I know I’ve been MIA, a remiss blogger, a bit of a ghost around the internets lately.

But, as I said before, I honestly don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

And if ever there was a reason for said invisibility to NOT be a bad thing, the celebrations of my first birthday with the family in ten years should make it more than justifiable.  Because people, I celebrated twice!

The first celebration went down on the Sunday before my birthday, when we were able to get everyone under one roof for food and drinks. I can’t tell you how excited I was at finally having my family around for my birthday.  I’m too old to see it as a Presents Op (not that we’re a big presents kind of family)–what I was all about was the party atmosphere, the chance to NOT be the worst singer of “Happy Birthday” in the bunch, and the fun of wearing clothes from other people’s closets:

The meal itself took a decidedly meaty, wintry turn, in the form of Belgian beef carbonnade, egg n oodles, sautéed apples in all kinds of liquor, and green beans.  This is actually one of my favorite recipes from back in the day (circa Chapel Hill 1986, to be exact) and I hadn’t eaten this since the mid-nineties (or when I had hair that was terrible but not necessarily embarrassingly so). When my mom offered to make this , I was overjoyed… and I would have been even more so if I had known the sheer amount of palaver, fuss, and bacon fat that was involved in the making of this dish.  But it got made, despite a malfunctioning oven and our serial forgetfulness in adding the bacon, and it was even better than I remember it being:

I ate enough of that stew to make up for not having had it for over ten years, believe  me.  Post-dinner, shenanigans ensued, particularly when my birthday present was unwrapped.  It  seems my chanting “1.8 aperure 50 millimeter lens” to the man every night worked on his subliminal as I intended, but I was still shocked to get this toy (on which you’ll be hearing much more later)… and as you can tell, we put it to use right away, even when we didn’t actually read the instructions before we started snapping away with it:

Had enough cake yet?  Cake with deceiving candle numbers of all kinds, of which I only grudgingly blew out the ones that were not the 25?

On  the actual day last Tuesday–after Isa fed us all croissants, biscuits, her famously delicious secret recipe scrambled eggs, and sausages till my jeans button popped–my Mamalicious treated me to a wine tasting (again, on which more later):

Not only was it one of the most fun things my mom and I have ever done together, we walked out of our afternoon class with a nice warm wine feeling to brace us against the cold… which we needed, as we all ended up braving a night-time snow storm, eating our weight in delicious Chinese and Japanese food, blowing out candles on the same cake as on Sunday, and being festive later:

Yes.  That was me, celebrating my I’m-old-enough-to-be-in-serious-denial birthday to excess twice, spending the actual birthday with a daylong wine happy head, and eating enough delicious, family-secret-recipe cake to put on considerable winter padding (which still didn’t keep me warm enough) in freezing-ass Buffalo with my kickass family.

The funny thing about this celebration-fest?  The change of the zodiac signs happened and it turns out I’m now classed as a Sagittarius.  I can’t spell it without consulting with my dictionary, much less BE a good example of one.  So I’m sticking to my Capricorn status because all the write-ups—and my sisters—agree that I remain a Capricorn to the bone.  I now have to switch my birthday to a suitable Capricorn date… which means a third celebration is in order…

But let’s just hope I can handle it.  Last time I celebrated a birthday twice, I swore off sweets and alcohol for the rest of my birthdays and spent three days recovering.