post-bday blog

I had all sorts of plans this evening. My first thought was to write a few thank you letters to a the lovely people that helped make my birthday weekend supercalifabulous... but i don't have any stamps. So I  added "get stamps" to my to-do list tomorrow and decided to move onto plan B. 

Plan B was to hem my new pants that my mom bought for me (at .. the gap ..). But I can't find my sewing kit. Drats, spoiled again.

So here I sit, stomach gurgling from second helping of delicious (yet spicy) birthday soup. No one else is home and I am appreciating the quiet after a jam-packed birthday weekend. (Did I mention it was my birthday on Thursday?)

I kicked off my birthday morning by meeting my dear friend Frannie at FuBonn, a huge Asian supermarket in SE Portland. Frannie showered me with sequins, glitter, and bubbles and brought a birthday crown for me to wear; leaving a colorful explosion on the wet asphalt next to my car. We spent over an hour somewhat aimlessly wandering the aisles of this mini-metropolis. Marveling at fancy packaging and food we had never seen before.

I had moments of crankiness, grocery stores (especially of the flourescently lit, overwhelming large, pop music playing variety) aren't really my element. Plus I was feeling a little under the weather. I reached my threshold and could make no more decisions and basically wanted to leave. Unfortunately this was while frannie was still in the walk down every single aisle and look at everything phase. I appreciated her wanderlust and also had to honor my own limits. Our main objective was to acquire ingredients for my birthday dinner. Which Frannie oh so kindly offered to host at her house.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon somewhat moping around, let's face it, i felt kind of weird. Not necessarily an "oh my god i'm getting old" weird (i turned 27, just so you know). Just a kind of birthdays are weird, weird. My mom flew in from southern california in the afternoon. Yes, I intentionally plotted a visit from mom on my birthday weekend. Some may find this strange, wanting to spend your birthday with a parental figure, but my mom is great and we are pretty close and i wanted her to be a part of the celebration.

After retrieving mi madre from the airport, we headed to the Kennedy School, an elementary school turned hotel, where we had a reservation. We were able to squeeze in a quick dip in their soaking pool before heading to frannie's to make dinner. The dinner menu included salad rolls with peanut sauce, edamame and tom yum soup. We had some elaborate dessert plans involving waffles, whipped cream and fresh strawberries, but dinner was so satisfying that we never even got to dessert (except for frannie and i did devour a good amount on a delicious yellow watermelon that daphna brought over). It was a somewhat small gathering, 9 people (including myself) were in attendance. 

Even though at one point i realized i was nearing exhaustion and most of my guests had yet to arrive, once everyone did arrive and i was able to step out of the kitchen and just enjoy the food and company, i felt really good about things. One of things I am working on is taking moments to be grateful and acknowledge all the wonderful people and things i have going on in my life, and my birthday party was just a reminder of all there is to be grateful for..

The following afternoon my mom and i headed to 4 Wands Farm, which is where is spent the majority of summer working as an apprentice. Our 48 hours there were filled with more delicious food, lots of rain, hanging out with animals, spontaneous poetry readings, piano playing, cider pressing, cheese making, etc. 

It's getting late and I am getting sleepy so this story will have to be elaborated on next time. I'll leave you in suspense, unless you were there, then you know what happened..