It Isn't Spring Until You Can Step On Nine Daisies at Once

Actually, it's officially Spring because Nebraska played their Spring Football Game, 77,670 in attendance (this is a lot, Pittsburgh had 6,200; Oklahoma had 28,000 and their quarterback didn't think many schools had that many people) Two of those 77k were Allison and me. And to cement Spring's arrival we made a blubarb pie too. It was made with sorta freezer burnt rhubarb and blueberries, but it is still pretty tasty and as per usual, the crust was excellent.

We also went to the NCAA Women's Gymnastics National Championships which were also in Lincoln this weekend. It was fun watching Georgia win their 10th championship in their coach's last year, she's retiring. Included in that was one of Georgia's gymnasts, Kupets, who won the all-around on Thursday and in the individual event finals on Saturday added three more championships to set an NCAA record with nine for her career.

My Birthday:

I had a wonderful day. We went to eat at the Thai Restaurant and I had some always tasty Tom Kha Gai. And not only did I receive a bunch of excellent recipes, someone even asked me for one. One of my co-workers (while that doesn't need a hyphen, I prefer it when reading, because I can't separate the syllables properly, and I end up pronouncing it like a gaucho working cattle.), Mike, brought in a different recipe that he or his wife selected each day of the week following my birthday (the highlight might be a Brussels Sprouts and Red Grape dish). Another coup for me was a mushroom enchilada recipe I've been wanting for ten years. The recipe is from the wife of my principal in academy. Our new accountant at work is her class agent for Union and emailed her my request. Et Voila! I'm also looking forward to trying Ceri's mother's blueberry muffin recipe.

I made Eric's Potato Salad for Easter. Leah's recommendations were all excellent. The toasted pine nuts, roasted red pepper (I love "roasting" these over an open flame on my gas stovetop.), fresh dill, and slightly caramelized red onions all helped to make the dish. We (Angela, Mat, Allison, and Me) also had asparagus milanois sp? (roasted asparagus with an over easy egg on top) with quail eggs that I got from the Oriental Market. So cute.

I intend to blog more, and much of my fodder for that purpose will be my little note book.

Let Me Eat Cakes!

I had a great 27th birthday yesterday.

I started with a shave with my shaving mug glycerin Colonel Conk's Shaving soap applied by my boar hair brush (badger is a little rich for my blood yet, someday). Breakfast was at Bread & Cup and was a cinnamon roll, honey peanut granola, and French press coffee with cream. The reason they haven't had their savory bread pudding for breakfast is because they haven't yet had the turnover in the morning they would like to have a large breakfast menu, but they are thinking they will try to expand on Farmer's Market Saturdays. I'll keep you updated.

I had the opportunity to request anything I wanted for my birthday celebration at work, including the always delicious efforts of a husband of one of our resource consultants. So we had three wonderful angel food cakes with fresh strawberries, pineapple, and fresh whipped cream.

Lunch was at Famous Dave's so I could partake of their Famous Bread Pudding. Still really, really great.

The birthday party had a Better Than Sex cake made by my sister. I also got to have haystacks for the first time in recent memory. Angela, Scott, Wendy, Karen, Jim, Kyle and Cassie helped to make it a fun time had by me.

"Happy Birthday To Me."

That is how I started my day, by singing Happy Birthday to myself (and I didn't pay royalties to Apple Recording Studios. Take that Beatles.)

[What follows is a fairly detailed account of my day, so if you are the browsing type: ACHTUNG!]

For breakfast, I had a big bowl of oatmeal with flaxseed meal and dried blueberries that plumped overnight in the fridge. My mother called and talked for a while. The day I was born she had rocky road ice cream and pizza after not having eaten much the previous two days. It was also a beautiful day weatherwise; however, the following day it snowed four inches (St. Paul, MN). My drive to work wasn't noteworthy except for a great song by Ben Taylor, son of James, that was on KRNU that I waited in the car to finish before going into work. This was the first of four songs I emotionally highlighted because it was my birthday.

Work was good today, we had a big money day while avoiding that crunch time stress that can creep up on a busy day. During the all request lunch hour on the classic rock station, someone requested The Pretender by Jackson Browne (#2 of my fab four today). I went for lunch to Famous Dave's and had their delish bread pudding for dessert. I haven't had a better bread pudding from another restaurant, which is a neat find in a rib joint. Driving back to work a fun version of Waters of March by Gilberto was on the Brasilian radio show on Lincoln's community station KZUM (#3). Instead of getting a cake for my birthday celebration at work, I requested a fruit tray. This went over surprisingly well, with a much smaller percentage remaining than the run of the mill cakes we've had. On way home from work, I was listening to Iowa Western Community College's station, The River, and they were playing Buffy's favorite new song "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White Ts (#4).

After work Marcy did a great job being the "birthday slave" by cleaning the apartment and making our small gathering go smoothly. We had a Coldstone Creamery ice cream cake, red velvet layered with chocolate ice cream covered in a ganache accented in raspberry sauces. The exclusive guest list included: Wanda and Nate, Kyle and Cassie, Angela, Karen, and Wendy.

Now is the time for a recap of the bean bag action. The first game pitted Wanda and me against Kyle and Nate. After jumping out to an early lead, Wanda and I fell behind, but we pulled it out in the end. The second game, after a break for cake, matched Marcy and me against Karen and Angela. Marcy and I controlled much of the match with a lead of 19 to 8 at one point. Then Angela started paying attention and Karen the Closer got closer and closer til they won. The final match of the evening was between Angela and me. She kept her form from her previous comeback effort and led much of the way, 20-15 going into the last round. Then with a flurry of ringers, I scored seven points to win the match 22-20.

After bean bags, Wendy and I went to Yia Yia's, and she got me an Olfabrikken porter. According to the bartender, it is on the top of many "best porter" lists. I liked it. Still not as complex as Free State's Black Jack porter, but well worth the price.

Then I got home and talked to my mother again. This time she did the listening :). And now I'm blogging about my day.

(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."