I received a birth­day reminder two days ago in the form of a card from my par­ents (a Richard Scarry-esque draw­ing of a crowd of cats, cell-phones to their ears, with the line inside, “Can you hear me meow?”). I had most­ly for­got­ten, although it came to mind about a month ago, and the thought remained dor­mant until Pat brought it up today.

During the week I made plans to meet Pat and Jen for dim sum, not know­ing that they secret­ly invit­ed Aaron and Karen as well, and that it was real­ly to take me out for my birth­day. Afterwards, we came back here to play some Donkey Konga and Mario Party. As sim­ple as it may seem to sit around play­ing games with a bunch of friends, it’s rare to find a day that our sched­ules match. It’s even more rare to hang out with a group of peo­ple I can total­ly relax with and just have a good time, let alone be able to indulge in the plea­sure of a bunch of addic­tive par­ty games with them. These are real friends, peo­ple who remind me how good it is to laugh, and help me real­ize that I don’t do it near­ly enough any­more.

On a day that I ask for noth­ing, I was giv­en every­thing that I could have want­ed.