Some Highlights from My Busy Birthday Week

This past week, the week in which I celebrated my 27^th birthday, was a wonderfully fun time that, as unfairly and inevitably happens, went by far too quick.  I feel blessed to have so many supportive people in my life, so grateful to be liberated from the downward spiral of depression and overeating.  It’s been so long since I’ve really had fun that I’d forgotten, it’s fun to have fun!  Here are some of the highlights of my fun birthday week:

*On Saturday Laurie took me on a run in the neighborhood across from the Club.  I hadn’t run for about decade, but Laurie thought that I was ready.  So with a goal of a 13 minute mile and having readied our GPS running apps, I set the pace of our jog.  Adrenaline and nervy energy made the first half mile seem quick and easy; the remainder of the mile was completed by will and by Laurie’s the encouragement and instruction.  

I had to slow into a walk a few times, but I jogged much longer than I walked, and, with a quarter mile to go, I thought that I might be able to match [be truthful, Mark!...beat] my all-time best of 11:11.  But late in the effort I had to re-tie my right shoelace and, like California Chrome at Belmont, I just didn’t have the oomph in the final stretch.  I finished my mile in 11:51, under my goal and a faster pace than my best 5K!

*Laurie went on a well deserved vacation, so there was no group class Tuesday evening, and I was able to go to Trivia Night at the Village Tavern in Montgomery.  It is a weekly tradition for my brother and, as all our family holidays includes a compulsory game of Trivial Pursuit mano-a-mano, he felt that I’d be an asset to his team.  I am in it to win it with what I’ve been eating, so I forced myself to abstain from the diet devastating deliciousness that is bar food (Draft Guinness, boneless wings, and fried macaroni’n’ cheese—it’s torture even thinking about the goodness!). 

With a reputation to uphold and a game to win, I used all my collected minutiae, learned from all the time spent reading and clicking the interconnectedly hyperlinked articles on Wikipedia, to bring my team to second place at half time and tied for first going into the final bonus question.  After booting the bonus, in which we had to determine a series of four cities based on a group of their suburbs—eeh…—we finished third, and I earned an invitation to team up with them anytime.

*Wednesday had a distinctly Japanese theme, as mi Mama took me to see the movie Godzilla.  It was so full of action-packed awesomeness that it gave me a headache!  Afterwards, it was only appropriate to honor the destroyer of Tokyo by eating sushi at an authentic Japanese restaurant.  Kyoto is a proper sushi shop, complete with a bar, miso soup, and nary a Western utensil.  I learned how to use chopsticks pretty quick, when the ability separated me from enjoying my food.

*Thursday was the big day, my birthday and, of all the things we could have done, we went to a comic book store.  My family loves the Big Bang Theory and, with nearly every episode including a scene in Stuart’s comic book store, my dad had wanted to go to one in real life.  I had wanted to tack it on to Wednesday’s itinerary, but my mom declared that this would make it too geeky for a mother to bear.  So father and son made the trek to the city’s undisputed comic book king, Up, Up and Away!, in Cheviot, on Cincinnati’s west side.  We nerded out for two hours, feeling our way through this new world.  I picked out a handful of current series and twenty $1 bargain issues, of all different kinds of stories, in order to only begin to take in the whole panoply of graphic storytelling.

For my birthday dinner, we ate at my favorite restaurant, a Mexican joint, with my family.  I had arroz con pollo, which is a tasty amalgamation of chicken, rice, sautéed mushrooms and onions, and ooey-gooey queso—Mmm!  My sister wanted to split a virgin strawberry daiquiri, and when it came out so too did the birthday sombrero.  My dream dinner having been thoroughly enjoyed, the house brought out a birthday sundae and reaffixed the birthday sombrero atop my head; then the whole restaurant sung Happy Birthday to me.  On any other day I might have been embarrassed, but this day was my birthday and nothing could take away from it.

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It has been a great start to my 27^th year—the first year of a truly health Mark—hopefully the beginning of big things.  The week was a nice respite from what might possibly become drudgery, but I look forward to ever challenging myself and staying focused by doing so.  Here’s to a great year!