4 posts tagged “birthday”

Sunday was my Mother's 50th Birthday.  As birthdays go, it was mostly sedate - we did a family lunch in Portland at a wonderful Italian restaurant and gave her the mp3/video player that she had asked for.  Of course the night before, Thad, Scotty, and I had managed to use over 2,000 feet of Seran Wrap to completely cover her car.  That was the fun part.

Wrapping the Car

From there, it was a mostly mundane work week.  We've been doing dual testing with both OAKS and ELPA testing going on simultaneously.  It's not been fun.  Not only has my building had bandwidth issues, but we're seriously lacking in available technology.  Literally every single functioning computer in my building has been in use the last few days.  I spoke with the Teacher liaison between technology and certifieds and if I'm still around next year I'm hoping for some further technology to find its way into the building. 

On Wednesday I had the next major step in getting all my dental work done - and it wasn't fun.  I literally spent four plus hours in the dentist chair.  They removed my front four caps with difficulties and fitted me for the ones that are going to be made, very painful.  Today, two days later, I'm still sore and bruised and very swollen.  I'm going to be on a "soft diet" for the next three weeks if not longer, anything that requires biting is out.  I'm not a happy camper.  Theory is that it'll be worth it in the end.  Right now I'm scheduled to be done with all my teeth work mid-July.  We'll see if that happens or not.

Last night I had to run to the store and pick up school appropriate PJs.  One of the things about working in an elementary building is that you have to participate in all the cutesy/stupid events they do.  So tomorrow/Friday is wear your PJs to school day.  I, of course, ended up with a pair of sock monkey pajamas, complimented nicely by sock monkey slippers and a sock monkey stuffed critter that Scott managed to find in the toy section.  I think he had more fun with the damn monkey than I did.  Pictures to come on that one.  Lets just say the one photo I have of the damn thing isn't safe for work.  But hey, at least I'm participating, right?

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Otherwise, I'm playing alot of Mario Kart which I finally picked up for myself on Tuesday.  We're slowly working on unlocking the important parts and having fun getting pwned by the NPC's when we're doing too well.  Weekend plans include seeing Iron Man at the theater again (hello matinée showing!), catching up on much needed sleep, Guild Wars (I've been neglecting it!), and hopefully NOT painting a house.  But we'll see.  Toodles.

    The light wasn't great, but considering it was my first time with my camera... eh. :D

I've forgotten how much I really don't enjoy Portland.  For me, being in any city of that size is alot of anxiety.  I'm sure some of it is growing up in Detroit.  Some of it is finding home in the small towns scattered throughout various states I've lived in.  And some of it is just the utter rudeness of people in large groups.  Whatever it was tonight, I definitely realized that I still don't like cities.  Not to visit.  Not to play in.  Definitely not to park in.  And not to drive in.

Today was my Father's 50th birthday.  My Mother had made reservations at a place called Jake's in downtown Portland.  My sister, earlier in the day, had called and confirmed the reservation and set up for a singing telegram to come to the restaurant -- dressed as a bright pink gorilla.  Sounded like fun.  After making it to the city, and finding parking, we ventured down the street a few blocks and finally entered the restaurant.  After an argument with the manager who insisted they don't do that sort of thing, because it's not something they can control, a call to my sister in Ohio who confirmed that she talked to them earlier in the day and they said it was fine, and more conversation - in which I utterly ticked off the guy but didn't back down, the show went on.  It was actually really fun.  The guy in the costume showed up, made a little bit of a scene (Portland's stiff upper lip is too high class for that apparently - they need to get a life), but was very classy and I think Dad loved it.

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We proceeded from there to have a decent - although pricey - dinner.  And great, great desserts.  Then came the trouble of getting the damn parking ticket validated.  The restaurant apparently had Valet parking, so they wouldn't validate it.  We had no way of knowing, never saw it until after we were parked.  Whatever.  Fine.  So we went down to Powells, who after buying books, said they don't validate them either and suggested the food place.  Went to the food place and spent the obligatory $10 to get the ticket validated and on the way out find that it's only good for 90 minutes of time and we had been easily parked for at least two and a half hours.  Arg.  Finally said screw it and went to find the car.  Payed the extra cash... and drove home.

Not once did anyone take a moment to not be a rude individual and offer help.  Nor was it ever really a pleasant experience.  I definitely will not repeat it any time soon.  I'm sorry, but if you really can't be a decent human being once in a while then there's no way in hell I'm going to support you or your business.  Period.

That aside, I think Dad really had a good birthday.  We managed to get his truck completely filled with balloons, got him some great gifts, completely surprised him at the restaurant (their chargin aside - idiots), had good dessert, and of course, decorated the house in lots of black and Over-The-Hill decorations.  I think he enjoyed it. :D  Now if only I could get this video uploaded and working so you could see the pink gorilla in action.  May have to update later for that.

Today was my 26th birthday.  It actually turned out to be a great birthday.  Scott surprised me by having a dozen

Roses

Then for dinner we had two celebrations going on, my brother also graduated from college today with a BS in Biblical Studies.  I had requested doing dinner not in town, and suggested maybe trying to get in at the Claim Jumper up by the mall.  Amazingly, we were able to get a reservation.  So we headed up in two groups, my folks and brother went up in time to catch the table with the early reservation while I waited for Scott to get off work and make it up from town.  It worked out well.  The restaurant wasn't what I expected, I guess I was looking for more of a "yee haw" experience from the name, more... western perhaps.  However, it turned out to be a great place for wonderful food in huge servings.  And I do mean huge.  I think everyone except my brother brought a doggy bag home.  The food was excellent though, and there were literally four or five pages of choices - everything from high end steaks to seafood to exotic combinations and so on.  My drink was also huge, it was a "Girls Night Out" drink that consisted of about half vodka, some raspberry schnapps, and some sort of cherry flavouring.  Very yummy.  Then for desert, I had a mud pie that was complimentary for my birthday that was huge, but absolutely wonderful and we had a huge, six layer piece of chocolate cake with chocolate filling, chocolate icing, and walnuts.  It was delicious.  Everyone had a huge slice of the slice of cake and we still brought half of it back to the house.  So yeah, I would totally recommend trying this chain if you can get a reservation... it was just an awesome experience all the way around.

Anyways, I ended the night in the best possible way, snuggled up happily with Scotty for a couple of hours.  My favorite way to end any day.  (Sappy, yes, I know.)  We watched Tokyo Drift before I had to say good night for the evening.  It's a fun movie, and I thought he'd like the old school Mustang drifting towards the end.  Anyways, it turned out to be a wonderful birthday, an awesome day, and I couldn't have asked for anything better.  Tomorrow I start work at the schools in Canby, a new district, a new job, a new adventure, and a new year.  I have high hopes for this year, I think I've got my pieces all lined up and put together in the right order, but even if I don't, I don't think I will need to worry about going through things alone any longer.  And that's special too.