March has started out with a bang, y’all! Lots of fun stuff happening over the last few days, which is nice considering how rough February was on my family. It started with my birthday!
My birthday’s on the first, and this year it was very low-key. Normally my family goes all-out on birthdays, with themed parties and such, but I haven’t had one of those since 2014, before we began moving. (It was a great one, too – a “vice” party and a spa date with four of my extended family members – see picture below.) Next year will be a big one too, when I hit 40 and get my family’s famous buzzard party that I’ve literally been anticipating since I was a teenager. Ha! My brother already told me he’s started the planning. But this year was low key.
(Spa day 2014)
Jason made me scones with clotted cream for breakfast…mmm…and then he spread my gifts out through the day: yoga dice, Wires and Nerve Vol 2, Stranger Things Season 1, and these adorable individual ramekins that became part of dinner and dessert. Our tradition is to have one night eating out and one cooked special meal for our birthdays, and I chose laban ummo, a Middle Eastern dish of beef and onions stewed in yogurt and served over rice. I almost never get to have this one because my boys aren’t fans. So we had that and cherries jubilee for dessert, in those ramekins, while we all watched Murder on the Orient Express (excellent!).
It was a good day, and a great opener for March, followed up by Pop Con yesterday. The San Antonio Public Library hosted this con, which included a lot of stuff, but most significant for me being the group of authors gathered there. In particularly, I was really looking forward to meeting Robert Jackson Bennett, who authored the Divine Cities trilogy that I loved last fall. My friend Stephanie and I went to the event together. We saw lots of costumes, folded origami Totoro dolls, met a lot of authors and artists, and indeed got books signs by Bennett. We only stayed for a couple hours because of time constraints of both of us, but those few hours were awesome and I hope the library puts something like this on again next year. Stephanie and I both want to cosplay Sanderson characters for it, if we can get decent costumes together in time!
Lastly this weekend, we have officially adopted Jojo. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but our foster-kitty is semi-feral. He was on the streets for a couple months before someone brought him into the shelter, and it’s easy to see that those months weren’t kind to him. There are a couple sections of his tail that look like they’re missing hair, as if he had strings tied to him. He’s skittish and terrified of anyone holding something while standing near him. He struggles between his instincts for affection (<–) and to attack. Now that he has plenty of energy, we’ve been working hard to socialize him. Gavroche was about the same age when we rescued him, and had been living on the streets, but his experience was obviously a kind one as he was immediately loving and trusting of everyone and everything, much like his namesake. Jojo…not so much. He’s going to take a lot of training, but he’s already getting better, and I hope in time his instinct for affection will win out.
The Zen Leaf 
That is so awesome that you were able to adopt Jojo! I know you will be able to socialize him successfully and make him another member of the family.
March certainly has started out well for you, which makes me so happy for you. I love that Jason spread out giving you your presents throughout the day. It sounds like Jim could learn a thing or two from him because even Holly admits my birthdays of late have been pretty darn awful, followed rapidly by crappy Mother’s Days.
As for meeting Robert Jackson Bennett, that is awesome! Any idea if he has any new books in the works?!?
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I’ve had a couple of those kinds of birthdays in the past, mostly because J doesn’t actually like birthday celebrations for himself, so he used to treat them like that for everyone. Then he learned the rest of us were upset by it, heh. As for RJB, he did say he had another book coming out this August! There’s been a glitch with the cover art so he hasn’t announced it yet but will soon. It’s called Foundryside, and he said that genre-wise it’s kinda of the opposite of the Divine Cities trilogy. He said they were fantasy masquerading as spy novels, where as this is a spy novel masquerading as fantasy. Or vice versa – I can’t remember which he said! Anyway, it sounds interesting and I added it to goodreads already!
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That’s exactly why my birthdays have been so horrible. He thinks celebrating birthdays is stupid (and don’t get him started on Mother’s or Father’s Day). Holly promised she would make it up to me this year, so I don’t know whether to get excited or dread it.
That is great news about Bennett. I can’t wait!
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Well, first congrats on JoJo that’s great news and second happy birthday I had my bday Sunday so we are fellow March babies.lol. Thank you for being so damn awesome! Have a great day homie!
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Thanks, and yay for March babies of the world uniting!
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So glad you had a nice birthday — and what is a buzzard birthday party??? And where did you go out to dinner?
Which version of Murder on the Orient Express did you watch? Was it the new one? What did you think?
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A buzzard party is essentially an over the hill party except focused on the vultures circling to get you and without all the “old fart” jokes. We have a buzzard pinata that gets passed from party to party, and everything is done in black, and the cake can be designed in all sorts of ways. We gave my mom a second one for her 50th and Jason and I made a cake that looked like a dessert graveyard, complete with playmobile buzzards and trees. It was awesome. We’re the kind of family who actually appreciates getting older, so it’s a celebration with a little poke of fun.
As for the Orient Express, yes, it was the new one. I enjoyed it. It was far more dramatic than the book of course, and I didn’t remember the book well enough to remember who actually did it, but I had fun figuring stuff out. I didn’t realize it was Branaugh as Poirot. I’ve only ever seen him as Lockhart, and I would never have put the two of them together in my mind if not for IMBD!
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