The Place to Be!

It's my 33rd birthday. And my 200th blog post.

Now, there are milestone birthdays, e.g. 30, 40, 50, etc. And there are birthdays that grant you special privileges, although there's a pretty big gap between those because it's pretty much "legal drinking age" and then "eligible for senior discount." Anyway, 33 is neither a milestone birthday nor a birthday that grants you a special privilege, so I felt the need to distinguish it somehow by giving it a theme.

I came up with "33: The Place to Be!"

Truthfully, I think every age I have ever been is the place to be. I hope I never get to an age where I'm unhappy about my age and/or ashamed to admit how old I am. I think everybody knows that getting older beats the alternative, so on my birthday I always acknowledge how lucky I am to be alive.

Here is a picture of me on my 33rd birthday. Okay actually it was the day before my birthday, but this is my "birthday picture," you know like how you take your kid to take a picture on his birthday at Picture People and they put him on a block that says how old he is? This is a slightly lower-budget version:

For my birthday a grew another chin. Also that shirt actually says 'Old Navy,' but it seems appropriate that the only part showing says 'OLD.'

Obviously I'm holding up the double-threes because I'm 33, but it kind of reminds me of Nixon, who apparently held up the "V" sign in a lot of pictures, presumably because he was perpetually turning 22.

Nothing says 'Happy Birthday' like Nixon.

So, my birthday plans include: writing this blog post, going to Target to buy diapers (he's only wearing them at night, I swear!), getting my one-cent cookware using the stickers from the grocery store, taking my kid to McDonald's so he can burn off energy at the playland while I read a book, dinner/cake, and then play rehearsal. I think we're going out to dinner this weekend, too.

I made my own cake this year. Before you think this sounds all martyr-ish, the real reason I made it was that I like to make cakes and this seemed like a good excuse to make one. It's red velvet:


Here's the finished product:

We'll be enjoying it with cookie dough ice cream.

Well, I'm off to begin my day of eating crap. And to start enjoying my new life in The Place to Be!