Another day, another year older

Yesterday, my 45th birthday ended with a phone call from some grad school buddies who were hanging out in the Big Apple where one of them teaches at NYU Film School, and the other was in town to shadow the show runner on one of the many Law and Order tv shows (I don't recall which one). He's directing a Cold Case (another show I've heard of but not seen) and was absorbing as much episodic TV / shoot 10-script-pages-a -day-mojo as he could before his tv drama directing debut in a few months. Meanwhile the NYU professor is off to Ethiopia to shoot a documentary he's been hired to make...helps that he's actually from Ethiopia.

Oh the glamour.

Earlier in the evening I cooked up a couple juicy ribeyes on the grill, bacon stir-fried some green beans (from our garden) and made a big pot of sticky rice for my birthday dinner with the family unit. Pepperidge farm coconut layer cake for dessert along with a single big ol' candle to blow out and wish upon. Big present from the girls was a crayon drawing of Lightning McQueen from PK (which looks suspiciously a lot like my El Camino - score), and a hand-sewn collage of the letters in my name on a felt cloth from C.

Actually, the best present from C wasn't a tangible gift, but a symbolic one -- earlier in the day she checked out and started reading the first book in the Maximum Ride series. Sure she's only 8.5 and this book is written for 10+ year olds, but she's been reading two levels above her grade all year now, and boy-oh-boy, what a great series to dive into. A proud papa-is-a-book-geek moment to be sure.

Oh the pride.

Let's see...before dinner and presents the girl's went with some friends to the local movie house (they saw Space Chimps, featuring Okie, Kristen Chenoweth). While they were munching popcorn, I mowed and edged the side and backyard. By the time they got home the temps were in the low 100's so I put away the mower and ran inside for a Powerade slush (nothing exotic, just stick a $.79 bottle of PowerAde in the freezer and let it sit for an hour).

Earlier still I woke up extremely late (burned some midnight oil on a project in the works) and took the girl's for a veggie omelette downtown followed by a trek over to the library for the last day of the kid's most excellent Oklahoma Summer Reading Program.

So that was how I transitioned to the next year of my life here in my small town.

A final note of triumph (or tragedy, depending on your point of view), my Wife called me today to remind me that the "country club" (be sure to say that with your best Thurston Howell the Third voice) where my in-laws are taking us to dinner tonight for a belated birthday celebration, is trousers mandatory. Meaning, no shorts in the dining room.

I have to wear long pants.

Oh the horror.