Birthday extravaganza weekend

Now that it’s Friday, I’m about recovered enough to post about last weekend, during which your narrator turned 36. I don’t normally do the whole “week of Greg’s birthday” thing, but this year it just sort of snowballed.

First, my friend Alex was in Las Vegas for work (or for “work”), prompting me to excuse myself from my normal friday cubicle activities and hop a flight out of Burbank thursday afternoon. After a bang-up meal at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, an evening out and about, and a day lounging at the surprisingly enticing Hard Rock pool, I flew back to LA, drove directly to the Short Stop for drinks, and applied myself fully to some sweaty sweaty disco dancing with about 15 friends (powered by a late-breaking second wind inspired by the indefatigable dz and all-too-rare encounter with Tamale Guy).

Ater closing time, Amy steered me away from the proffered after-hours drinks — but little did I know what my super-amazing girlfriend had in store for me the next morning. After a ruse involving talk of a pool party and a suspicious stop at a diner in San Pedro, where a close fried turned up under ridiculously false pretenses, she drove me straight to Berth 75. “Snowbird”, a beautiful 30-foot Hunter sailboat, awaited our chartering pleasure. I was given a quick tour, handed the helm, and off we casted, spending the day under sunny skies and modest breezes, tacking up and down the coast and tooling around Long Beach harbor. It was perfect. (Stay tuned to Amy’s flickr blog for the visual works.)
At dinner after, the group of us were so mellow that my friend John (who had not sailed with us) said, “I feel like the guy at the party who didn’t take the drugs.” To that I raise a glass and say, “hear hear!”

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with me!

UPDATE: Now with Cookie Puss

posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 7:33 pm Category: personal. Comment or trackback.