About my 22nd Birthday…

So as you regular readers of my most interesting (yeah right!) LiveJournal would know, July 24th was my 22nd birthday… To put it simply: it was the best birthday I have had in years and years… with the only a few downsides 1. I spent a fair bit of cash 2. My sunglasses disappeared at the restaurant 3. My feet still hurt from all the dancing.

The day started…. well it started the night before… You see, I got home from the glorious beautiful trip to Camp He Ho Ha with WONDERFUL Kiwanians and others, walked into my apartment, and noticed that there were a WHOLE bunch of people there. It looked like they were having a reasonably good time, after noticing this, I turned on my computer, and figured out that they were busy celebrating my roommate's birthday with him, early, mind you (since his birthday is the same day as mine, with him being a year younger). Being the awesome friends of my roommate that they were they were kind enough to feed me some wonderfully great birthday ice cream as I sat (rather out of place mind you, given that they were all enjoying the entertainment that DVDs can provide… but given that I hadn't quite expected this and rather wanted to get some internet-y stuff done, it wasn't too bad).

Anyway, his friends seemed to be watching some pretty funny stuff. Looked like they were having fun, in any case… so that was good (gosh I'm eloquent this evening!). So, after the majority of the group headed off… I realized that since it was getting late, I ought to go to bed (around 2AM). I had already wished Brendan a happy birthday around midnight and had been in communication with a bunch of great people via e-mail and instant message with congrats on my birthday so this had put me in a good mood. I decided that I'd celebrate my birthday in BC time (Pacific time) since that's the time zone I was born in (more about this later).

So I woke up good and late-ish. Showered and got ready for my day. (ooooh! I like sentence fragments!) Ate a nectarine and ice cream. Got online again (so what else is new? *sighs*). Decided around 1ish that since I'd decided to catch The Taste of Edmonton (which is rather tasty this year… lots of bar food, less of the swank hotel stuff this time. It's a change, but not necessarily a good or bad one). Clarence had said that he'd meet me there (and maybe others, but the day was REALLY hot, so it remained just the two of us… that is once we ran into each other. In the meantime, I watched some of the strong man competition, listened and watched some entertainment, had some sunomono salad (not vinegary enough for me though… I'm rather the sunomono salad fiend though, so I ought to know what's good, and this was pretty mediocre), and then some beef vindaloo. Both were pretty decent. As were the free samples of Sprite Remix. Clarence came and then we had some green papaya salad with beef jerky, some samossas and then a fruit Martini and of course chocolate covered strawberries (white AND dark chocolate)… Quite a good treat! Even in this heat! 🙂

So after some more computer-esque procrastinating moments… my friends again arrived to cart me off to a birthday dinner of sorts. I'd never been to Montanas. Well… this restaurant really did remind me of the USA. The menu seemed VERY American… and they did seem to overuse terms used to describe the state of Montana… so it was a little odd. We really enjoyed the crayons and the brown paper to draw on… great stuff! Eventually I ordered two appetizers (rib tips, quesedilla) and a soup (Yankee Pot Roast Soup). The soup was delicious!! I'd wanna go back just for the soup alone! (the other food was scrumptious too… but especially that soup!!!) Anywho, I ate most of my meal… drank a good milkshake (not quite as big as the Steak 'n Shake milkshakes, but just as good, although it rather had a lot of whipped cream on it).

So at the end of the dinner, the staff comes out with an ice cream dessert (did I mention that there's a sign in Montanas saying We DARE you to tell us it's your birthday? Well there was. And apparently my friends had). The dessert has a sparkler in it. And they sing to me to the tune of the Flintstones theme song. It was amusing… especially since they put this hat with these big huge horns on my head… and gave me a polaroid of it. I have great pics from my digital camera too it seems. That was fun!! Never had that before really: the singing at the restaurant thing anyhow. Felt like a little kid again… 'specially since I got to play with crayons! (note that I lost my sunglasses at some point before putting the horns thing on. They were such a great pair! From St. Louis (Target)… and they had cute little rhinestones in the corners… and weren't all plastic-y and over the top, but tasteful… *sighs* now I need a new pair!)

So we head off… I join people on a Zellers run for… Oral-B Brush ups. They actually sell these things. Crazy. Last time I had seen them was in the airplane on an Air Canada flight between Toronto and Edmonton. But they worked it seems. Then we drove to the ballroom dance. Had a few dances… and then well… you see I'd sort of promised people I'd actually have cake on my birthday… and had to go somewheres quick, so as not to miss too much dancing. So we hit up Tim Hortons. I had the Mini Celebration Cake. Very cute.

Then back to the dance. And whoa… Steve is there! I hadn't seen Steve since Hourglass Ball the year before last. Weird (considering he apparently was at the last one, as was I, but we didn't meet). In any case, he's a great ballroom dancer, so given that I know very few of the men present at the dance (it's summer, 'nuff said), I dance a lot with him, and catch up on the past while. Afterall, he's been in Pittsburg, and I evidently haven't (never been to that State).

Other cool things are: my friends got me a wonderful birthday gift (yay Spa stuff!) and I got some semi-precious rocks too. Also, a lap dance by Brian (it isn't just the Cal-Nev-Ha people who do this… my ballroom crowd too, it seems). And then there's the strange strutting of Alex and so on. Very fun… very interesting… quite a great time.

Reminds me why I gotta go out ballroom dancing more often. I've been sorely out of practice.

So no tears this birthday. First time since I was like 10 or 12 or something, so I'm calling it a good thing. Nice to break the streak of bad birthdays. Even with It's My Party by Leslie Gore in my head all month… Too bad Klondike Katie didn't sing it this year… now THAT would have made my day perfect! 😉 Not that I wanted perfection (note above)… but this was great in any case!

Since I have work at 7AM, I think I'll to bed soon. VERY soon… How about… NOW? Maybe?