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So!  Happy Birthday to me…. on Wednesday!

I had a really nice birthday day, actually.  I came into work to find that my workmates had placed a giant shiny present on my desk.  This was quite unexpected, but I was pleased nonetheless.  It turned out to be a copy of Alton Brown’s “I’m Just Here for the Food”, which I LOVED.  I’ve really been wanting to build up my cookbook collection these days so I’m glad to have one more to add to the top of my refrigerator.

Then Scott brought out a giant glass baking pan of chocolate goodness, along with a tiny takeout container of more chocolate goodness.  At first, I assumed that the takeout container was just extra chocolate goodness that couldn’t fit into the pan, but then Scott revealed that he made meat trifle.

See, we’re all Friends fans here, and we talk about Friends occasionally.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve really focused on the episode where Rachel makes the trifle and adds meat in it.  I don’t know why, I guess because of the holidays.  So Scott added an extra layer of ground beef to his chocolate trifle.

Yes, I tasted it.  We all did.  It wasn’t too bad until you actually chewed it and then you hit unmistakable pieces of meat.  And then your mind registers MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT IN THE TRIFLE and then you gag reflex starts kicking in because you’re eating two things that do not belong together in this world.  Good birthday.

I did a bunch of work that day including a GIANT Caroline Kennedy cutout and then went home where my boyfriend picked me up from the metro wearing a dress shirt and tie - he was looking quite GQ if I say so myself.  It was a refreshing change from his normal Threadless t-shirt/plaid button-up combo.  He drove me home and when I walked in the house, it was clean and he had even washed the tablecloth and put a vase of fresh flowers on the dining room table.  It was very sweet.

The menu started with blue cheese bites as an appetizer, followed by baked macaroni and cheese (my favorite!) and lemon cupcakes with cream cheese icing for dessert.  Apparently the theme of the dinner was cheese.

It was a really nice birthday, one of the best I’ve had, and I’m thankful for it.  I am very grateful for all of the people in my life who made this day so great.

This is a sappy post.  I’m sorry.  I don’t have anything funny to say, really.  My nights have been taken over by the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica and working out.  Working out isn’t really all the fun although I do occasionally get weird looks from people when I turn the channel to Food Network.  There’s nothing more motivating to me than the option of being able to eat delicious food - I’m hoping that by working out, my snail-like metabolism will kick it into cheetah gear.  Maybe.  Either working out or heroin, I’m not sure which one will work the best.