And it all began with “I don’t like birthdays…”
Happy belated birthday to me! For those who didn’t know, it was on the 3rd. And for those who know me well, you’re not surprised that I’m late posting about my birthday. Actually, it was more like a birthday marathon; it was, after all, the last year of my 20s to celebrate!
Birthday Blood Donation
I decided to kick off my birthday with a pact to donate blood, and to make everyone else I know donate blood. It was one of my New Year’s resolutions to be more diligent about donating every 56 days. I’ve missed the marker a little bit, but, I think I’m back on track now. So I’d successfully roped my father and my hubby into agreeing to donate with me. I have to admit, I gave my dad a little guilt trip because we’re both O-neg and Inova Blood Donor Services currently has less than a day’s supply of O-neg blood. We had all agreed that we’d go on Wednesday (April 29) and do our donation together.
I was sure that the birthday jinx was starting again when Dad called me up and said that he wasn’t going to make it back from his golf tournament in Front Royal in time to be at Inova in Dulles for our 5:30 appointment! I was imagining birthday fatalities all over the place. Luckily though, Dad went over on Tuesday afternoon and kept up his end of the bargain. Steve and I kept our Wednesday night appointment.
Blood Donation? Check. Successful birthday kick-off? Check.
Family Birthday Dinner
The original plan was to do my family birthday dinner on Wednesday night after the blood donation; mainly because:
- It would be convenient (Sweetwater Tavern is really close to Dulles Inova)
- Dad, Steve & I would all need sustenance after being depleted a pint of blood. We can’t blame Mom for not donating, she doesn’t weigh enough!
But, because of the golf tournament that wasn’t going to work out.
No fear! We went on Thursday and had my birthday dinner at Sweetwater. My father, who feels strongly about tradition, insists that we have birthday dinners at Sweetwater. There is no getting around it, no choosing a different restaurant, just go with it. Trust me, it’s easier!
The dinner I expected, but the cake? Total surprise! Dad made the “Chocolate Birthday Cake” and it turned out perfect (which if you know this cake, doesn’t happen every time). So everyone sang Happy Birthday and I blew out (attempted to blow out) candles and the whole shebang. The cake was phenomenal!
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Apple Blossom Festival
By Friday, the Birthday Marathon was in full swing. Steve and I headed out to Mitch & Ann’s “City” House in Winchester, Virginia for the Fireman’s Parade. I guess it’s not fair that I say we went for the parade. We actually went for Mitch’s home-brew, which was pretty darn good! A good time was had by all (maybe too much of a good time by some) and everyone sang Happy Birthday again. It was nice, no, better than nice… it was really great!
I was kind of surprised simply because I had gone to Apple Blossom years ago (rather been dragged by sorority sisters). We didn’t stay long, everyone else went out partying while I went home, it was a birthday disaster. Since then, I’ve boycotted Apple Blossom every year. And every year when Ann and Mitch can’t come to any birthday thing that is arranged because of Apple Blossom I get annoyed. Well, I’m glad I went. I had a fabulous time and now I know that if you hang out with the right people, Apple Blossom can be a blast!
[Gallery not found]Saturday — Official Non-official Birthday Celebrations
Because my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, and Sunday is flyball practice day, we decided to make my “Official” birthday celebration on Saturday.
Ketoctin Chapter, NSDAR Membership Marathon
Kicking off the morning (with a mild hangover) I headed over to Wendy’s house for our DAR Membership Marathon. Wendy is our chapter’s Membership Chair and I make up her committee of one. We’ve had a huge influx of interest in membership this year due to all Wendy’s fantastic efforts and we thought the best way to get a bunch of papers approved would be to have a sort of marathon to verify source proofs, print papers, and get signatures. All of our prospective new members worked hard on their papers and on Saturday we completely verified five whole applications that will be sent to the National Headquarters for official verification in June and a handfull of others who just have a tiny bit more researching to do!!
It was a wildly productive day. But at 5:15 p.m. my eyes were crossing from looking at so many genealogies and I was beginning to get a raging head ache. I made a quick exit and headed over to…
Fireworks Pizza, best birthday dinner!
