Friday (the birthday itself):
Work sucked. Big surprise. Got out late. Another big surprise. Yummy white-chocolate-chunk brownies, though. Yum!

Got out of work, into traffic. Blah. Picked up Erik, who looked at my new car MP3-playing CD player, and said "damn, that's funny. I was gonna buy you one of those for your birthday." Shame I was impatient, but very cool that he was thinking that highly of me. I was quite flattered.

Got to the party. Yay! (Well, sort of. Work put me in a bad enough mood that I was having a very tough time enjoying myself for some of it - but with Jen making Bar-B-Cups and everybody playing some very fun games, not to mention the birthday carrot cake the overall experience was very good.) Honkey got me Roger Rabbit Vista Series - Yay! (Had I already pre-ordered it? Yeah, I'm a moron. But that's easily returnable, and the fact that Honkey got it for me makes this one that much cooler.) We watched the three RR shorts that had been in theatres, and I was reminded of how great they were, and saddened that nobody's making cartoons like that anymore. We need more Roger Rabbit! More Road Runner! Bugs Bunny when he was a sarcastic, violent bastard! Oh, well. Not like it's gonna happen...

Party broke up around 1. Hung out until about 1:30. Drove to Jen's, passed out.



Saturday:
Alarm woke me up. Second alarm woke me up too. Drove to quartet rehearsal, thanked God I was still alive, sang and sang. We're making progress. Oh, that reminds me - I need to contact the coach.... Sending that e-mail now.... (doncha love stream of consciousness posts?) OK....where was I? Ah, Jack's wife made Sloppy Joes, so I munched and enjoyed. For some reason, as much as they hold a place in my heart and heartburn, the ones from elementary school just don't really hold up to these ones. Rehearsal was interrupted by Weekend Support. Dealt with stupid people. Rehearsal ended, drove to the bank. Dealt with more stupid people for Weekend Support. Drove back to Jen's. Rested and read. Got back on the road, went to see Trojam with Jen and Erik! Woo! Hoo! Some great things, some less than great things. Look for a review with individual groups later, when I remember to get my notes from Shandy. Bought some CDs, schmoozed with the performers, geeked out on them a bit. MAN, that a cappella Nintendo medley was great! (Ya shoulda been there, Honkey! :-P )
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Jen arranged to coach one or two of the groups. I arranged to get on mailing lists and get sheet music to an amazing Hanukkah song from Awaken A Cappella. We both walked away feeling great about it. And then we got Caramel Apple Ciders from Starbucks! Could the day have gotten any better?



Sunday:
The plan:
Breakfast at Disneyland, Jen's surprise for me from 1-3, possibly a movie, Jen cooking dinner. Rest and relaxation.

The reality:
Sleep. Yay! Left the house to go to Disneyland, but they were no longer serving breakfasts. *sigh* Wait - isn't Winnie the Pooh not supposed to open for almost another month? DOOD! Rode. Good damn family ride. I put it on a scale with the better ones at the Park - Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad. (Not good enough to justify losing Mr. Toad, but we didn't - we lost Country Bears. Toad's gone from Florida for this, though...) Chatted briefly with Cariss (ex girlfriend who works at DL, for the new readers), who's added Winnie to her repetoire of attractions at the Park. Lunch at Redd Rockett's. Mmmmm....fusilli..... Then off to Jen's surprise, which turned out to be my very first time ice skating! LOTS of fun, LOTS of work. More than a little scary for one who's never done it before. But I got through roughly an hour on the ice (with breaks) before my ankles and muscles decided they couldn't support me anymore. And I only fell once!

Where to go from there? Our choices were home to rest or Downtown Disney for a movie - from which we may or may not have been able to leave our seats. :-) We decide Disney. But when we arrive, I remember that DCA has a preview for Brother Bear in the Animation Building, so we do that instead. Then we hang out for a little while and see Groove 66. It's just been an a cappellooza weekend. Hang out after their set and chat for a while - again, geeking out with Bryan Chadima, a great and extremely talented guy, who surprised us by arguing when we called ourselves scary stalker fans. Heh. We'll just have to up the ante... *eg* They went backstage to rest for their next set, which was just over half an hour away, so we decided to hang for that one too. Got some Boudin Bakery bread, saw Bug's Land, caught the second set. It's now 6:30ish... Should we check out movie showtimes? No - Jen wants to see Pooh again! We go in and meet up with Cariss, who's just getting off her shift. As we get on the ride, she hints at some stuff for us to see, which we don't, then meets us at the exit. She decides to do a ridethrough with us to show us things like (shhh!) the official Hidden Mickey, and other such secrets. It's a blast! We hang out for a while and chat, and invite her to the movie (mind you, we don't know what's playing or at what time, but who cares?) She needs to go home and change, but if we want to do dinner... That certainly makes sense, it now being 8:30. So we decide to meet at Rainforest Cafe. We do, around 9:00, and eat and talk and talk and talk. The rest of our section is not only empty and cleaned, but most of the doors to it are locked by the time we disperse after 11:30. But it was a lot of fun. I wasn't being sarcastic when I told her I was glad we'd done it. (Despite some of the less comfortable conversations.)

Exhausted, I collapsed in bed. This was a GOOD weekend.


Happy birthday to me!!!