Birthday!

Happy birthday, Mother Laura! Also Mrs. Caine, my elementary school gifted teacher. And, err, me.

The day started off when I woke up earlier than usual from the sort of dreams I get when I've been sleeping too long -- a sign that I'm finally, finally starting to catch up on my sleep. I stumbled to the computer, reply to a number of happy-birthday livejournal posts, and the next thing I see after that is that it's Mother Laura's birthday, too. How have we known each other for so many years and not known that?

...okay, less than a year. *boggles*

Then my mother calls to wish me a happy birthday. She called from her trophy store, too, so I also got to talk to my sister, to Steve and Bruce who own the sporting goods store she shares space with, and even Bill. Bill works for Mom, is one of two people who aren't related to me who I've known since I was born, and simply asked for Mom to hold the phone up so he could yell 'happy birthday, goat face' at me across the miles. I love my family. :)

That accomplished I go to work. Fearing mightily and yet hopeful for something cool; there's a card up on the birthday board signed by all the managers but no threat of anyone singing. (I don't have perfect pitch, but I do have pretty good relative pitch plus years and years of musical experience. The sort of atonal/multitonal/pick-a-key-will-you-anyway aural splodge you get from the usual birthday seranade makes me wince at best; at times I've fled. Once or twice I've howled.) Then I did it -- mentioned it was my birthday to someone.

Amusingly enough, his name is Louis. (The ex, for those keeping track at home, is Lewis.) It's been...odd, hanging out with someone with effectively the same name. Louis is a sweetie, though, and we talk cooking a lot, hockey every once in a while (he thinks it rocks that I played ice hockey when I was a kid), and a lot of everything else. He's in his fifties and works in sporting goods in the evenings and has some other job during the day just to make ends meet and it drives me nuts that the world is set up so that people have to do that but anyway.

He went out during his own lunch break and bought me a cake. With the numbers for 36 and everything. And then waited until I was on break and picked it up off the top of the fridge and handed it to me. And sang happy birthday (in tune!). And told me if I'd just told him yesterday he'd have baked me a cake and but this is what I got so here. I blushed so hard I could feel it and gave him a huge hug. It was even a yellow cake like I like. Yeah, he got that information out of me too.

Then the smelly bastard got on the PA system and told everyone else it was my birthday, too. Then everyone else in the store gets on one at a time to wish me a happy birthday. I believe I threatened him with death for that (not over the PA, though I did get on the thing later to tell people to get back to the break room and help me with all this cake already). I alternated between wanting to sink into the floor and grinning like a fiend. Actually, I pretty much did both at once.

If I weren't already involved with two perfectly wonderful guys...I'd seriously think about it, potential name-related squick and all. Louis is a really, really nice guy.

So what with one thing and another and a lot of urging cake on people I only brought home about enough for Tim and Ray. Ray had made lovely fresh bread and Tim had made...well, let me tell you the steps:

1) Make potato leek soup.

2) Realize there's not remotely near enough potato leek soup.

3) Stomp around and mutter.

4) Chop up some onions. Onions make everything better.

5) Hmm, those sweet potatoes should get used soon...

6) Turnips!

7) Simmersimmersimmersimmer salt simmer simmer.

8) Stick blender!

I might have forgotten an ingredient or so, but it was pretty much Winter Root Vegetable Soup. And it was good and hearty and warming and filling (especially with the bread dipped into it) and when I was done dinner I pretty much just wanted to go to bed. Tim, if you like could you chime in with a more, err, recipe-like recipe?

After that Tim showed me a web site for a geek-produced rubber band gatling gun which immediately got us off into plans for a self-reloading variant. Oh, the potential for terrible, terrible fun. :)

Home now, through single-digit weather. About froze a few parts off on the way across the street. It is not warm. However, Chocolate seems to have forgotten he's almost ten again, and is having a lovely time beating hell out of a fuzzy ball, so all is well.