She's pretty damn wierd.

I'm pretty sure that no one other than my mother would ask for a meat thermometer for Christmas. I shouldn't be suprised, as this is the same woman who once asked for a rack of ribs for Mother's Day. It was amusing, if only because I got to tell people I gave my mom raw meat as a gift.

I finished another One-Row Scarf for my dad last night. I have to start another project so that everybody (Dad, his wife Pang, and Wyatt, the new kidlet) gets something handmade, but all in all it's working out pretty well. The way I see it, if I can knock out a second scarf and a child-size hat (for another family), I'm going to consider this holiday season a success with more than 50% of goals completed. All that leaves is the other half.

The sort-of birthday outing of this weekend was a rousing success. I had an awesome time seeing the Red Elvises, and afterwards we popped over to the dive bar across the street and caught the Hot Roddin' Romeos. I lost one of my favorite scarves, but I'm going to check back and see if maybe it turned up. That makes three handmade scarves lost over the last couple of years-- one in the Baltimore airport security check, one at the (no longer open) 3B Tavern, and now this one at another bar. While none have been particularly fancy--heck, the 3B scarf was thrown together in two hours while watching a movie-- it still irks me that I have such trouble holding onto things. I'm going to start pinning things to my clothes, like they do in elementary school. This will go well with my plan to put locators on everything I own.*

For now, I'm on the move. I've got to get myself a shower before I go have a birthday lunch with the lovely Stephanie. After that, I have a full afternoon of Christmas tree hauling, knitting, and eventually dinner with my super-awesome boyfriend.

*I find I have a really hard time keeping track of things, but I thought of a way to remedy this. Know how you can call your cell phone when you lose it and it will ring to tell you where it is? Well, my plan is to put beepers and bells on everything, then create a big board of buttons that I can push to find things. The buttons will have labels like "keys" and "purse" and "left shoe".

Happy Birthday to me!

This is gonna have yesterday's date on it, simply because I've been trying to finish writing this for the last two days.

On Saturday, I was given the best birthday present by my boyfriend-- an awesome evening full of fun.

Thanks to the generosity of my coworker, I was able to get off work early enough to make our dinner reservations at Buca di Beppo. I had never been there before, and Eric hadn't been there in years, but I really enjoyed it, with all of the quirky photographs and the wierd restaraunt layout. Watching the waiters and servers and hostesses and bussers run around seemed like a study in controlled chaos. Some high school must have been having their winter formal last night, cause I kept seeing groups of five or six dressed-up teenage girls heading for the bathroom. Always in groups, never individually-- makes me remember what it was like to be 16 and, for reasons I still can't explain, unable to go to a bathroom alone.

We had a huge, really delicious meal, then jetted off to The Crocodile to see The Living End. Having been a fan of this band for years (a little before and long after "Roll On" came and went), I was pretty excited to see them. Eric had seen them years ago on Warped Tour and became a fan from that, so we were both pretty stoked to go.

It was, quite honestly, one of the best shows I've been to in... well, years. The last time I remember being that blown away was Death Cab for Cutie at Viking Union three years ago. The musicianship was impressive-- I have no idea how Chris Cheney can play like that and manage to sing at the same time. Their new songs are just as good as the old ones they made eight years ago, and are somehow managing to keep the same distinctive sound while (atleast on some songs) doing something other than punk rock beats and hooks. I was having such a wonderful time that at one point I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment.

The following day, my actual birthday, was much more low-key, which is exactly how I wanted it. I got to sleep in without having to worry about the meter maids, have dinner with my mom where she gave me traditional birthday dessert of Death by Chocolate (my favorite), go play boards games with some of my best friends, then go out for a casual drink with some other good buddies. All in all, I call this birthday a roaring success.