Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Yeah, I fell off the face of the Earth.

I do that periodically.

So I turned 25 a week ago Monday. Kevin was sick with a nasty cold all weekend, so nothing exceptionally fun happened. I had to cancel Friday dinner, but I did bring the curry over to their house on Saturday instead, and we had a nice little dinner. I also baked a ton of cookies AND a gingerbread apple pie.

Sunday, after much ado about Kevin's well-being, we went to Santa Cruz for some low-key family birthday co-celebrating. First up was his mom, where we had the pie, hung out, and exchanged a few gifts. Kevin conspired with his mom and gave me a really sweet Canon PowerShot, dudes! So my poor Panasonic Lumix with the burnt-out LCD backlight has been eclipsed. (I do still want to get that puppy fixed, if the price is right, and possibly pass it along to my mom.) He also gave me a Gorillapod, which is an articulated tripod, and his mom gave me a nice, simple case for the camera. Actually, I think today is her birthday, so happy birthday to Kevin's mom. Next, we went to his dad's for dinner and some more presents. His dad's girlfriend is another December birthday. Dinner was dahl, mixed vegetables, and rice, yum. I can't say no to anything with lentils (provided it's vegetarian). Then the three birthday people blew out candles on a pecan tart and opened more presents. I received a silicon baster (since they knew I didn't have anything to brush, say, butter on bread for cooking) and a 2GB camera memory card. Sweet!

Monday was my actual birthday and of course I had to work. In order to avoid having cake and candles and singing, I brought in a big tray of my delicious, vegan, homemade cookies (and some of the really awesome Thai sweet and spicy nuts) for everyone and told HR not to make a thing of it. My boss took me out to lunch, my choice, so I chose Rico's for being one of two restaurants we both actually like. (Even for my birthday, it wouldn't be nice to drag my boss to a Middle Eastern or Thai restaurant when I know she'd order the blandest thing and have to pick half of the accoutrements off, anyway. That's just sad.) After work, with Kevin still sick, the Editor and his fiancee took me out for dinner -- I'm a cheap date, I just wanted falafel and a lemonade at Yiassoo -- and a movie, so we all finally saw For Your Consideration. It sucked about as much as all the reviewers said, but as Christopher Guest fans, we felt content having seen it at all.

Tuesday I lucked out with another birthday lunch, this time courtesy of one of my coworkers, from Just Laziz, a really cool Lebanese bakery that specializes in phenomenal manakeesh (like pizza, Middle Eastern-style) and where my coworkers are obsessed with the baba ganoush. In the evening, Kevin's dad was in town, so we took him to our favorite Thai restaurant. He was suitably impressed. We also found Kevin a suit at Burlington Coat Factory so he could attend my company's Christmas party in something other than holey slacks. But that's another goddamn story and I'm going in chronological order. Anyway.

Wednesday I wanted to kill my boyfriend because he had buyer's remorse and wanted to beg off the fancy dinner, and I let him do it. So after work I went and finally saw Borat and was generally in a bad mood despite that. Also I had to cook for my company's potluck lunch the next day -- the Ethiopian spiced lentil dish I think I've linked to in a previous post.

Thursday was the company potluck. It was really a fantastic spread this year. A lot of home cooking, excellent home cooking. My lentils were awesome, of course, but another coworker friend (the one who likes coming to the Campbell farmers' market) made butternut squash penne and cheese, which was amazing. The gift exchange had a number of hilarious moments. My secret santa recipient really enjoyed her favorite bottle of wine and selection of four dark chocolate bars, and I was given a pair of Century movie ticket gift certificates and $10 for La Pizzeria, yum! In the evening I watched the 1-hour The Office and pondered the similarities between Michael Scott and our own CEO. You know, your typical "water cooler"-type viewing.

Friday I was totally coming down with Kevin's nasty cold. I had a half day of work and spent most of the afternoon napping, then preparing for the party. The party was good, but afterwards, I went to bed and practically did not get up for the rest of the weekend. The cold was just that bad. I did have to cat-sit, but Kevin had to cover for me on Sunday.

This week has been just plain work and avoiding doing the dishes due to stubborness and laziness. I'm leaving for Portland/Seaside/Seattle on Saturday afternoon. Christmas shopping is pretty much done. Just have to pack now.

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