If you know me at all, you know that I love my birthday. And not like a nine-year-old loves their birthday. I mean, I'm 38 now, and I still love my birthday as much or more than I ever have. I half-expect people to know when it is, I love having people over to celebrate it and I want it to last for a week (which is why we now refer to it as my Birthnakuh).

This year we waited until later than ever to decide on what we were doing. I think we asked the first person to join us on Thursday evening and went from there. It's never anything formal, it's usually BYOB and either a side or appetizer and we'll provide food, and it's almost always a good time.

We've had organized parties where we got kegs and handed out commemerative beer mugs, we've had terribly spontaneous gathers that included the pilfering of guests from other neighbors' parties, and we've had about everything in between. This was an in-between.

We discussed details and called people over our usual Friday night steak night, and tried to figure out all of the details. We continued this discussion and the related phone calls thru Saturday up to and through Ms. Courtney's non-surprise SURPRISE birthday party. Mr. Courtney paid the wife back however by chundering all of the extra tequilla he drank in their marital bed. S-E-X-Y!!

Oh yeah, here's a shout out to our new kickass babysitter Rochelle. Thanks and we look forward to using you often!

We decided to start the event on Sunday at 5pm, which meant cooking starting at 5pm on Saturday. Butts went on then, followed by ribs and wings the next day. When it was all said and done, we ended up with about 40 adults and 15 or so kids at the house, which actually bordered on too many. Thank God the weather was nice so we could have folks on the deck and out back throwing horseshoes.

Speaking of horseshoes, my favorite part of that pastime is that if there are more than two people present, the smack talk that ensues will rival any smacktalk a group of men could have. Name calling, taunting, mocking and general bad sportsmanship ensues, and it's funnier than hell. The line of the night, I believe, came from Mr. Byerly who opined, "if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly bear!"

Nice one, Tim.

(On a Tim-related note, Friday night during steak night we had the pleasure of Tim's son being over at the house while playing with my nephew Jack. Tim was to pick up Brett around 10 or so and, in the minutes leading up to Tim's arrival, we started talking about how it'd be funny if we shut off the lights and acted like no one was awake when he arrived. That led to an escalation that had me believing it'd be extra EXTRA funny to answer the door all sleepy-eyed in only my boxers.

Remember, at the time, there were about a dozen folks in my kitchen including young Brett.

So, Tim calls and parks in the BIL's driveway and I strip to my boxers and, after being guided to our house by my eldest nephew, Tim rings the bell.

I answer all eye-rubby like and then I look at Tim's face and suddenly feel like a pedophile. One that's about to get the ever-loving shit kicked out of him. I invite him in (to a caucophony of laughter from the kitchen and his son) and hustle to re-dress and explain (from a safe distance).

I was forgiven two nights later and even semi-encouraged by Tim's wife, but I certainly found the line and trampled right across it with THAT one.

Folks stayed and enjoyed the fellowship and free flowing cold beer until late in the evening, including one of my neighbors who frequently starts out the evening saying something like "I want to drink until I bleed out of my anus."

He's good people and great people to have at a party.

It was also nice to have my friend Ethel in town from the Chicago area, even though her goal to get stage four gooed was so well achieved that she hit about level eleventy one by 6:45pm and had to be removed from the premesis by her date The Mullah.

We finally hit the rack around 1:30 or 2:00 and fortunately, no one peed anywhere despite all conditions being ripe for such nonsense.

Monday saw us planning for my actual birthday afternoon and evening and the fourth as well. It ended up being a great afternoon which was shared by my buddy CampCashion and his family as well as the BIL and his. We played a bunch of horseshoes and ate some flanksteak rolls and enjoyed some good beer and fellowship there too. I am starting to think that having horseshoe pits in the back yard is magic.

Yesterday we relaxed a little. We got 1Doh a slip n' slide which rocked ass, and we cleaned the garage and the back yard and deck, replaced the birdseed in the feeder, watered the lawn and the flowers, and destroyed 1Doh's wish of fireworks on the 4th of July.

Needless to say we were a lot happier before the 4th than we were at the end of it.

That said, this is a great week. We've got three days of work before another weekend, but this one will be as quiet as the last one was rowdy. The BIL and his family are in Florida, we are watching their house and taking care of Jake while Sissy stays with us.

By the way, thanks for giving us your terrified by fireworks dog on the fireworkiest day of the year. That was fun. LOL.

We will also have the pleasure of picking up my friend Bleeding Anus' two Akitas from the kennel Saturday morning, and I can't wait for that. They rock and I get to drive Stephen Land Rover. Two thumbs up I say.

Y'all be cool and I'll hopefully throw lots more sheeyott up here this week including some of the many many pictures taken from this weekend.

Asalam alayka my brothers.