So, I am sitting here, watching my beloved Persuasion and eating birthday cake.

Birthday cake! When it is still but three days to my birthday and still plenty of time to send presents and cards and flowers and candy, how can that be? Well, that all has to do with this weekend.

On Saturday I, as I mentioned, got up at 6a after 3 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep. And why? Why did I do such an odd thing on the very first day of my vacation? Why, because I love my friends, that's why. I'm such a sucker.

It was Colleen's fifty-seventh or fifty-eighth bridal shower, and I met up with Tracing and Mo at Penn to go to Melissa's and join her and Kate and Corina and Wes for the festivities.

My, that was alot of links!

Tracing and I, after first accusing each other of being more likely to be late than the other, both arrived exactly at the same time, and five minutes early at that! Neither of us had met Mo, but she found us immediately, because there weren't that many other pairs of giant hulking red-heads paired with Chinese girls a foot shorter in Penn Station at 7.10a on a Saturday morning. Go figure.

We bought Krispy Kreme donuts for Colleen , after Tracing and Mo innocently asked what kind we should buy and I said "What kind? What kind? There is only one kind of Krispy Kreme!"
"Yes there are other kinds, I can see them, they are right there!"
"They may be there, but they don't count. We are getting the plain glazed kind and that's it."
"Well, we want the lemon filled kind for us."
"You may get them, but you're wrong."

I'm very hard-line about Krispy Kremes.

So, we got on the train and went to Trenton, then switched to the SEPTA to Philly. I was out of cash until I found a cash machine, so Tracing bought me my ticket, insisting on getting round trip tickets, as did Mo, though I tried to dissuade them. It's no cheaper, and it always seems that half the time I go to Philly, I end up going home a different way than planned, so I am very anti-return tickets. They wouldn't listen to me. I was Cassandra.

So, we got to the station and Kate and Melissa picked us up and took us out for coffee before we went to the shower. It was the most beautiful day--so beautiful that I tipped my head back like a sunflower as we sat out in front of the coffee place, and actually shut my yap for ten minutes about how I had only gotten 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Interrupted sleep.

We went and looked at the Liberty Bell through the glass, as the pavilion was all full of tourists. And the line doubled as we were waiting. It was astoundingly crowded, as was Independence Hall. After a small scare, we remembered where we had parked the car, and drove to Colleen's sister's house.

The shower was very nice--Corina and Wes were there already, and Colleen arrived about an hour into it. We met the famous Leora, and Colleen's mother and sister, Kim, and relaxed soooo much that, when talking about the squashed pennies that Colleen collects, Melissa said:

You really should pimp your readers for them!"
Kim: "Readers? What readers?"
(silence.) "What do you mean, readers?"
O, you know, in our online writing group."
"Writing? What kind of writing? What do you write about?
"O, you know, stuff. It's pretty boring, really."

About five seconds later, everyone was talking very hard about all kinds of things. Later, in the car, I said to Melissa "Now, who was it that said the word 'readers'?" I was just relieved that it wasn't me. It's so much easier not hiding it.

Besides that moment, the shower was swell, lots of good food and great cake and a beautiful house. And Colleen got lots of great presents, including four glasses and two pictures frames from the lot of us, by way of Melissa, who nicely did the shopping for the group.

I took pictures, but the one that I'm most looking forward to seeing is the one Colleen took with my teeth all blue from the icing. She pulled out her camera and thought that I was trying to get my teeth to be less blue, so told me not to mind her, but far from getting rid of the blue, I was taking another mouthful to make them as blue as possible!

I know the value of a comic photo, I do, and nothing's more comic than blue teeth.

And then, Colleen gave me birthday presents! This shocked the shit out of me, to put it delicately, because this was her day and her party, and I was really moved that she thought about me and my birthday when she's getting married in just three weeks.

I stated that I was going to wait until Wednesday to open them, and she believed me, but I was just kidding. She got me a book that I love, Ella Enchanted, and a book that I don't know, but looks great, Stargirl.

After some hours, we all (but for Colleen and Kate) went into Philly for dinner and a visit to the Second Greatest Second-Hand Bookstore In All the Land, where I spent $51 on books that I don't have time to read, but am glad to have.

We had a yummy dinner where everyone wanted bites of everyone else's food, except for the boring old person who ordered spaghetti bolognaise. I wonder who that was?

We went back to the car, stopping in a couple of sex stores, but I was so sleepy at that point that I couldn't even walk straight, let alone appreciate penis-shaped pasta.

We drove back to Melissa's house, Tracing and me in her car, Mo with Wes and Corina (Kate had left us awhile back to meet other friends for dinner). Our car got there, and we all had time to change into pyjamas and brush our teeth and check our email and read the best picture book ever, Click Clack Moo : Cows That Type (and my God, is it good--I must get a copy and maybe I'll lend it to Molly, if she's very good) before the other car arrived.

Apparently, they had gotten lost in Camden, unable to leave it, just like poor Nic Cage in Red Rock West.

At this point I was hallucinating, I wanted to sleep so badly, but Melissa insisted that I come into the kitchen, and there were more birthday presents for me!

She and Steve had gotten me three bars of soap ("Is that some kind of a hint?" wondered Mo), an Irish hedgehog pin that I will wear with all of my Irish hedgehog pride, and the DVD of Princess Bride. I was just thrilled!

There was a cake, but we were all full as well as stuffed and sleepy, so nobody ate any then, which is why I am eating it now. See? I remembered to bring it back around to the beginning again!

Then, at last, sleep, blessed sleep.

What did you do this weekend?

And we're still talking about insomnia, the defining current event of our childhoods, good web-based newsreaders for Kim, (c'mon, people, somebody must know something!), our jobs, classic books that we hate, seeing things differently as one grows older, weird injuries, dreams that we thought were true upon awakening, weeping at movies, true love, prophetic dreams, thoughtful presents, publicity, irrational fears, swearing, and Australian (and New Zealand) yumminess.

Today's horoscope:
You need a sense of fun today. Be sure there is room in life for you to play. Schedule some recreation.

One year ago today:
"And then I said 'Baldrick Baldrogovich, stop unraveling the screen, we'll never get to Moscow! And I am a seagull.' "

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