birthdaze

Beth and I started with French Martinis at the apartment before going downstairs with a massive cake in hand and failing utterly to get the black car company to actually send us a car. We improvised and arrived at La Vuelta nearly on time, and handed off the cake to the kitchen before joining Heather and Shiv and wine on the patio. People trickled in with hugs and birthday wishes and when we had a good quorum, we took over the banquet of tables inside spread out for 26 people.
Dinner was glasses of sangria and steak and plaintain chips and I think everyone had a wonderful time and I know I did. I bothered everyone with my flash and my shiny new 1GB card that Stuart tucked into my birthday purse of goodies, along with earrings and funny books and music and flowers and things. I wore my purse to birthday dinner, complementing my birthday-gift-to-myself shirt from Banana Republic and mom’s pearls.
Really, it couldn’t have been a more perfect way to usher in 26. So I spent yesterday detoxing from all the fun and sangria, wandering around downtown and cozying up at Border’s with a stack of books on teaching and literacy and young children in classrooms.
I also sat in City Hall Park and watched a couple with very disparate families celebrate their marriage at the clerk’s office – they stood in front of the fountain with an endless rotation of family portraits and rose petals thrown at them. The groom’s family were European and tall and thin and fashionable, the bride’s was American and the opposite. It was strange, seeing the sister-of-the-groom surrounded by the male contingent of her new in-laws, simply because she was that caliber of stunning that just naturally attracts male attention.
I also saw what I gleaned was a well-to-do Lebanese family being interviewed by a young Spanish docu-journalist. When I told Stuart all these stories over lunch, he told me that I’ve got write more because my observational story-telling is like a pressure valve that just sprouts a little leak along the seam when I’m not putting the habit to paper. I’d never noticed this about myself, but he swears it to be true.
The first day of September ended by going out with Stuart’s coworkers after a big deadline and having a drink at Ulysses, and getting an incredibly early night’s sleep. Hurrah for the final days of summer. Bring on the fall.