strike that

my friends kick ass

Like Jesus, I was born on Christmas. And also like Jesus, I was raised Jewish. Consequently (like Jesus) I was spared the two-gifts-in-one angst of Christian Christmas Babies. Being a Jewish Christmas Baby is actually quite the boon when you’re small: no school on your birthday and a reason to get gifts on a day that would otherwise involve gifts for everyone but you.

Being an adult Jewish Christmas Baby, however, is crap. The last time I celebrated my birthday with multiple friends was when I turned 21. My high school crew, home from college for winter break, took me to a hole-in-the-wall Philly bar filled with lonely single men who happily joined in the celebration, presenting me with so many shots that I ended the night by falling over in Lauren’s driveway.

But there has been no such raucous fun since then, and this year’s upcoming birthday was looking particularly bleak. The three month lead-up has been filled with job rejections and getting dumped. My Portland friends are all heading out of town for the holidays. My housemates are already gone. So not only will I not be celebrating my birthday, I also won’t be participating in the caroling / cookie eating / Christmas tree fun that is a wholly joyful alternative. I think it would be fair to say that for the past two weeks I have been downright mopey when the subject comes up. What are you doing for your thirtieth? people keep asking. Dogsitting, I say. And then I try not to feel miserable.

But then tonight at seven thirty my doorbell rang. And there were my Portland friends, singing a Christmas carol. Which morphed into a dreidel song. Which morphed into Happy Birthday. And before I knew what was going on, they were hanging fairy lights on the mantel and slicing fruit in the kitchen and setting up a remarkably extensive bar, so that within the hour we were all gathered in the sparkly living room drinking blackberry brandy cocktails and feasting on chocolate fondue. And did you catch that part? Can I just say it again? Fondue. They got me a fondue set and brought all of the melty ingredients and all of the dippy bits and… Fondue. Holy Fuck.

And then – what’s the opposite of adding insult to injury? – they whipped out the activities portion of the evening: giant origami. Giant Fucking Origami. Can you think of anything more perfect? So while passing around spiked eggnog, we folded huge discarded site plans from Nopporn’s landscape architecture firm into schools of giant goldfish and swarms of gargantuan dragonflies.

To Recap: Angel food cake covered in dark chocolate. Cocktails with pineapple garnish. Jelly fish stories. Knitting jokes. Kitchen dancing. Big paper arthropods. Several attempts to photograph said arthropods “in flight.” A tiara making rounds. First adult birthday with friends. First surprise birthday ever. Completely fucking awesome.

posted by tortaluga @ 12:42 AM