Starting My 50th Year

Yesterday's birthday party with Vicki and Julie was a delight, making for a terrific start to my 50th year (which will end next March 10, when I hit my 50th birthday, of course). Julie, Cooper and I went for a walk while Vicki and Finley (and Lucy, in hiding) stayed home to guard the house. Then we ordered pizza and wings and showed Julie some photos from way back in the early 90s. The highlight of that was watching her try to pick Tammy out of her Junior Kindergarten class photo, which only took four tries. She was convinced by the end of it that we'd actually switched kids that year, taking home the wrong class member!

After dinner, I got my presents from Vicki, which included some t-shirts, a great old Thor comic from the 60s, and a surprising hit: a package of Bottlecaps, a candy treat that both Julie and I have very fond childhood memories of! Julie ended up handing those presents out to me, after making me guess what each one was from the worst possible clues (she's really bad at that).

Then it was time for her birthday presents to Vicki and I, which included a headphone splitter shaped like a heart, travel guides to Disney World and Australia, and - incredibly - a Fringe Fest pass for this year! (I didn't think you could even buy those yet!) She opted to make all of the gifts 'joint' to both of us this year, in retaliation for the fact that I had the theme of 'sharing' for all of her Christmas gifts last year. Payback's a bitch, and Julie was dishing out payback! But it was a great haul, and it was topped off with a frozen 'pizza cake' that she'd brought with her.

We all retired to the living room for a Nova episode about last year's tsunami that hit Japan, which was extremely hard to watch but also made us appreciate just how badly parts of that island were hit. After that, Vicki headed to bed and Julie and I sat up talking until shortly after 2:00 (which we thought was shortly after 3:00 since the PVR clock had already sprung forward). And then another birthday was done, and it was time for bed.

Next year: I turn 50!!