This was a good birthday year for yours truly.  Between lions and bears, fancy touch screen gadgetry and buttery cookies; I couldn’t have asked for more. And the strange thing is, when asked what I’d like for my berfday, I couldn’t give an answer because I had no idea.  But eerily, I got exactly what I wanted.

The Zoo

All 3 baby baboons, 1 human parent (female) and 1 parent, actual-baboon (male), went to the Detroit Zoo on my birthday along with a human grandparent.  It was just shy of 60 degrees and sunny with a limited number of zoo-goers, perfect.   With the twins locked in their stroller, for safety, Milan was on the loose.  Highlights include:

• Milan presenting a lump of peacock shit, bare-handed, to me as some kind of parenting trophy
• Coming upon a beast that looked like a whitetail deer but was the size of a water buffalo and being told by Howard, the grandparent, that “No, that’s just a regular ol’ deer, they get that big.”
• Watching the polar bear eat a human who thought it would be funny to poke the white mammal with a fork

I love the zoo and the Detroit Zoo, in particular, is pretty spectacular.  Go there.

Microsoft

Sarah’s mother, Sue, was born 4 days before myself.  At her birthday dinner, Sarah presented Sue and I with an identical gift.  She proclaimed that we must open our boxes at exactly the same time lest we turn into pumpkins.  Sue and I looked at each other uncomfortably, both surely wondering what it could be.

Jabbering Milan tore the paper off my present, tiny Maren choked herself on the ribbon and brick-shaped Hendrick smeared yogurt in his hair. In the midst of this lunacy, I saw the corner of a Microsoft Surface box and joined the madness by soiling myself.  This tablet is pretty much the shit.  It’s got a built in keyboard cover and it mirrors my PC’s desktop.  PLUS it has access to the internet which I don’t believe is available on any competitor machine.  What else is there to say?

Cookiepuss

Zoo with my family, super duper tablet – what else could I want you might say?  Well, Sarah had been understandably very excited about the surprise she had in store and told me as much.  She had asked me “Can you guess what it is?!” My hopeful response was “Cookies?!” “NO!” she exclaimed, “not cookies!”  Oh well, I thought dejectedly, I’m sure it’ll be as good as cookies.

So, when a box arrived on my name day with “Cookie Bouquet” printed in the return address, you can imagine my excitement.  I hastily wiped the froth from my mouth and tore open the box.  Inside I discovered a dozen buttery, soft baked cookies from the parental units – Linda and Richard.  Pumpkin Buttercream, Peanut Butter, Choco Chip and more.  EXCELLENT.

Happy Birthday indeed.