Welcome to your late 20s

My #1 turns 28 on this glorious SAD turn around day. I spent the entire week working on a draft for this and preparing for Andy's big surprise weekend. It was a test of will to keep him in the dark about my plotting and crafting. But now that the cat's out of the bag, I can share what I've been up to with all of you.

(Tiny-Type Disclaimer: If you fail to notice the subtle differences, this post might make me look like a hypocrite going back to the round-up formula. Appreciate subtly while it lasts.)

Andy's physical birthday gift was a planter decoupaged with the candidates of this year's presidential election. I started with a huge stack of magazines and catalogs and a pair of scissors. I went nuts chopping out anything that looked appealing, trying not to consciously discriminate.
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Eventually I started to see trends in what I was pulling out and grouped my clippings into categories. The number of clippings seriously outnumbered the amount of space available on the pot I picked out for this project, so I was forced to narrow things down to a single theme. I went with politics and shoved the remaining pieces in zip locks for a future project.

Andy witnessed my initial stages but once things began to materialize into his actual gift, I moved my set up next door in Tim and Lauren's dining room. Those two provided a lot of help by giving me free access to my hiding place their home. Lauren also contributed creative input, manual labor and company for me through the entire birthday process. Tim helped by avoiding Andy "like the plague" so he could resist spilling any beans in some sort of tourettic outburst.

I finally got to the application stage on Tuesday morning. I used mod podge as the adhesive and stuck on tons of small pieces for the background.

I let that dry for the afternoon while I shifted back into academic mode for a while. There is only so long I can think in lofty abstractions, so in the evening I went back to gluing. Lauren shared her crabapple juice and tasty strawberry-scented oolong tea and read a Michael Pollan; Apollo curled up on the carpet and enjoyed a raw-hide bone; and I cursed over almost losing Dennis kucinich's leg. Conveniently, Andy stayed at work late that night and didn't notice our absence.

I organized my paper-doll top layer on the table before I painted them on, one by one.

Then I bit the bullet and went for it. Here's how it looked when it was wet, and how it looks now:

Andy's other gift was a party.

On Friday Rebecca and Andrew came over and I put them to work. Andrew made the beautiful fruit salad and talked me out of whipping egg whites by hand. As if on cue, Lauren came to the rescue again with her Kitchen Aid mixer. She stuck around and chopped kabob-sized veggies with Rebecca. I baked the cake at T&L's, saving our apartment from an inexplicable aroma of Andy's favorite dessert wafting about suspiciously.

The show went down on Saturday afternoon at Cragmont park in Berkeley. Our friends got there early and went to work preparing the party. Lauren used my camera and took some pictures of the prep activities:

And everybody hiding as they waited for Andy's arrival...

It was a big success that Andy had no suspicions of whatsoever. We cooked up lots of great food, chatted, played games and stood in awe of the view of the bay. Everybody stuck around until sunset enjoying a beautiful California-Spring day.

The best part of this party was an opportunity to accept help from our friends. A year ago we were still living in NH and now we're out here with an established group of people show they care about us through offering their time, space and energy. It killed me not to be able to talk to Andy about this all week, but it became crystal clear for him at his party. We have awesome friends.

I want to take one quick moment to brag. Back before we started counting from that Saturday in August, Andy's birth date was the anniversary of our first official date, 7 years ago. I'm still feel very special that he spent #21 with me and every birthday since. My life keeps getting better with my best friend in it with me.

I love you, Andy.