Mood:  bright

I am in a fabulous mood, having recovered from a brief bout of food poisoning, I am back at work and preparing for month end; that’s not why I am in such a good mood though.

This birthday was by far the best birthday I’ve ever had. Let me recap all the birthday goodness.

My very good friend, Shurree, flew in from Kentucky on Wednesday (October 22) night and the fun began. When we got home from the airport we picked Matt up at home and it was off to Andy’s Grill & Bar. We had a quick dinner with the very best Long Island Ice Teas in Kansas. Yep, each of us had one of those bad boys! It was a giggle filled night to say the least. When we got home, Matt gave me my remaining birthday presents. This year he bought me:

1.    Sex In The City – all six seasons in that pink suede book

2.    Sex In The City – the movie

3.    Phil Lesh and Friends – triple CD

4.    Scrabble Deluxe version on a turntable

I just absolutely love all four of the presents~! I have already watched all of 1 and 2, listed to number 3 and can’t wait to play number 4 with Kyle this weekend.

The next morning (my birthday!) Shurree and I went looking for the new bakery in Wellington. Well, we couldn’t find it, as it apparently went out of business. We ended up grabbing something at McDonald’s (big mistake). Then we went shopping at the Super Wal-Mart for groceries and things. We bought Icee’s at Subway and went home to kick back and watch Sex In The City. Then we met up with April and Rita at La Mesa in Wichita for a light dinner and a pitcher of margaritas. We had fun and took pictures. I will post them.

Friday, we picked up Christina and I took both Christina and Shurree for massages at Heritage College. Heritage College teaches massage therapy so you are getting massaged by students who have to put in so many hours of massage work before they are licenses. It only costs $25 for 50 minutes and it is as good as any salon around without the pretentiousness. After massages, we met up with Chris and the four of us had a wonderful laugh filled lunch at N & J Bakery in Wichita. Boy did we pig out. We ordered the Vegetarian Appetizer Plate which comes with hummus, baba ghanouj, tabouli, dolmas, falafel, feta cheese and kalamata olives; oh and of course regular pita bread and fried pita chips.

Chris and I decided to split our lunches. She got the lamb gyro and I got the chicken artichoke pita wrap – that way we got half of each wrap. Christina got the beef shawarma which she liked greatly. Shurree also got the lamb gyro. Everything was fabulous. Then came dessert and coffee. We had an amazing vanilla cheesecake and tiramisu – splitting the two desserts between the four of us. They each had Turkish coffee, while I merely dipped my cheesecake into Christina’s coffee pot now and then. Man Turkish coffee is strong stuff. I was afraid we were all going to be zipping around like coke fiends! It reminded me of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered expresso beans. We each took a little box of leftovers home there was so much food! Anyway, I bought $20 worth of baklava for the dinner party Saturday night as well as three tubs of hummas and both regular and fried pita.

After we got home from lunch, we hung out and watched more Sex In The City, and then I started making dinner – a turkey sausage red pepper lasagna. Joey and Kaitlyn came over and we created Kaitlyn’s first D&D character – an elven archer. It took about two hours of updating and recreating characters before we began. We ate a nice salad and had lasagna and before we knew it, it was 2:30 am and we’d been playing D&D 9 hours. Joey and Kaitlyn went home and we all went to bed exhausted.

Saturday, I managed to sleep in until 11:30! That’s truly amazing, although I did go to bed at 2:30 am. Anyway, we bummed around the house watching even MORE Sex In The City and then started to clean up and prepare for Christina, Jared, and Tina to come over for dinner. Kaitlyn and Joey were also supposed to come over but Joey got sick and stayed home. That night I made Cornish game hens stuffed with an herb, onion, celery & cranberry breadcube stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, and sautéed squash & peppers. We had roast garlic and sourdough along with all that hummas and pita for appetizers, as well as fresh grapes, frosted pretzels, and candied orange slices. I served the raspberry Belgian Lambic I love so much with dinner. We also did some Vodka tasting. I had the vodka in the freezer so it was very cold and brought it to the table in a bowl of ice. Typically, I would go Martha Stewart and have saved milk containers and put the bottles in water into the freezer with flowers to make everything ‘pretty’, but hey, I didn’t have the time or energy. The taste test was between Stolichnaya, Skye, Grey Goose, and Chopin. The overall group favorite was Skye. Stoli and Grey Goose got the greatest snub, Chopin did a little better because of the general rubbing alcohol smell and aftertaste of those three. Skye was smooth and didn’t leave an aftertaste.

So, we had dinner and did some flaming shots off of our bar. Oh course – Flaming Gorilla Tits! I made Christina, Shurree and Matt my famous Milkshakes (Buttershots, Baileys, Kaluha, French Vanilla Creamer and cardamom over shaved ice) and made Jared a Long Island Ice Tea. Tina decided to just do shots of Cabo Wabo – making Sammy Hager proud and rich!

After our ‘dessert drinks’ we retired to the living room for some Rockband! It was quite funny. Jared started to play the drums, had too much trouble with it and jumped away. Tina ended up playing the drums on like five tunes. Shurree and I shared the microphone back and forth while Matt played bass and guitar until his fingers hurt, then he passed it to me, and I played bass while he took a turn singing two tunes. They went home around midnight as we were all pretty tired and toasted.

Sunday morning Shurree and I watch even MORE Sex In The City until it was time for us to leave for the airport. Matt and I drove her to Mid-Continent and went home to a quiet evening of reading on the bed with each other.

Overall it was a fabulous birthday weekend!