Happy Birthday Me

Another birthday has arrived, and I was blessed this year to have some friends to spend it with! It was light-years beyond last years birthday, when Gavan and I were a mere two weeks from breaking up, and we were both so poor my birthday dinner consisted of delivery pizza that I had to pay for... well, half of it, at least.

What an amazing difference a year can make in your life. And I don't mean that things are better or worse, they're just different. Sometimes I wonder if the distinctions "better" and "worse" really exist. Sometimes I think that life just "is," and you kinda have to find the good in every situation. I know that sounds a little Pollyanna-esque on the surface, but the fact of the matter is that you can see a whole lot of shit in life and end up really depressed, or you can make lemonade from your lemons. Even people who seem to the rest of us to have it made have woes and problems, right? So we're all kinda stuck in the same miasma, and we have to make the best of it.

I have it easier than a lot of people, I think, because I'm lucky enough to have some very good friends, which brings me back to the subject of my birthday. The past year has been kinda hard, emotionally and financially, but I've had my friends to help me limp through. And I've learned a lot about what's important, and what I want out of life.

This birthday started off with the fabulous Patti Kelly picking me up at Toni's apartment for the drive to Ron Siebert & Cary Spear's house. The Siebert/Spears live east of Pittsburgh, in the town of Murraysville, so it's a little bit of a drive, but boy it's worth it. They have a lovely little home, and Cary is Martha Stewart Done Right - that is to say, she's Martha done nice - so the house is done up so nicely it's just amazingly homey and comfortable.

Case in point: The garden. Cary's an avid gardener, so the first thing after we got a tour of the house, we got a tour of the garden. Skilled gardeners are always awe-inspring to me, since, for me, plants stay green for exactly the length of time it takes them to die.

Here's a photo of some of her irises. The photo's not all that great, since I was using the zoom lens attachment and probably shouldn't have, or at least shoulda stood further away, but I think you kinda get the idea.

Once we toured the garden, we made our way into the house and brought chairs and tables out to the back lawn and sat down to wine and hors d'euovres and several hours of chatting before dinner. I can't believe how much wine we drank! Although, we drank a lot over a long time, so it wasn't like we got roaring drunk. I sure did have more to drink than I've had in quite some time, though.

All in all, it was a wonderful time. Here are a few more candids that I shot off as the day progressed.

Patti	Cary
Ron and Joe	This bad photo is my fault.