The flyball group, Steve, my parents, and Marty (close family friend) all met me at Fireworks for dinner preceeding the rest of my birthday celebration. I felt terrible being the guest of honor who arrived late! But everyone was forgiving (though hungry), and we went to town ordering pizza. And this is where the night gets interesting.
Remember that headache I had from all the genealogies? Well, I asked my mom if she had any Excedrine (seriously the only thing that works for my headaches). She hadn’t brought her purse, but luckily my dad had a bottle which he tossed to my end of the table. I opened it up… Advil. While I was insisting that I would just take three and it would probably be fine he practically snatched the bottle from my hand saying that he had real Exedrine in the car and he’d go get it. I shrugged and let him do his thing. He came back, handed me another little bottle that said Excedrine and I took two.
The pizza came. I had ordered my favorite pie, the Segundo. But really it’s a modified Segundo because I hate onions, and I love their Balsamic glaze. I ordered a whole one just for myself. Nearly a third through the pizza I started to realize how drunk I was feeling. My internal monologue went something like this:
Me: Weird… I feel drunk… But I’m not drinking alcohol.
Myself: Maybe the waitress swapped your soda for something else?
Me: No, it’s definitely Sprite… it’s gotta be something else… why do I feel so drunk??
Myself: It’s the PIZZA!!!! That balsamic glaze has got to have alcohol in it!!!! The pizza is making you drunk!!
Me: OMG! We’d better not tell anyone about this, they’ll think we’re crazy!
About that time, my dad got this funny look on his face and demanded I give him back his Excedrine. He opened the bottle and poured out a couple of pills and then the look on his face got even funnier. He looked at my mother in complete horror.
“Jeanie! These aren’t Excedrine that she took!!! These are Vicodin!!!!”
Great… I took two Vicodin! No wonder I was feeling drunk and having conversations with myself about how the pizza was making me drunk! In my father’s defense, he’s got three different bottles all marked Excedrine. One has Excedrine in it, one has Advil in it, and one has his hard stuff from when he slipped a disk in his back (which he still keeps in his golf bag for absolute emergencies). Guess which one he accidentally picked up and gave to me.
There was some brief discussion about whether or not I needed to go to the hospital to have my stomach pumped; which I was going to adamently refuse to do until I actually passed out cold on the floor. Luckily Cece said I’d be fine after looking up the meds on her handy iPhone! Everyone agreed that I needed to eat a lot to soak up some of the drugs. I finished off the Segundo and ordered one of their fantastic chocolate chip cookie deserts. Mmmmm!
Who’s going to lay the golden egg?
The original plan for the evening did not at all involve Fireworks, that was just a bonus. Our flyball team has “Game Night” every once a month-ish and we decided to roll my birthday into Game Night and go bowling!
At a previous flyball tournament, Jim, Steve, April, and I all got the insane idea that we’d go bowling after a full day of tournament flyball. We had a fantastic time! None of us are particularly good, but we thoroughly enjoyed making fun of each other. Steve, unfortunately, received the nick name “The Golden Goose” after his fingers slipped from the ball leaving his bright yellow bowling ball behind him, as if he’d laid a golden egg.
We all competely expected that I would be the one to lay the golden egg being completley stoned on Vicodin, but it actually wasn’t that bad! Team Vicodin won one game and Team “The Others” won the other. We were matched pretty closely despite my disability. It was a miracle that I remained standing for the entire duration!! I do remember I had a good time, but the events of the evening are a bit fuzzy.
Later, I nearly passed out in my cake when we were back at my parent’s house. Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night!
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Moral of the story…
I hesitate to say it, but I think the birthday jinx is gone. *Rushes out and knocks on all the wood I can find* And just in time too! I’d hate to have the birthday jinx reappear next year when I’m already freaking out!!
What I think it all amounts to is that you can’t expect too much. You just have to go out, enjoy the day, be thankful for the people you have to spend it with, and not expect fireworks and fanfare all the time! Because you might just get Vicodin instead! 
So I’m not the only one who has passed out in a restaurant!
P.S. I am happy I can read your blog again!
I’m so happy you can read my blog again too!