Happy Birthday to Me (and America) (in that order).

I am writing this post on a flight home from a glorious weekend (plus one day!) in Cape Cod. (Sidenote: should the appropriate preposition there be “on”? Or maybe it’s “at”? I don’t think one can be “in” a cape. In fact, I’m positive one cannot be “in” a cape – unless one has gotten oneself into a tangled mess with Clark Kent in a phone booth, but that’s obviously not the type of cape I’m talking about -- and that’s not fun for either party. Okay, fine, I will just forget it and carry on.) Boston Brit and her family welcomed me out to the Cape for a terrific weekend of all things non-work-related. I slept as late as I wanted every morning, went for longish hilly runs, ate delicious food with more people at one table than when my entire department eats lunch together (dinner parties are fun!), and paid more than I pay Starbucks every morning for a much more flavorful and refreshing iced soy chai than Starbucks will ever be able to make (at least that’s what I told myself while paying $4.50 for a small plastic cup filled most of the way with ice – but yay for small business!).

Boston Brit is one of the best people ever to go on a vacation with (to her own house on the Cape). She is one of those people who needs to plan out her entire day before she goes to sleep the night before, but she is willing to do pretty much anything you suggest. You want to walk all the way to the one store in town to get your chai after she has just returned from a 20 mile bike ride? Boston Brit says, "sure!" You want to laze on the back porch all afternoon reading the most amazing book that has ever graced your finger tips (shout out to Tina Fey!)? Boston Brit says, "no problem!" It's pretty fantastic. So, yes, my weekend was (as I mentioned earlier) glorious.

Allow me to rewind a week and return to the weekend of my birth date. To celebrate the coming of my twenty-eighth year, I did what all New Yorkers do on their birthdays: I went to brunch with friends. (Note that New Yorkers tend to do this every weekend, not just on their birthdays, but they absolutely do it on their birthdays, whereas sometimes they will not do it on a given weekend day. Thank you for allowing me to clarify.) We went to Kitchenette, which I highly recommend if you are from the South or like big portions and biscuits (i.e., if you are from the South). The weekend also happened to be Pride weekend in NYC, and Lady Friend and I attended several Pride events including a reading of celebrity memoirs by celebrities (not those celebrities whose memoirs were involved) that really made me laugh out loud. We were confused, however, by the fact that this particular reading of celebrity memoirs was advertised as a special Pride edition. At first we thought it would be memoirs of gay celebrities. But the first reading was from The Situation's memoir (sidenote: has he even been famous long enough for him to have a memoir? That seems very silly.), so we decided that was not the way the classification worked. Then we thought perhaps the celebrity readers were all gay, but we googled the woman who plays the mother on Burn Notice (good show - check it out), who read several of the excerpts, and found out she wasn't gay, so we were very confused. We decided, in the end, that the chosen memoirs must have come from celebrities who stereotypically appeal to gay people (read: gay men). Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, and Burt Reynolds all made appearances. Pride edition or no Pride edition, it was still a hoot.

Let's get back to my birthday. And birthday surprises. And the fact that if you know me at all, you know that I don't often purchase things for myself. I do an awful lot of talking about things I want and looking at things in stores and going back and forth as to whether to get a particular thing and leaving stores empty-handed. So, it should not be shocking to hear (read) that Lady Friend has heard (heard) me talk about lots of things I want. Like a yoga mat bag. And a running belt (not a dorky one; a small one that's nifty and spandex). And a new yoga mat. And the Tina Fey book, "Bossypants." (Shout out to Tina Fey!) All of these things are things I have wanted for quite some time and never bought for myself. Lady Friend (who is terrifically thoughtful, by the way) purchased each of these items for me in anticipation of my birthday and planned on surprising me with them during the weekend. The Thursday before my birthday, we went to Woodbury Commons, where I stumbled upon a Lululemon yoga mat bag for just $29! Of course I had to get it! I emerged from the store and found Lady Friend visibly upset. I hounded her to find out what was wrong, and she told me she had purchased a yoga mat bag for my birthday. GAH! The one I had bought was (obviously) final sale! And so began my ruining all of her surprises. A close call with a yoga mat, followed by a rant about how this one brand of running belts (which is nowhere to be found in Manhattan's running stores) is clearly superior to all other brands of exactly the same running belt, and the kicker, when I received her final gift (which was actually a surprise and very much something I wanted (shout out to Tina Fey!)) only to then open the gift my sister had mailed to me earlier in the week and find the exact same book. Sigh. I am not a bad person. I am just a difficult person to surprise. (Shout out to Lady Friend!)

In other news, I actually met people in my building today (well, on the rooftop). I am tempted to look back at all of my posts over the past two years and count the number of times I have mentioned other people in my building (I'll guess 3) and the number of times I've mentioned any interaction with such people other than a negative one (I'll guess 0, unless I count an interaction with Juan, the best doorman ever). But my interaction with these two guys was very positive. So I guess there's still hope for FiDi. Too bad I'm moving out in September. That reminds me- anyone who knows of a great deal on a one bedroom in any neighborhood of Manhattan other than the upper east side or any (non-scary) neighborhood of Brooklyn, let me know (if you haven't already taken it for yourself)!

Before I go, I will leave you with one more thought. Here's my thought. Actually, it's more of a question. Can someone please tell me when it became acceptable/fashionable for young otherwise normal looking women to wear high waisted shorts? I don't understand. I thought we were a generation of low rise to just under the belly button, no? Please, women of Manhattan, look at yourselves in the mirror before leaving the house. That's all I ask.