One novelty of being an Australian in America is that when it is your birthday you basically get two days of “Happy Birthday!” messages.
Last year my birthday was crazy – I had my green card interview the day before and then I was given a surprise party (still cannot believe I did not even realize what was going on with that!) the following weekend.
My birthday this year involved lots of e-cards and trying to understand that it was actually my birthday even though it didn’t at all feel like it. Firstly, my birthday always falls during Moomba and the Labour Day Holiday in Melbourne. It is always warm as summer is ending and while I was working at Parliament, it was nearly always a sitting week.
I got a lovely Sunday soups cookbook from Bill and we are going to Saratoga Springs and back to Albany over Easter with the focus on ‘experiences’ as birthday gifts rather than ‘things’. I mentioned in passing to everyone at work that if we were to all go out for lunch for my birthday, it would be awesome to all go to Mcdonalds. But then I realized that, having given up red meat for lent, I could not enjoy my usual (medium Quarter Pounder meal with a sweet and sour sauce) at all. So I decided we’d just do something after Easter.
Little did I know, Debbie baked me a spectacular carrot cake (seriously one of the best carrot cakes I have eaten!) and Katie and James organized a huge Maccas lunch for us to have in the conference room… and I had my first ever Fillet-O-Fish and I am SOLD!
So we had a real Mcdonalds birthday party and we all felt just so um… delightful afterwards! I got a bag full of goodies of everyone which was just lovely. When it came time to make a wish and blow out the candles, the candles were still burning when I put the knife through the cake as I my only wish was for a Collingwood premiership this year and I was just so excited to wish for it and because I am simply sick of waiting. Katie then yelled “Wait! You have to blow the candles out first!” Well, I kept trying to blow them out and they would last for maybe 3 seconds and then relight as I was trying to blow the smoke away because we were worried about setting the smoke detectors off. This kept happening and I started laughing so much I just could not stop so it was making it worse. Then, the smoke was getting worse and then I started panicing about the sprinkler system starting up. So I called James over to help and he couldn’t blow them out either. Well seriously… it was out of hand and Katie eventually put the candles in a cup of ice to put them out. Little did I know – I had never heard of joke candles and the joke really was on me. They never go out…!! I had no idea about them and of course, now think they are seriously the best invention ever.
In the evening, Bill and I planned to have my favourite meal (spaghetti!) for dinner and instead of cake I suggested we get a pie from seriously-the-best-pie-shop-ever at Grand Central. Of which, he lit with a candle (a normal candle!) and that was my very-happy-31st!
Here are some pics –
Katie and I – the hat says Happy New Year… 🙂
Those crazy candles!
Opening my present
Seriously – the card was awesome.