Happy birthday in techno

And the "It's my birthday!" pin goes back into my jewelry box for another year. In 1996, my first year in the the 'Burgh, Lara, a college friend (wonder where she is), gave me the pin, which came attached to a birthday card, for my birthday. I have worn it every birthday since. But the emphasis I have placed on my birthday has gone down over the last six or so years.

During the first few years at my current job, I would send out a staff-wide email, reminding everyone that my birthday was only one month a way. I stopped doing that probably in 2000 or 2001. Lynnie, a coworker, used to decorate my workspace with twinkling lights and other paraphernalia, but that stopped once our offices moved across a couple of rivers just before my birthday in 2002; now we put a simple "Happy Birthday" banner across each other's workspace.
For my years, I gathered friends for a birthday dinner at some restaurant in the area, but that too has fallen by the wayside. Most of my friends have kids, and there is just too much going on so close to the holiday. But the one tradition I have refused to surrender is my birthday lunch with coworkers at Mad Mex. Being on the Big Burrito Group mailing list, I am the recipient of a free entree at any of their restaurants, and I have always gone to Mad Mex. This past Tuesday, we did "linner" around 3 p.m., to accommodate a former coworker and her girlfriend. I really look forward to this event every year, and I am glad I can always find a handful of friends to continue the tradition.

Not wanting the celebration to last only one day, on my actual birthday, Brian, Jordan, and I went to one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook at your table. We had a really nice dinner, just the three of us. After we had ordered dessert, Brian took Jordan to the bathroom. A few minutes later, very loud techno music started pumping from the PA system and lights started flashing. I saw our server heading towards me with a large piece of cake with some flower petal-candle contraption that she kept trying to light, and I was left to suffer through this display alone. The one manager must have realized what was going on, and she proceeded to yell at our server in Japanese. Within a minute, Brian and Jordan came back, the pulsating music and blinking lights started again (did I mention the disco ball?!), and the yelling woman lit this crazy candle. Boy was I glad when that was over.

Sure, I might still be a little about my birthday, but, dear friends, to my credit, I am really good at remembering birthdays, so it is not just about me. Here is to my late 30s (which, at 37, I don't think I will hit until next year), a great Christmas, and peace on earth.

Let's build something together!

That is one of my favorite slogan's (Or is that a tagline? Over a year removed from a design firm, and I can no longer remember). It belongs to Lowe's, although I am more of a Home Depot gal. But suffice it to say if someone handed me a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot (or Lowe's), I would be ecstatic. If I had $10,000 to spend, you could hear my shouts of joy from miles away. The things I could do with that money. Well, the things I could have Brian do with that money anyway. I love walking around Home Depot and admiring the fancy bathroom sinks and tubs. I look at the lighting and think about where I would put each fixture. I touch textured and colorful tiles and wistfully look at the fancy kitchen cabinets. I admire the various carpet styles and blinds. I look at the fancy front-loading washer and wonder what it must be like to have a steam dryer. I even look longingly at the vacuum cleaners because I can no longer buy a replacement filter for my eight year old mo...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

If only I had taken pictures of my detoured drive

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...

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