A great weekend.

Talk about a great weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate one’s birthday! A good part of Thursday morning was spent up in Ames. I was staffing a table for our agency at a senior expo. I really do like being at fairs/expos because it give me the opportunity to be out of the office. At the same time, it’s at the fairs and expos where I get to meet with providers or reconnect with old providers. I had picked a cake up to be shared with staff at the office at 2PM. However, a good number of them were out of the office so I postponed the celebration to the next day.

Later that evening, a group of us went out for dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant. I had already placed the food order a week ago. Initially I ordered seven dishes for seven people. I called the restaurant up a day before and added two more dishes. When the owner found out that it was my birthday, he decided to cook me an extra dish. So, all in all, we had ten dishes. One person could not make it. Therefore, we ended up with six people eating ten dishes. Did we finish it all? No way, Jose! We had leftovers. Everyone did try all the dishes which was really nice. I brought back four dishes. Oh, I forgot to mention that the cake was cut after dinner at the restaurant and everyone had a piece albeit a very small piece of cake! I was very happy with my cake selection.

On Friday, the office celebrated my birthday by singing Happy Birthday off key – it’s kind of an office tradition that’s been around even before I joined the agency. I must say they sounded mighty fine to me! With the leftover cake, there was not quite enough for everyone and I actually went back to the bakery to get another whole cake. I felt much better because this way, the people who were not in the office on Friday, were still able to have a piece of cake come Monday. After work, I went back at the apartment and had some of the leftovers before driving to Clive After Five. Today was the first Clive After Five and what it is basically is an outdoor beer party where you pretty much stand around, drink beer and listen to live music. It’s kind of a fun thing to do especially when the weather is nice out. Brian met me there later but Kristi could not join since she was hanging out with a colleague of hers.

After Clive, Brian and I went to Cabaret West Glen which is a non-smoking bar that opened not too long ago. The reason why I do not frequent bars is because I just cannot stand the smoke. I like the atmosphere and the vibe, but I just cannot stand the smoke. So, I had gotten in touch with Brian and asked him if he and other people would like to go to Cabaret on Friday. They said yes. The place was pretty packed by the time we got there which was roughly 9:20PM. Thank goodness we bumped into someone we knew and they were just leaving so we got to sit where they were sitting. Off the top of my head, I cannot tell you the last time I was out at a bar. Needless to say, it’s been a while. Two of Brian’s friends joined us and we basically hung around until the bar closed at 2AM. Did I have fun? You betcha! I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was non smoking and everyone who were there made it fun for all. I went to bed at 3AM which is extremely late in Anthony’s books, but I did not have any problems falling asleep.

On Saturday, I got up and watched Liverpool play. They lost the game but it was a meaningless game so I did not feel bad at all. For dinner that night, I was off to Ann and Harley’s place. They had the Sargents over for dinner too. Kathy and Donny Sargent are good friends of Ann and Harley. I’ve known Kathy since my time working as a work-study student at Drake. She’s a cool cat! Ann had called me earlier in the day informing me that instead of eating at home, we would be going out to the Chinese restaurant really close to where they live for dinner and I was to meet up with them at the restaurant. When they got there, they found out that the restaurant was closed. So, we all ended up at the Corn Patch which is a mom and pop restaurant that’s been in Grimes for a long time. Ann and Harley used to frequent it when their kids were growing up. I’ve been there twice maybe and the food is what I would call American comfort food. Dinner was great and we all had a blast just chatting and laughing. After dinner, we adjourned back to Ann’s place for more conversation and dessert. Kathy bakes this amazing lemon cake and that’s what we had for dessert. After the Sargents left, I stayed and chatted with Ann like we always do. Talk about a great way to end the evening.

Since I went to church yesterday evening, I did not make it to church this morning. So, I ended up going to the I-max theater to watch Spiderman 3. I figured since the show was at 10AM there probably was not going to be a whole lot of people at the theater. I was right. The movie was fun and there’s nothing like staring at the I-max screen for close to 2 ½ hours! When the show got done, I was off to St. Kate’s for the last of our Young Adults Prayer Group. Joyce Rupp had taken on a new project that would be requiring her to devote a lot of her time. So, this was one of the things she’s letting go with a very heavy heart. The four of us met and shared and it was kind of a bittersweet last meeting. Bitter because we won’t be meeting again and sweet because everyone else will be moving on to bigger and better things. The other two people will be leaving the state. One will be moving to Naperville, IL since her fiancé got a job there. The other who is our campus minister applied and got a position at the University of Dayton. She’ll be leaving St. Kate’s at the end of July. We’ll be looking to hire a new campus minister soon. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get one hired before the students return in fall, but we’ll see what happens.

That’s kind of how the weekend went. I was reflecting on my birthday and how this year it was special and definitely memorable for many good reasons. It’s just nice to be able to spend time with good and fun people who make it all worthwhile. Next year will be the big 30 but I’m already looking forward to it. I think 30 is a great year to examine one’s life and see where one has been, where one is and where one is headed.