if heaven is on the way, we'll wrap the world around it

I may be vaguely recovered from the effects of last night, but it was a slow uphill slog all afternoon and evening. After I posted earlier this afternoon, I intended to take a nap; first, though, I called my parents, and that turned into a ninety-minute conversation so that we could still be talking when my actual birth time (8:11am CDT) arrived. It was great to talk to them, even though I didn't get a nap as a result, but since they nurtured me through twenty-four years of life, I think I can forgive them. After I talked to them, I went to Angeethi with most of the usual suspects (Heather, Salim, Lauren, Josh, Katzman, and the new additions of Nick, Cian, and Mags); Matt met us there after returning from a weekend in Bombay. Angeethi was just as tasty as ever--I've never celebrated my birthday with garlic naan and murgh makhni before, and I probably never will again, but it's definitely good stuff. I couldn't bake myself a birthday cake because there are no conventional ovens in Hyderabad, and I was sad to realize that I haven't made my grandmother's famous chocolate chip chewies in five months, but despite the lack of baked goods my birthday ended rather well.

After dinner, Matt and I grabbed drinks at Coffee Day (how novel to drink something that does not contain alcohol!), and then I showed him all of the pictures from Swampfest 2005. After he left, I uploaded all of the pictures of the cake episode to my computer; it was a rather hysterical sequence, and I've given a couple of them below for posterity. Actually, I don't know if 'posterity' is the right word; that implies that these pictures are worth saving for my children and grandchildren, and I doubt that I would want them to see pictures of my wild (and now quickly-vanishing) youth. But, I tend not to edit much of my life for my blog, so I don't think that I should start now.

You already got one really long post out of me today (see below), as well as a lot of pictures, so you'll have to satisfy yourself with that. It's quite definitely time for bed!