Friday, November 17, 2006

Birthday 2006

Birthday Tally
The results are in. Following in the footsteps of my goal-oriented friend Betsy*, here are the numbers.

birthday phone calls: 11
birthday phone calls in which someone sang "Happy Birthday to You": 2
birthday phone calls in which someone hummed "Happy Birthday to You" because they were at work: 1
birthday phone calls at exactly 5:04pm: 1
birthday cards: 4
birthday emails: 3
birthday blogs: 1
birthday comments: 1
birthday monk-mail with talking monkey: 1
birthday music compilation CDs: 1
new favorite band as a result of birthday music compilation CD: Guster

* Betsy is notorious for making (and following through with) resolutions. Just this past New Year's Day, she resolved to be less achievment and goal-oriented. On January 2nd, she went in to work only to find out that January 1st wasn't a company holiday.

Birthday Recap
I'm just starting back into running and for my birthday, I told Jon I wanted to go for a run in my favorite running spot, Umstead State Park. I got to work at 6:30am so I could get my work done and leave at 3:30pm. We started on the trail at 4:00pm. After about ten minutes, I was winded and tried to slow to a walk.

"I'm gonna walk for a few minutes."
"No, come on, you can keep going."
"Really, I need a break."
"It's all in your head. Run through it."
"I'm about to die."
"You aren't even close to death."
"I can barely breathe!"
"But you can still talk. Come on."
"Jon, it's my birthday and I want to walk for a few minutes!"
Jon, cheerfully: "If you keep running, you can have cake. You would be really surprised at how far you can push your body before it will fail. Just run through the pain."

Resistance and reasoning are futile.

Afterwards, we stopped for burritos and went home to clean up. The plan was to go out for dessert. I took a bath in the fabulous new tub and when I got out, realized that I wanted relaxation more than I wanted cake. I begged off going out and curled up with my two new books:

Preserves: The Complete Book of Jams, Jellies, Pickles and Preserves
Mes Confitures: The Jams and Jellies of Christine Ferber

Next year I will be taking strawberry-mulberry jam to new heights.

1 comment:

Liz Dwyer said...

Oh happy birthday! It sounds like it was wonderful!