it's my birfday

but i don't feel any older
Thirty-one years old today. I don’t feel any older. Tonight at my birthday dinner at the Macaroni Grill I was actually carded by the waitress before she would serve me a drink. When she saw how old I was, she was like, “oh my god girl, you look good.” I hope people are still telling me that 31 years from now. If my grandmother is any indication, they will be.

birthday wishes from friends far, near and dear
My first birthday telephone call of the day came from D. If I had been asleep I probably would have been a little grumpy about someone calling so early but since it was him and I wasn’t actually sleeping I was excited to have the phone calls starting. His call made me smile and the day started on a high note.

I got to chat with Cecily, Jason and Lynne all morning while I contemplated what it was I wanted to do. Tracy’s birthday wish in my comments reminded me that I need to add her link to the bottom of my page. Cyn gave me extra special birthday shout outs on her page. Thanks to Susan, Xkot, my wonder twin Anitra and everyone else who stopped by to give birthday wishes. It’s appreciated.

to get older is to be boring . . .
To be honest I am really rather boring and I had no plans whatsoever. I just wanted to chill out and be mellow today and be alone with me. I had done so much hanging out this past weekend that a mellow day was in order. So I chilled. I took my time picking out what outfit I wanted to wear today and I took a cat nap so I could be refreshed. Does getting older make you want to sleep more?

but still be fly ...
I decided on the powder blue sweat suit that was a birthday gift to me from me and my blue thong sandals. Summertime is, afterall, all about pedicures and open-toed shoes. I washed my hair and finger combed it with a little bit of gel to work the curls. I know I looked cute today, you don’t have to tell me. Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel like it’s all good? That was me today.

sing happy birthday to me baby
My mother woke me up by serenading me with Happy Birthday. She told me to pick the restaurant I wanted to have my birthday celebration in. I think she knew I would pick Macaroni Grill. I picked it because I wanted one of the waitresses to sing Happy Birthday to me in Italian. I was not disappointed. The beautiful dark sister with her hair cut as low as Meshell, full lips and bright, white teeth stood at my table and sang in a voice so strong and sweet I thought I would melt. I engaged her in conversation afterwards and found out that she is a homegirl, born and bred right here on the west side of Las Vegas. Go figure.

and then of course there are the gifts
Oh, I got a book in the mail from Jason. Thanks boy. You rock. Lynne told me she sent something from my wishlist too and I cheated and peeked to see what it was and thank you so much!

I went to see the local homies because they promised to smoke me out for my birthday. They didn’t lie but for some reason I was on a natural high today and I didn’t really feel like smoking the herbals. Yes, you read that correctly. Monique turned down some weed.

My sister gave me a pair of pink Puma flip flops. They are so cute! And they match the pink sweatsuit that I am buying tomorrow which is the twin of the blue sweatsuit that I am wearing today. My friend Lori says I am a fashion dynamo. I just want you to know that I have co-dependents.

and at the end of the day
So now I am at home and chilling and reflecting on everything that I have been blessed with, including the chance to see another birthday. I feel good.

moving right along
Oh. I am still keeping this diary/journal/weblog in a one entry display mode but occasionally I do post more than one entry per day and that was the purpose of the recently written links down below. In case you miss one while it’s up. I’m zany like that. I’ve taken to treating this thing the way I treat my pen and paper journals. I write whenever about whatever now. It’s all free form. I like it like that.

baby pictures
I wanted to show you some pictures of my baby cousin because I got to spend a lot of time with him this weekend. He’s so cute. This is the same cousin that was born on New Year’s Day this year. He cut two teeth! He’s still a bundle of joy so take a peek at the little boy wonder.

This first picture is one I took of him on Mother’s Day. Everyone fell in love with this picture and I’ve printed out enough copies to pass to family members.

tell me that is not the cutest baby you have ever seen

This is MJ on Monday morning. He's sitting in Granny's lap and preoccupied with this talking parrot toy so not even feeling me or my camera at all. I was trying to get a shot of his two new teeth.

Well, he's halfway cooperating. Show us them teefus.

This kid loves our granny. And she loves him. She cannot stand to hear him cry. Which is why he's so rotten now because no one really likes to hear him cry and we all want to play with him so much that he is constantly being passed from one set of arms to the next. Everyone loves this baby. The arms he's most content in? The ones he's in right here. He loves his granny.

He drools a lot. I was playing with him on Saturday and I was lying on my back on my grandmother's bed with him in the air above me doing that thing that all kids like to have done to them - tossing him up and down in the air. He started laughing and I was making cooing noises at him and he laughed and drooled right into my mouth. He's lucky he's my cousin and I lub him. There's those teefus!

Here is a picture of MJ and the man he was named after, his father and my Uncle Tony.

pictures of the LA homies
The next set of pictures are of my friends from LA. The pictures were taken inside of the storage room in back of the "Play Fam" home. The storage room was made into a studio years ago when I was still a teenager. Much music has been made back there and in these pics you will see the vast record collection we have going back there as well as some of the home studio equipment. My friends are musical geniuses.

Nephew sitting by the door. He's so cute. He's twenty-one ladies, that makes him legal!

D and Nephew talking shit while Mr Dad and Mike play NFL 2K2. Nephew is in the black hat of course, drinking the smirnoff ice.

That shit goes on for hours. Here is don, patiently awaiting his turn to play. You can see some of the equipment in the back I think.

Mr Dad (blue shirt) was laying the smackdown on Mike (white shirt). Yes, those are all crates full of records piled up over there.

I finally got them to look at the camera during a break. The action was intense.

They were all annoyed at the camera at this point, including D. He was telling me so as I snapped this picture.

Well, don started playing along again after a few hours. He said this was his cool pose with the basketball.

Mike, however, was starting to get pissed.

D decided the best course of action would be to put his headphones on, write rhymes and make music. He was ignoring me basically.

He couldn't ignore me for long though. When we went outside to smoke again, I was able to get a few more good pictures of him before my camera finally died.

woo ...