. But the people at the Captain's Desk at TJ's called around and found out that the nearest TJ's that had CCJJ's was the Wilmington TJ's. So I rented a ZipCar (an hourly rental car) and headed down. As it started to snow. What would have normally been a 30-minute (each-way) trip turned into a nearly 2-hour trip because of the snow and the morons who were all "ZOMG - white stuff is suddenly falling and I must drive 35 MPH on the interstate!"
So I got them two boxes of Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, a box of dark chocolate Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, and two bottles of Gate's barbecue sauce - one is Original formula and one is Extra Hot. When you go to Kansas City and ask where to go for good barbecue, people will start wars over whether you should go to Ollie Gates' place or Arthur Bryants. I obviously favour Gates, and I regularly cart his sauce back to Philly with me. But I told Ria I'd bring back some Bryants sauce next time so she could make up her own mind.
Her Christmas present to me was the really excellent book, "Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders." I had a quick look-through when she was here, and I got excited about some stuff in it, and I've looked through it again since she left, and I've already tagged some possible projects. What a great addition to my library!
Her birthday presents to me were two skeins of sock yarn: Noro Silk Garden with some great browns, blues, reds, and purples running through it; and Knit One Crochet Too Crock-O-Dye in the Chocolate colourway. I also got three Aero bars; yummy!
Felix also got two Christmas presents: two catnip mice! Each mouse has a bell at the end of the tail, and it looks like we need to have a talk about not chewing bells. He doesn't seem to understand that bells are not for chewing.
After gift opening, we took Philly by storm. I don't think Beck's Cajun Cafe at Reading Terminal Market will ever be the same after our visit (hint: an hour after we visit, when we go back and ask "Do you remember us, and they laugh and go "Oh YEAH," that's probably not a good sign). IKEA survived, but barely (hey - it's not OUR fault people were in our way!). And Super Fresh will probably be making some changes to their signage after our visit (again - it's not OUR fault it we point out they're wrong!).
Curt was kind enough to install my new-from-IKEA spice rack when we got back to my place (after Curt and Ria kindly helped me haul everything up from the truck). Then we hung out and ate the dessert we had leftover from Beck's.
Ria and I made tentative plans for February.
All in all, a great continuation to my birthday!
I gave them some Candy Cane Joe-Joe's from Trader Joe's. To understand why, you have to understand the backstory to this. Last month, Ria and I went to Philly TJ's for some because I'm not allowed to go to Missouri without these. But they didn't have them. But Ria and I spied ONE box in a display on top of the freezer. The display was a sleigh full of boxes, one of which was a Candy Cane Joe-Joe's box. But we needed some kind of stick-like device to poke the box down. So Ria found a chip clip that was empty in another aisle. But an old lady was standing in our way. So before we knocked down the entire display, we decided to ask if the box was even full. She hands me the big stick and wanders off to ask. So here I am standing in the middle of frozen foods with a big stick. Thanks, Ria! Come to find out, it was an empty box. But the people at the Captain's Desk at TJ's called around and found out that the nearest TJ's that had CCJJ's was the Wilmington TJ's. So I rented a ZipCar (an hourly rental car) and headed down. As it started to snow. What would have normally been a 30-minute (each-way) trip turned into a nearly 2-hour trip because of the snow and the morons who were all "ZOMG - white stuff is suddenly falling and I must drive 35 MPH on the interstate!"
So I got them two boxes of Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, a box of dark chocolate Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, and two bottles of Gate's barbecue sauce - one is Original formula and one is Extra Hot. When you go to Kansas City and ask where to go for good barbecue, people will start wars over whether you should go to Ollie Gates' place or Arthur Bryants. I obviously favour Gates, and I regularly cart his sauce back to Philly with me. But I told Ria I'd bring back some Bryants sauce next time so she could make up her own mind.
Her Christmas present to me was the really excellent book, "Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders." I had a quick look-through when she was here, and I got excited about some stuff in it, and I've looked through it again since she left, and I've already tagged some possible projects. What a great addition to my library!
Her birthday presents to me were two skeins of sock yarn: Noro Silk Garden with some great browns, blues, reds, and purples running through it; and Knit One Crochet Too Crock-O-Dye in the Chocolate colourway. I also got three Aero bars; yummy!
Felix also got two Christmas presents: two catnip mice! Each mouse has a bell at the end of the tail, and it looks like we need to have a talk about not chewing bells. He doesn't seem to understand that bells are not for chewing.
After gift opening, we took Philly by storm. I don't think Beck's Cajun Cafe at Reading Terminal Market will ever be the same after our visit (hint: an hour after we visit, when we go back and ask "Do you remember us, and they laugh and go "Oh YEAH," that's probably not a good sign). IKEA survived, but barely (hey - it's not OUR fault people were in our way!). And Super Fresh will probably be making some changes to their signage after our visit (again - it's not OUR fault it we point out they're wrong!).
Curt was kind enough to install my new-from-IKEA spice rack when we got back to my place (after Curt and Ria kindly helped me haul everything up from the truck). Then we hung out and ate the dessert we had leftover from Beck's.
Ria and I made tentative plans for February.
All in all, a great continuation to my birthday!
14 January 2011
Birthday Events
Some of my friends met me at one of my favourite restaurants tonight, AKI, for all-you-can-eat sushi. One of the friends I invited couldn't come because she had to go to her sister's birthday party, and another friend was visiting her grandparents for the weekend. One of my friends popped in for a bit after an appointment, and it was good to see her, if only for a few minutes.
