Saturday, October 29, 2011

Scenes from a birthday in the Kingdom...

Birthdays for me are usually not this fun.  I'm not saying my birthdays have sucked in the past, just not necessarily this eventful, or perhaps better...peaceful...enjoyable.  Of course, any day i wake up next to The Queen, is starting off well...which today did.  I get up to begin the daily ablutions and she touches my shoulder and whispers "Happy Birthday!" 

"Oh...yeah, i guess it IS!  Hah...Cool!"

After checking the sunrise, i'm off to wake the Royals for our Saturday morning excursion to clean the office.  Yeah, i worked on my birthday and on a Saturday, but honestly, it's not a big deal, in fact, i kinda look forward to it.  It's time i get with my kids, a couple hours in the car and a couple hours of easy cleaning.  More than that, they are learning the value of earning what they are paid for.  Then, the coup de grace, we go to breakfast together...today they chose Jamba Juice.  We sang and laughed almost all the way home.  There's a stretch of about 5 miles of beautiful farm road that undulates like massive waves in an ocean...perfect for turning the car into a 70 mph roller coaster...they absolutely love it...especially at the apex of the hill when physics becomes fun and vertical changes in vector lighten the body's mass just enough and positive g's ease toward the negative and thus emit the squeals of delight from four large-eyed, laughing Royals.  "Let's do it again Daddy!"

Love that...just. love. it.

We arrive home and of course, it's Fall, and in the Kingdom...that means football...every Saturday, every game we can get...and this Saturday, our beloved Sooners found the moxy they lost last week and tamed the Wildcat in Manhattan.   Then we grabbed some SEC action with Auburn and Old Miss, which Auburn won handily to our satisfaction.

But again, this was a different birthday for some reason.  The Joefish, whom i haven't seen much of in the last few months stopped by bearing a gift...as i unwrapped it, i found one of the largest bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream i've ever seen...MY friends KNOW how to please the king. 

About an hour or so later, who shows up?  The one and only, Brewer, who stood with me when i got married ten years back.  He also comes bearing gifts, fixin's for salsa and guac and later just happened to produce nothing less than a brand new Viking boat motor (aka hand blender)...like i said..my friends KNOW how to please.  The Queen made the comment later..."but i only got you such and such" to which i replied, "my friends get me what i want...YOU get me what i NEED."  If you must know, she got me a couple nice oxford shirts and some New Balance cross trainers...all of which i desperately needed.

Then, Blue Boy arrives with his fam and the evening is set.  He comes bearing fresh venison backstrap, harvested by his 7 year old on Tuesday of this week, and two pounds of glorious ground antelope. 

Let the Cooking Commence!

The backstrap we seasoned for fajitas and the antelope we threw into a stockpot for a test run meatsauce for an upcoming spaghetti feast for 50 (check for details next week).

 

I probably shouldn't go into any detail about how incredibly edible the above pictured was.  Let me just say, that was probably the best deer i've ever had the pleasure of wrapping my salivary glands around.  I'm not even hungry and i'm still drooling just looking at these pics again.

The Queen...again...produced what i NEEDED...the exalted mother's Red Devil's Food Cake...my all time favorite since i was a kid.  As you can see...The X is down with it too. 



I was surrounded and sang to, had a hurricane of help to blow out the candles and best of all just the smiles and handshakes, pats on the back, kisses, and hugs, phone calls...and a couple birthday toasts with good friends and family...all made for a very, very memorable birthday.

A king's riches indeed.


1 comment:

Bag Blog said...

"Livin' the good life" has a whole new meaning - doesn't it!