Turning 40

I turned 40 on January 5th, but had (as tends to happen with people born at this time of year) been celebrating my birthday for awhile...

The night of the 5th was the night of cake, which is the centerpiece of any civilized culture's celebration of your birth, and we had a fun time leading up to the cake-phase of the supper...with both Gail and Ben showing off the cake to me, but wanting me to keep it a surprise from the other (as well as promising to act surprised at the official unveiling)...birthdays, like funerals, are often as much about the people attending as the person being celebrated in the ritual...


They had gotten me a carrot cake, my favorite, complete with buttery icing and the inevitable carrot decorations (which carrot cakes seem to sport quite often, as if to proclaim the carrot-ness)...


I managed to blow out the 4 candles without assitance...40 candles was deemed a fire-hazard by everyone involved...


Penny thought that I needed help though, or she was worried by the cake and decided to help...once she got close enough, she tried to unhinge her jaws like an anaconda and swallow the cake whole...


It was moist and flavorful and sweet and had a wonderful texture...if Shakespeare has missing sonnets out there, buried by the sands of time, they may well be about cakes like this one...


I opened a present from Muz and was dumbfounded (emphasis on dumb) as to why she would have sent me one fruitbat mitten...in my defense, it had been a long first day back at school, and I was pretty tired from staying up late the night before...


Penny was intrigued by my brief lesson on the various fruitbats of the world, and decided to eat this particular one after a closer examination...


Eventually we figured out that it was not a single mitten, but was a wine cozy (and given that it was from Finland, was more likely a bear than a fruitbat)...once I knew what it actually was, it was impossible to see it as a fruitbat mitten anymore...and also nearly impossible for me to stop laughing at myself everytime I looked at the thing sitting on the table, mocking me...


Gail's new camera is great, and this is the first reach-around picture taken with it...TADA!


Ben has grown up so much in the last few months, he really isn't a little boy anymore...but he was very snuggly and Daddy-lap-centric during my birthday (and I loved it)...


Penny has grown up a lot in the last few months as well, but she still thinks and acts like a tiny puppy...she'll always be a lap dog...