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Thirty-FiveFriday was my 35th birthday. And y'know, I am feeling a little old. I think it's because I'm creeping up on the halfway point in my life. Men in my family seem to live into their early/mid 80s, which is a good long time, and obviously 40 is therefore closer to my halfway point than 35, but 35 is close enough to make me realize that I'm not really young anymore. Keeping in shape (even what passes as "in shape" for me) is getting harder, and I've been graying markedly at my temples over the past six months. My Mom's observation was, "Imagine what it feels like to have a 35-year-old son!" Heh.
 That aside, my birthday was far from bittersweet. Debbi sent me balloons at work on Friday. She wanted me to be able to enjoy them for more than just the one day. Very sweet! As a result, my cow-orker Matt suggested that we go out to lunch on Friday (I think he partly just wanted not to eat at the cafeteria for a day, but he was genuinely congratulatory as well). I also got some congratulations at Ultimate on Thursday evening (first time playing since November - we've gotten rained out a lot!). Friday we went to lunch at a nearby British pub, where I had a beer-battered banger sandwich (with chips!). You know, I used to joke that battered, deep-fried sausage was theoretically my ideal food; I didn't realize the Brits had actually made a sandwich of it! In the evening Debbi took me to dinner at Don Giovanni in downtown Mountain View, one of my favorite Italian restaurants. We had wine (for a change) and an excellent meal as usual. She also gave me my present - a Weber Q grill. I've really enjoyed grilling with the little grill Debbi brought down to my house, but it is on its last legs. Debbi's been looking for a grill I can replace it with, rather constrained by my desire not to dominate my patio with a grill, and my inability to really be able to store it indoors, as even my garage is getting a bit full to store a full-sized grill. The Q seems like a good compromise, though: It's big enough to do some serious grilling, but the stand is an attachment, and it has a vinyl cover you can get separately so I could leave it outdoors while still being protected from the elements. Today I put it together (we discovered that rather than using standard grilling propane canisters it instead uses longer-but-thinner propane canisters generally used for blowtorches - a bit annoying, but at least it's a standard size, not something custom-made by Weber) and we used it to grill some pork chops. It will take just a little getting used to - not its size, but figuring out how its temperatures compare to the old grill - but otherwise I think it'll be great! It fits nicely outside where the old grill sat and is very easy to use! So I think it'll be cool, especially next time I have folks over for a party. Debbi also gave me a couple of cards in cute hand-decorated envelopes - one of them a card from the cats with a terrific picture of a cat paw pushing a can of sardines to another cat paw. Awww... Other gifts included a nice LL Bean sweater from my Mom (which I've worn twice so far), and a few books from my Dad (Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell is a fun read). And Subrata gave me a copy of the fully-expansioned edition of Carcassonne. So the birthday festivities were a lot of fun all around, even without an actual party. But I think that's what I wanted this year. (Strange to think that I was keeping this journal back when I turned 30. It seems I took that birthday a lot easier than 35. Of course, I was heavily distracted by my then-prospective move to California, which happened above five weeks later.)
Other weekend activities: Debbi took Roulette to the vet and got her stitches out. She's healing quite nicely, and is back to full strength and speed. Boy was she one happy cat to get rid of her collar! Debbi says she was shaking like a leaf at the vet, though - poor thing! While Debbi was doing that I worked through all my financial chores for the month. PG+E corrected my erroneous power bill, which turned out to be entirely reasonable, thank goodness. I also realized that I need to consolidate my financial records on my computer and make the record-keeping easier. So I'll spend a few hours on that sometime in the next month, and I think it'll pay off in less time spent on this crap each month. We also made an outing to Hakone Gardens, since I've had a yen (har-har) to visit some Japanese gardens since my trip to the Portland gardens last year. Hakone is in a more natural style than the Portland gardens. Plus it's smaller and many things are not in bloom there this month. So I was a bit disappointed (though I have a sneaking suspicion that not much on this continent compares to the Portland gardens), but we may go back in April or so to see what it looks like around its peak. It is pretty nonetheless. Today we watched the NFL championship games. I was pleased to see the Patriots win their game over the Colts, decisively shutting down the Colts offense in a 24-14 victory. I was indifferent as to the winner of the NFC game, as I like both the Eagles and the Panthers. However, it was amazing to see the Panthers so thoroughly dismantle the Eagles offense, in their 14-3 win. The Eagles looked thoroughly befuddled, even more so than their trouncing by the Buccaneers last year. After three NFC title game losses, clearly they need to go back to the drawing board and try something different. The Super Bowl's in two weeks. With two of the best defenses in football, I think it'll all be up to who commits fewer turnovers, and Tom Brady's passing attack vs. the Panthers' rusher Stephen Davis. Could be a very long game for both sides if both defenses show up to play. We'll see whether my 35-year-old butt has the stamina to sit through it.
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