(The area left after a pass from a mower)

I began my day of birth with The Pretender from Jackson Browne. At work I got a nice happy birthday Kevlar? balloon, a card with quippy comments, and a Dairy Queen ice cream cake with my name on it. I also made my rhubarb cream cake on Monday night and brought that too. After work I got a call from my mother wherein she recounted the day before my birth. WARNING: more frank terms about birth coming up. Apparently her water broke about 36 hours before I finally crowned. After I was born though, they had pizza and ice cream. I was born at home with midwives. This has caused problems with my birth certificate, which is why I don't have a passport.

Anyway, after our chat, I went to DaVinci's for my free pasta and pop. Then I went to Ivanna Cone, because Pauline recommended it, and had cinnamon, Dutch chocolate, and Pauline's favorite, toasted coconut (it isn't my favorite, but I couldn't pass it up for her sake). After ice cream, I went to Underworld: Evolution at Starship 9. I thought it was better than the first one, which is tough for sequels, and achieved its purpose. Sure the romance is a bit undeveloped, and the immortals are dying left and also left. But it has Derek Jacobi, a regular of Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare troupe playing both King Claudius in Hamlet and Caesar Claudius in the BBC mini-series. There is also a great sex scene, in that the actors are fairly modest (it doesn't even show the dimples below the nape of the back) but still manages to be erotic and passionate.

When I got back home, I realized my Netflix queue is prophetic, or predeterministic. On Fuse (usta be called Much Music--Canada's answer to MTV), they were showing Pink Floyd's The Wall, which was number one in my queue. Then toward the end of that Taps (the first of two films [the other being The Falcon and the Snowman] with both Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, whose birthdays are August 16, 1960 and Aug. 17 1960 respectively) which was number two in my queue. So I was able to watch both of those, taking me to about 3 in the morning, but worth it because I could take them off my list and get others instead.

John and my sister each called with birthday wishes while I was gone. John before I got home and Marcy when I was at the film video deal.

"Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender."