It’s my birthday too, yeah.

Today is my birthday, you guys. I am t w e n t y n i n e years old. I have so many good stories to tell about my birthday weekend I could probably split them into three separate blog posts. But it’s been awhile and Mondays are hard, so I am going to give it all to you in one marathon post, ok? Grab some popcorn and/or birthday cake.

Friday night was my official birthday gathering celebration thing. I’m not going to call it a party because I had a deliberately small group of friends for dinner and a play. After my guy friends made me endure that hike a few weeks ago, I was determined to get them back have them do something cultural with me. Plus I’d never been to Bard on the Beach and always wanted to go. Roomie organized a taco potluck at our place, LC made an amazing Mennonite Rhubarb Crumble cake, and Josh wheeled in a cooler full of Coronas, natch.

We saw Twelfth Night, not Hamlet. Because nobody wants to be depressed on their birthday. There were a lot of laugh-out-loud moments and the gentleman who played the fool was particularly hilarious. Luckily most of us had seen She’s the Man, so we were already familiar with the basic premise and plot line of the play. Everyone loved it! And it was fun to do something artsy for a change. I feel like we all expanded our creative/cultural horizons and supported the arts in our City.

Saturday morning started off with an epic sleep in (praise.the.lord.) and a flower delivery from Emily. She sent me this beautiful purple bouqet from across the world! I’ve never had flowers delivered to my house before and it was v. exciting. Em is one of the most thoughtful people I know. Who sends flowers to you on your birthday when they’re across the world on a mission trip? Em does.

Then Tiff and I got to spend an entire best friend day together on Saturday. This was a gift in and of itself. We’ve barely seen each other at all the last few weeks and it was starting to feel like we were in a long distance relationship. We had a girlie brunch on Main Street and spent the afternoon shopping for makeup and jeans and picture frames. We came back to my house, drank a couple of Coronas and watched the last Twilight movie. Neither of us had seen it and it was more terrible than we had hoped and dreamed. I got up and made my lunch for work the next day halfway through, came back and had missed nothing. There were some (unintentional) laugh out loud moments, but they didn’t make up for the general terrible awfulness of the movie. If for some reason you haven’t seen it and are thinking about seeing it I will spare you. Everyone ends up living happily ever after (yawn), even the super creepy looking CG baby with the dumb name.

Sunday was a little rough, but rough days always seem to make for the best stories, don’t they? I was asked to work an overtime shift—a total answer to prayer but that’s a post for another day—and I had to be at work by 7am. My love of mornings has been well documented here so I won’t get into it again but you can imagine my mood around 5:30am. I rolled out of bed and made my way to the shower. When I turned it on water started spraying out of the top of the shower head. GUSHING. First it hit the ceiling and then it ricocheted all over the floor. True confession: I swore. Then once I managed to turn the water off I started laughing because the whole thing was ridiculous and straight out of a cartoon or something.

After work, Josh came over and helped us fix the shower head. We still need to buy some parts from home depot for it to be officially fixed, but for now we can take showers without creating a lake on our bathroom floor, as long as we’re very careful not to tilt/touch/bump the showerhead. I finally got to wash my hair last night and it was the third most satisfying shower in my entire life, after my post-Africa and post-Sasquatch showers. I had grand plans to stay home and paint my nails and recover from my 10 hour overtime shift Sunday night, but after fixing the shower Josh convinced me that I needed to finish my birthday weekend with guy time and beers.

We headed to a pub just down the street from my house, grabbed a table for four and waited for the other two guys to show up. While we were waiting a 50-something man wandered into the pub off the street, walked right up to our table and sat down. The waitress thought he was one of our friends, and didn’t think anything of it when he ordered a beer. You guys, he was trashed. He proceeded to talk to us for the next 15 minutes, and I can’t even tell you what he said except that there was something about Saskatchewan and Pamela Wallin. We tried to engage him in conversation but I think he mostly just wanted someone to listen to him. When the other two guys showed up, he told Zach that he looks ilke Gary Woodland (nope), threw a bunch of money on the table and retreated into the bar. We could still hear him singing every now and then but he didn’t come and try to talk to us again.

We laughed a lot about our new drunk friend, because it was a funny situation and a little bit uncomfortable. But I felt sad for him too. Even though he was happy and friendly, he was still alone and drunk at 6pm on a Sunday night, wandering up and down Broadway looking for friends. And here I sit, on my birthday. Overwhelmed with love and laughter and kindness from the friends and family in my life. I pray that God brings real friends into that man’s life, who will love him and listen to him and tell him about Jesus.

The past few weeks have been hard, with job stuff and lots of things up in the air and getting sorted out for fall. It’s been emotional and stressful, but this birthday weekend has been a beautiful reminder that I’m loved and blessed beyond measure. 28 was a year of new experiences and new people. God brought a lot of good people into my life this year, and this weekend I was so reminded of it. From sending me flowers to baking a delicious cake to fixing my leaky shower to texting me at 5:30 in the morning to say Happy Birthday, there were a million ways big and small people let me know they love me and are thinking about me. I feel so blessed. And I love you all right back.

Ok. Now I gotta go. Me and Roomie are going to try Earnest Ice Cream. Happy Monday to you all.