Birthday Magic

I turned 28 on Wednesday. It was a good day, nay, a great day. The birthday before--27--was rough. I didn't know why at the time; I dreaded it months in advance. I think maybe it was a sense of foreboding; something in my psyche knew that it was going to be a rough year. This birthday, however, did not come with the same feeling. I have actually been pretty excited about 28. 28 feels like a good, solid age. Firmly in my very adult-feeling late-20's, I have a better sense of who I am, am more comfortable in my own skin, and am surrounded by really great friends.
The day started off well. I woke up early to work on my blog posting so my mom could read it first thing. Then I opened a couple of presents my family sent. I made the mistake of opening the card Mom and Dad sent to me when it was still early. It sang VERY loudly to me. :) I about fell out of bed.

I got dressed and headed out into the misty morning with a surprisingly good attitude about having to go to work on my birthday. I ran into a good friend on the metro which added a little more bounce to my step. I didn't get much work done at work, what with all the phone calls and gchats and Facebook messages popping up. Plus, I played "hookie" during lunch and trekked back to Pentagon City for a lunch date with J who then drove me back to work. It wasn't NYC, J, but it was still fun! I felt so much love all day. Really, my birthday could have ended there and I would have been happy.

BUT.

It didn't. I came home and bought some dance music with the iTunes gift card Tommy emailed me. Then I went to dinner with a few friends. At the Palace. Kabob Palace. Of course. I received a gift of Oreos from A (a great reminder of the scandalous consumption of Oreos at Shakespeare in the Park this summer - ha!) and had a lot of good laughs as we relived some of the funnier moments of age 27.

It didn't end there either. My roommates (present and former) and visiting teacher cooked up a small get-together at my house. Very casual. VERY fun.

My parents sent me 12 days of birthday, a small gift every day leading up to my birthday. Mom doesn't like the thought of me potentially celebrating alone, so she tries to spice it up. She's good like that. Towards the end I started receiving various parts of a birthday party: balloons, birthday banner, confetti, noisemakers, a candle that sang to me and microwavable cake mix...

and....

...an inflatable pin the tail on the donkey. Which we promptly hung from the ceiling fan in the dining room. Then we started an impromptu dance party with my newly-purchased dance music until the guests arrived.

First order of business: sing to the birthday girl (who was having her birthday party in pajama bottoms and slippers. Happiness is...)

Second order of business: Play pin the tail on the donkey. This is Katie cheating.

Third order of business: have the obligatory butt conversations. This is me thinking I'm funny, but really, I'm just being an idiot.

We were a little bit confused as to how all 8 tails were supposed to fit on Jack's (the donkey's) rear end all at once so I decided to read the instructions (to see if we were supposed to remove tails after putting them on in order to make room). Turns out the back of the box's instructions gave much more fodder for laughter... And that's when things got interesting...

The tails started appearing other places other than Jack's behind.

If you look in the background of this picture, you can see the new variation on the game...we tied jack to the fan blades and, um, turned on the fan... We tried to incorporate the blindfold, but that only led to trouble. I'm waiting for Aaron's video ...

Meanwhile, the tail art continued.

Pirate donkeys. Classic.

THEN. As if my birthday couldn't get any better, we played.... THE BLANKET GAME!!

Round 1: The laughter that was going at the moment this picture was taken... Priceless!

When I said this is what I wanted to play, and even after I explained it, everyone looked at me like there was no way they would ever play this game if it wasn't my birthday. In fact, I may have even pulled the "it's my birthday" card when I got the uncertain looks people give when they're about to submarine your idea. I began to wonder if this was maybe a Bradshaw game whose funniness did not transfer outside the walls of the Bradshaw home on Wisteria Drive, but I pressed on. I wanted to play.

All it took was two rounds, according to one participant, in order to be hooked: one to be under a blanket and one to be a guesser. The game is this: most everyone goes outside the room with enough blankets, one for each person. Everyone gets underneath a blanket and then crawls out one by one into the living room and stops. A few people stay in the living room to guess who is under which blanket.

I know, it sounds lame. But it really is so fun. In fact, one participant (male) said, "I could play this game for hours." And we did. Because once you get the first few rounds out of your system and people start recognizing your body shape, you start getting creative with ideas of how to trick the guessers.

Such as tying Jack the Donkey to your back and then putting a blanket over you...

If my birthday day was a portent of the year to come, I'll take it!