So yesterday was one of the best birthdays ever, basically due to the fact that I spent it with Omar. We didn't do anything special during the day, but we spent it together, and that was what made it special.

I woke up at 7.45a and waited for him to wake up at 8.15a, then we made breakfast (buttermilk pancakes and bacon and eggs) and I checked my email and listened to Omar sing in the shower. Just listening to him made me so happy.

He sang "Wanna cry, wanna croon/Wanna dance like a loon/It's that old devil moon in your eyes" and "And you give/And you give/And you give yourself away" and "When I'm not near the girl I love/I love the girl I'm near".

After we ate breakfast, we went out in the backyard to do a little work. He swept the patio and I picked up sticks and broken glass in the dirt. He had cleared out all of the rocks and broken cement that was piled all over the dirt, and found out that under the dirt there were bricks. So I started digging out the bricks--not digging them up, but uncovering them. And then he joined me.

And suddenly we were both obsessed with uncovering what turned out to be a lovely brick path in the shape of a lower-case q. When he wanted to stop, I didn't, and then when I wanted to stop, he didn't, so we actually finished. And it was so exciting! There is a place for planting in the middle and around the edges, and it makes the backyard into a real place where one wants to spend time.

He said that he couldn't wait to tell his family, but I said that he should keep it as a surprise. They are coming up next weekend for the long weekend, so it's not long to keep a secret.

Then we cleaned up, went out to get lunch at the Mexican place, then came home to get dressed up for my party. And I opened my cards from Lucy and my Mom and the fabulous Buffy 4th Season DVD set from Beth, because it was nearly 4p on my birthday and I had yet to open a thing!

Anyway, the party. I had printed out the MapQuest directions at home, and I remembered packing them, but then I couldn't find them, so I looked them up and copied them down. I love my laptop.

We got in the car and he said, "So what town are we going to?" "Philadelphia!" "Philadelphia!! You told me that it was an hour!" "Well, it's an hour and 23 minutes by MapQuest, I rounded up!"

This is Omar being irritated at me. Also because we sort of followed the directions wrong, but because MapQuest had not given us Turnpike directions, by taking the Turnpike we were able to get back to the directions in the middle. Omar teased me for the rest of the evening about my navigating skills, though. Even though we ended up at the restaurant before anyone else and ten minutes early!

We went to the Moroccan restaurant that we went to for Melissa's birthday last year. Everybody but Kate was able to make it, so that was Corina and Wes, Melissa and Greg, Elizabeth, Colleen, and Tracing. The only one that Omar knew was Tracing, so it was rather a few strangers to spring on him all at once, but I had a pretty good feeling that he would fit into the group. And I was right!

The food was great, and the belly dancer was so good and clever and friendly, that she actually got me up and dancing with a sword balanced on my head!

I look so fat in those pictures that I hesitate to put them up, but hey, just like not knowing the truth doesn't make the truth different, not posting fat pictures doesn't make me actually be any less fat, and I really was having fun, so why not show that?

Then Colleen got up and danced...

(see the opposite view of the above shot here)

Then Elizabeth! That's the scabbard balanced on her head. It's not hard, it's a well-balanced sword and scabbard, but I told everyone that the reason it balanced on me was because she sliced it into my head. She really was a great belly-dancer, though Elizabeth said, "She is not Moroccan, she is from New Jersey!"

After a few hours of food, we went to Melissa's house for presents and cupcakes.

I made off with quite a haul, birthday parties are great! Elizabeth gave me a little black canvas bag that is ostensibly for books, but that I'm totally using as a purse, a "glam hands" hand spa and five nail polishes (heeheehee, more nail polish!); Tracing gave me a flat fruit bowl that looks like the surface of the moon (very cool) and a pretty little bag that I'm going to use as a coin purse; Colleen gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card (always a great choice), a Bad Girl's Rage-a-Day desk calendar, and a gorgeous hand-made card; Corina and Wes gave me the DVD of Secretary, and Melissa and Greg got me a great big stuffed hedgehog, Diary of a Mad Bride and Diary of a Mad Mom-to-Be and a copy of one of Greg's cds that I have been dying for for ages. I love my friends!

Then were the cupcakes! Melissa made them partially from scratch, and she lit the candle as everyone sat there silently, until Omar said, "Hap?" and suddenly everyone sang "..py birthday to you!" It was terribly funny. And the cupcakes were way yummy.

I wasn't the only one to get presents! Wes and Corina's birthdays were recently, and Melissa gave Wes a cheese fez. Because honestly, who doesn't want a cheese fez?

After presents and food, we sat around for awhile and talked and laughed. Afterwards I heard that the thing that everyone liked the best about Omar was how he laughed until he cried. It's a very endearing quality in a person.

Then we drove home. Corina and Wes took us to the Turnpike and we got home fine. When we got there, he gave me what he had gotten me, a beautiful card, a little tin Mexican sun, and necklace with an anchor pendant. I love it. Because hope is the anchor. He put it on me and I am never taking it off.

Today's horoscope:
Right now, others are quick to receive what you put out. You're validated and vindicated when you make this much sense in the world. Hang out with people that are more action than talk.

One year ago today:
Clearly, he was thinking about how much fun they were having in the rest of the basement, there are probably parties going on in the cookware section, and here he was, all alone in the Scale Ghetto.

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Graphics by the festive and birthday-ish Saundra!

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Last Updated Mon 4 August 00:16:09 2003