We had a great time stuffing ourselves silly and playing detective. A large party near us had a reservation under the name "Alex", and we spent some time and employed some tactics trying to figure out which of the party was named "Alex". Over the course of the evening, we developed elaborate backstories - they were all named Alex and this was their meeting; ALEX was actually an acronym (Assembly for Lively and Educated Xenophobes); none of them were named Alex. Eventually, one of the guys said "This is for you, Alex," and I literally grabbed someone's arm in excitement as the real Alex was about to be revealed. You'd have thought I was about to win big money on a game show or something. I can't remember laughing that hard in AGES.
After supper, the idea was for some of us to come back to my place for dessert, general hanging out, board games, etc. But instead the supper crew all went home and people from the West Philly Knitting group ended up coming over. For dessert, we had Pumpkin Pie Pudding that I had cooked earlier today. It was nice and warm in the Crock Pot, and it seemed to be well received. We watched some episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" as they hadn't ever seen it but wanted to, and (of course) got some knitting done.
It was a great birthday, spent with a good variety of friends, in spite of it also being the first birthday with Kirsten, Kristi, and Sarah all being in various parts of the country now.
We had a great time stuffing ourselves silly and playing detective. A large party near us had a reservation under the name "Alex", and we spent some time and employed some tactics trying to figure out which of the party was named "Alex". Over the course of the evening, we developed elaborate backstories - they were all named Alex and this was their meeting; ALEX was actually an acronym (Assembly for Lively and Educated Xenophobes); none of them were named Alex. Eventually, one of the guys said "This is for you, Alex," and I literally grabbed someone's arm in excitement as the real Alex was about to be revealed. You'd have thought I was about to win big money on a game show or something. I can't remember laughing that hard in AGES.
After supper, the idea was for some of us to come back to my place for dessert, general hanging out, board games, etc. But instead the supper crew all went home and people from the West Philly Knitting group ended up coming over. For dessert, we had Pumpkin Pie Pudding that I had cooked earlier today. It was nice and warm in the Crock Pot, and it seemed to be well received. We watched some episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" as they hadn't ever seen it but wanted to, and (of course) got some knitting done.
It was a great birthday, spent with a good variety of friends, in spite of it also being the first birthday with Kirsten, Kristi, and Sarah all being in various parts of the country now.
14 January 2010
Today, I am 35
And I got an unexpected gift: Orin actually called me. And I'm really all kinds of conflicted about it. On one hand, I'm really happy about, but on the other hand, I feel like I shouldn't be all "OMG!!! My father happened to remember to call me on my birthday this year!!!! Unlike the past three years!!!! Woweee!" It makes me sad that this is what our relationship has come to.
Neither of us mentioned that we didn't speak to each other on Christmas. Or the argument we had two days before Christmas that led to us not speaking to each other on Christmas. Frankly, I'm shocked as all get out that he called today. And I hate that it makes me wonder what he's up to.
BUT. On to other things. Someone asked me today how I'm celebrating my birthday. So here we go.
Tonight was very chill. Cleaning house in preparation for tomorrow (more on that tomorrow). I got to talk to my sister Laura for a couple of hours. She gave me some much needed dating advice, and we got to make fun of some morons (a favourite past-time of ours). I got to talk to my friend Rachel for almost an hour (while I staked out various corners of Trader Joe's and she saved me from having a breakdown in the middle of said store).
Tomorrow, some of my friends and I will have supper together, followed by hanging out at my place for dessert. This may include knitting, chatting, game playing, etc... who knows. This is also dependent on my ability to continue cleaning and clearing out spaces for people to sit. Oops.
On Sunday, I am taking a knitting class at my favourite LYS, Loop, Alternative Knitting Styles, with my friend Margaret. I will learn how to knit Continental and Portuguese! Margaret already knows how to knit Continental, so she help me fumble through that, but we will both be learning Portuguese knitting together. Then we will be lunching in the city together.
And, that, my friends, is how I am celebrating my birthday. With my friends, with my yarn, and with my LYS.
Neither of us mentioned that we didn't speak to each other on Christmas. Or the argument we had two days before Christmas that led to us not speaking to each other on Christmas. Frankly, I'm shocked as all get out that he called today. And I hate that it makes me wonder what he's up to.
BUT. On to other things. Someone asked me today how I'm celebrating my birthday. So here we go.
Tonight was very chill. Cleaning house in preparation for tomorrow (more on that tomorrow). I got to talk to my sister Laura for a couple of hours. She gave me some much needed dating advice, and we got to make fun of some morons (a favourite past-time of ours). I got to talk to my friend Rachel for almost an hour (while I staked out various corners of Trader Joe's and she saved me from having a breakdown in the middle of said store).
Tomorrow, some of my friends and I will have supper together, followed by hanging out at my place for dessert. This may include knitting, chatting, game playing, etc... who knows. This is also dependent on my ability to continue cleaning and clearing out spaces for people to sit. Oops.
On Sunday, I am taking a knitting class at my favourite LYS, Loop, Alternative Knitting Styles, with my friend Margaret. I will learn how to knit Continental and Portuguese! Margaret already knows how to knit Continental, so she help me fumble through that, but we will both be learning Portuguese knitting together. Then we will be lunching in the city together.
And, that, my friends, is how I am celebrating my birthday. With my friends, with my yarn, and with my LYS.
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