Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to T-Lo!
Happy birthday to you!
Ok, my birthday is only tomorrow, but DomTastic and I are going to celebrate with a toot tonight. Yay!
While traveling in foreign locales is always exciting and amazing, holidays can be incredibly lonely times. It got to a point a couple of years ago where I just stopped even bothering to celebrate my birthday. And I have come to dread Christmas. I usually high tail it up to Namibia for Pops' Orphan Family Christmas on the Orange. Anyway, I digress...
It has become my little tradition on birthdays, christmas, easter, thanksgiving and other similar holidays to buy myself a gift, wrap it up, and leave it on my kist at the end of the bed as a little surprise to myself when I wake up in the morning. Upon waking, I stare at my kist, eyes wide, mouth aghast, mock-shock on my face, at the sparkly present staring back at me from the end of the bed. And then I rip it open like a five year old.
I always buy myself books as presents. Previously, this has included:
1. The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fiske (****)
2. Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides (*****)
3. The Shackled Continent by Robert Guest (*****)
4. Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis (*****)
I love my books. I really do. It's some obsessive compulsive disorder, this book-purchasing-and-reading-obsession of mine. I am not joking when I say I have 1000 books. I even have two copies of Ovid's Metamorphosis - one translation by a man and one by a woman, just so I could see if there are any nuanced differences in the interpretation of the myths.
Well, I've gone and done it again. I've bought myself a lovely copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke, a tome weighing in at 800 pages. I have enough books. And I'll continue to buy books when I'm back. No more books! No! More! Books! That's the new rule. It's the only way I'll stop. I'll give myself something to look forward to when I'm back: one whole day making my way through the stacks at Chapters. Until then: I'll buy myself consumables as gifts, like a nice piece of dark chocolate, or a slab of double cream Camembert, or a bottle of witblitz.
About Me
- T-Lo
- After 12 years, 3 passports, 20 countries, 5 work permits, 1 permanent residence permit, countless passport stamps, 3 no-cents-to-my-name moments, 1 incident of everything-I-own being stolen, (almost) 3 university degrees, 1 bout of pneumonia, 1 sickness requiring a tropical disease specialist, 5 interesting career paths, 1 Big Leap Of Faith, 9 ridiculously long layovers, many Airplane Party Packs prepared and consumed, (only) 1 threat of arrest, 1 mild detention, dozens of rivers paddled, handfuls of mountains climbed, 4 oceans swum, a few fights fought, many animals seen, hundreds of exotic meals consumed, 47 tears shed, thousands of friends made, hundreds of thousands of memories stored and a million laughs guffawed... it is time to go home.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Tanya
Happy Birthday to you.
It was a dark and stormy night when you decided to make your arrival on this planet. A very dramatic beginning from the winter blizzard to the stalled farm pickup truck to the ambulance ride into Regina to a safe breech delivery after a very speedy labour. This is the stuff of adventure and great literature my love. Your life has certainly followed suit. I do hope my gift arrived on time-it was sent mid-September to your office address. A christmas parcel or two are also en route but I digress. Enjoy your Sunday birthday whether you loll about in bed or go out in the beautiful Cape summer that must be just beginning. MGL
Happy birthday to you!
You belong in the zoo!
You act like a monkey...
Oh wait, that's me!! Haha.
I hate vodka. It is evil.
I can't top the birthing comment, but hope you have an amazing evening, as soon as you leave the confines of this hole.
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