Many Happy Returns of the Week (Or at Least One)

I have a birthday week coming up.  Anyone who reads this blog or notices how much I post about it on Facebook and starts to think that I'm unduly obsessed with a fairly random set of dates, completely fails to grasp the gravity of the phenomenon that is birthday week. It's as though some temporal portal opens to about, say, 2005. The birthday-haver gets to do more or less whatever s/he pleases. It is also an occasion for great feasting and merriment of various sorts, and thus, naturally, a catalyst for fantastical speculation in the days and weeks leading up to the happy event.

What to do? The possibilities are almost endless. I want to spend days reading and catching up on the blogosphere, my creative writing project, and my shamanic witchcraft homework. I'm considering various gatherings, including a gothday party (everyone is required to wear black and act despondent), a restaurant outing (Dee's?), and/or a cake fest. I want to take James out for lunch and a movie (sushi buffet/if we can find a good one), and the kids to the indoor pool and the omnimax animal film (if they can stand it.)

And I want to cook, at least I think I do. I'm currently being tempted by a molecular gastronomy spherification kit (root-beer "caviar" in a vanilla malt, anyone? If not, luckily it's my birthday week), and I'm pretty sure the time is right for frozen butterbeer and, if I'm felling really crazy, maybe even DIY sprinkles (you can make ridiculous things like that during your birthday week). Besides all that, I have paintings to paint, sewing to sew, and Waldorf gnomes that aren't going to dress themselves...oh, and I kind of want to make this reusable party banner. And get another tattoo. This is the problem with birthday weeks.