i got jipped an hour on my birthday

i always assumed i was a supporter of daylights savings. i guess supporter’s not the right word. i just never cared enough to figure out why they (whoever “they” is) decide to give us an hour here and take an hour there. until this year. they stole an hour of my birthday away from me. jerks.

i made up for it though. well, other people made up for it. i was just along for the ride. that’s what birthdays are all about. it started off with a “surprise” trip to gold lake with the boy. it was a surprise because i wasn’t supposed to know where we were going, but i assumed i figured it out and he assumed that i assumed that i figured it out, so then he planted a bunch of misleading clues to make me think my guess was totally off-base. it worked. i thought we were going to the frozen dead guy days. and then we went to gold lake instead. and it was perfect. check it:

we almost got lost on a snowshoeing expedition. good thing i wasn’t wandering around by myself. sometimes i feel like christopher columbus – trying to reach india but ending up in america instead. is it funny that i never knew until just now that christopher columbus was arrested in spain? what kind of a history teacher did i have? (answer: one who made us watch casablanca all the time because he was obsessed with ingrid bergman) anyway, bill led us through the wilderness – wet butt and all (his snowshoes kept kicking up snow onto his pants. (i used that pair the last time we went and it did the same thing to me (that’s why i wore snowpants this time (i didn’t need them with the pair of shoes i was using.))))

we continued our day by ice skating (he skated. i more or less crawled) around on the lake in our bathrobes. it only made sense to be in our bathrobes because we went to the hot tubs after skating. duh.

then the massage. dennis massaged me. dennis looked like this. nuff said.

i can’t tell if my favorite part of my present was the gift or the wrapping. every time bill gives me a gift, he uses the exact same piece of wrapping paper. it never fits the box, but he carries that piece of paper around everywhere (don’t worry – he put it back in his suitcase after i opened my gift) just in case he needs to wrap something for me later on. my gift was awesome! an instant hot water spout. does he know me or what? he has one at his house and i spend hours turning it off and on. even if i don’t want tea, i’ll pour some just so i can use the instant hot water. it was probably one of those gifts that was more for him than for me – probably now his water bill will go down a bit.

we had full intention to get back by noon, per meghan’s demands, but because of somebody’s dumb decision to make daylight savings time on my birthday, we were an hour late (you do the math). but i made it home all the same to a houseful of streamers and a giant bag that screamed “birthday gift”.

inside that bag was a little thing i like to call a tickle me elmo. brilliant. i proudly admit – i got an original tickle me elmo back when you couldn’t find the thing anywhere. this is version 2.0 – he slaps his knee, rolls onto the floor…it’s hilarious. we probably played with him for a good hour or so. meghan rocks.

then meghan took me to a recorder concert. yes – recorders. as in 3rd grade music class recorders. there were hundreds of them – all different shapes and sizes. and some incredible people watching. poison ivy was even there.


and then meghan reminded me how old i am by shoving 26 candles in a piece of angel food cake. the cake was good except for every bite came with a surprise helping of wax. thanks, bug.



so all in all, it was one of the best birthdays yet! and i decided that the only fair thing is, since they took an hour away from my birthday, i should get it back when they add an hour next time our clocks change for daylights savings. so mark your calendars, i have an hour to celebrate my birthday on november 2.