No. 1 Party Anthem
There was always something about having a birthday smack dab in the middle of the dog days of summer. Being a couple weeks out from the beginning of school, a lot of families would try to get that one last vacation in right around the time I hit a birthday. Which isn't to say that birthdays were necessarily spent alone but it taught me pretty early on that people aren't going to drop what they're doing just to ring another one in; they've got priorities and prior commitments and that's absolutely okay. And as much as I enjoy a good birthday, it really is just another candle on the cake; at the end of the day, the only thing that changes is the date.
Before we moved to Fairfax, a lot of birthdays were spent in random historical sights in the greater DC and Virginia areas. A free, air-conditioned museum is a great place to keep a toddler occupied in the middle of August so my parents and grandparents would take me to various Smithsonian Institute facilities including the National Air & Space Museum. If the weather wasn't as oppressively hot, we'd spend the day at various Civil War battlefields instead. Whenever I refer to Virginia as a battleground state, I mean more than just politically: The commonwealth really was the frontline for the War Between the States and, for this family of Army men and military buffs, I grew up under the perspective that places like Manassas or Fredericksburg were almost like sacred ground. I don't know how many toddlers spend a birthday running around a battlefield or a museum but that's what I used to do.
After arriving in Fairfax, I was starting to make friends and become more self-aware so sleepovers became the norm usually after a day at the pool over pizza or barbecue (Usually pizza, less work involved for my old man). Afterwards, it definitely very much a Stranger Things situation with us all huddled in the basement usually playing Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64 until the wee hours of the morning with the occasional movie thrown in for good measure. I was an absolute force of nature at games like GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark while incredibly formidable at Mario Kart and Smash Bros.
When it came to the typical cake and ice cream, the birthday cake usually came down to two different options that I would alternate between: German chocolate forest and Boston creme pie. There's two things that I want to come to terms with right here and now: First, the bakery my mom used to get our birthday cakes from would top the German chocolate forest cake with coconut which tasted delicious...but last time I was in a German forest, I don't remember seeing any fucking coconut trees. Second, how is Boston going around calling it a Boston creme pie without any crust and a spongey center? It's a goddamn cake!
I'm glad to get that off my chest; I feel like we made some real progress here.
Anyway, by middle school and high school while some elements of the sleepover were retained, it became more of a typical guys' night in with lots of poker and billiards and occasionally a good cigar watching the night sky under that Virginia moon.
Obviously, there would eventually be a big 21st birthday in the middle of college, but, you know, that deserves its own story all in good time [approximately a week, you know how this goes].
Before we moved to Fairfax, a lot of birthdays were spent in random historical sights in the greater DC and Virginia areas. A free, air-conditioned museum is a great place to keep a toddler occupied in the middle of August so my parents and grandparents would take me to various Smithsonian Institute facilities including the National Air & Space Museum. If the weather wasn't as oppressively hot, we'd spend the day at various Civil War battlefields instead. Whenever I refer to Virginia as a battleground state, I mean more than just politically: The commonwealth really was the frontline for the War Between the States and, for this family of Army men and military buffs, I grew up under the perspective that places like Manassas or Fredericksburg were almost like sacred ground. I don't know how many toddlers spend a birthday running around a battlefield or a museum but that's what I used to do.
After arriving in Fairfax, I was starting to make friends and become more self-aware so sleepovers became the norm usually after a day at the pool over pizza or barbecue (Usually pizza, less work involved for my old man). Afterwards, it definitely very much a Stranger Things situation with us all huddled in the basement usually playing Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64 until the wee hours of the morning with the occasional movie thrown in for good measure. I was an absolute force of nature at games like GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark while incredibly formidable at Mario Kart and Smash Bros.
When it came to the typical cake and ice cream, the birthday cake usually came down to two different options that I would alternate between: German chocolate forest and Boston creme pie. There's two things that I want to come to terms with right here and now: First, the bakery my mom used to get our birthday cakes from would top the German chocolate forest cake with coconut which tasted delicious...but last time I was in a German forest, I don't remember seeing any fucking coconut trees. Second, how is Boston going around calling it a Boston creme pie without any crust and a spongey center? It's a goddamn cake!
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| Pictured: Goddamn cake |
Anyway, by middle school and high school while some elements of the sleepover were retained, it became more of a typical guys' night in with lots of poker and billiards and occasionally a good cigar watching the night sky under that Virginia moon.
Obviously, there would eventually be a big 21st birthday in the middle of college, but, you know, that deserves its own story all in good time [approximately a week, you know how this goes].
