Happy Birthday To Me

Happy Birthday Day 1. I turned the big 3-0 on Friday and this year's birthday was quite special, I must say. My hubby had big plans for me, secret plans, plans he's been working on for quite some time apparently. All I was told was to be dressed and ready to go at 9:30 on Thursday. Well, I had some issues getting ready by 9:30 as Matthew would NOT nap. So I took a shower, WITH Matthew. That was, um, interesting, but I couldn't see any way around it as he basically climbed in with his clothes on when I left him on the bathroom floor to play. So I got showered and dressed, well half dressed, and my aunt showed up at my door. "I was in the neighbourhood". Ha ha ha, nice one, and so it begins. After finally getting a shirt on and my hair brushed and dried-ish, the doorbell rings again. It was my good friend Shannon. Whaaaaa? I did not expect her, but I was pleasantly surprised. Soon my sister in law showed up and we were off, to where I did not know. We parked and started walking, by then I suspected what was going on. We arrived at a spa and all got much needed manicures. After manicures, we went for lunch and my friend Devon met us. We decided to get ice cream cake from DQ after and we all went home to treat ourselves. What a wonderful day! To top it off, hubby bought me a beautiful sapphire necklace "from Matthew". I am so blessed.

Happy Birthday Day 2! Yes, I get a multi-day birthday this year. Hey, I turn OLD, don't I deserve it? Day 2 (my actual birthday) was somewhat uneventful. I had to do that birthday tradition of getting new stickers and a new license. Fun. After packing up for my parent's house, we headed to the license office. Wouldn't it just be my luck that it was packed 12 people out the door at 9 am. Great. I decided to skip it and go straight north. Matthew gave me the best birthday present: sleep the entire drive up! WOOT! After unpacking at my parents house, I finally had to get down to business and went into town to get my license stuff done. It took all of 3 minutes. Yay! The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. My parent's gift is stuck in the mail strike backlog, so we just had a nice dinner and relaxed.

Happy Birthday Day 3! For many years now, my BFF and I have had a wonderful birthday tradition. We always go to a concert for our birthdays since they are 4 days apart. We've done a Hawksley concert every year since we first saw him in 2003 in a tennis court of a resort in our home town. Did I mention Hawksley is from my home town? That's right! He even went to our high school but left the year before we started. My favourite teacher of all time was the man who first introduced me to Hawksley, though I didn't appreciate it at the time. It wasn't until this teacher's memorial several years later that I got a full appreciation of the GENIUS (Yes, genius) that is Hawksley Workman. Hawksley came back from wherever he was currently touring to sing a goodbye song for his favourite teacher. Anyway, we are both huge fans of Hawksley and have been to 8 concerts together! This "birthday concert" as I like to call it was my 10th Hawksley concert and it was FABULOUS! Usually when he plays at home, it's just him and his ever faithful sidekick Mr Lonely. This time he brought someone else with him: Brad Killpatrick from St John's Newfoundland!

One of the things (other than his music obviously) that I like about Hawksley concerts is he's a real entertainer. He chats a lot with his audience and makes jokes. I've seen Hawksley in Newfoundland and I've seen him in Toronto, but he's never as good as when he's at home. His jokes refer to things and events in town and we all just "get" his sense of humour. I'll never forget his show in Massey Hall when every joke he made seemed to bomb with the audience, and every funny facial expression or leg kick he made seemed hilarious. I found it disturbing, and apparently so did he and he made a real joke and said "now THAT'S funny!" There were way too many references and jokes to list them all, but I thought I'd list the funniest:

- Apparently Hunstville needs an overpass because "I need to get through town way quicker than I can currently"

- He told a story of going to a concert and one of the back stage hands had an Islander's jersey on that was signed, "Dear, Hawksley, I don't shoot wide, Mike Bosey" (which if you know his songs, is HILARIOUS!)

- Hawksley compared himself to a cat in terms of his music and his routine "I like lamb and rice, don't give me chicken treat, I want lamb and rice"

- A random rambling of his was about having to pick up his Debbie Travis raincheck rug at Crappy Tire.

- A broken escalator reminded him of the first automatic door at Brendale Square. The Sinclair West escalator seems to always be broken, but he doesn't remember the automatic door at Brendale Square ever being broken. No one fixes automatic doors, but now they have a new one and it's gonna break for sure.

- "It's hard to impress a woman with a deep freezer in the drive and an electric stove on the deck"

- After a long break before his encore someone asked "What took you so long". Referring to an earlier comment about some excellent cheese he had at home he responded "10 year old cheese"

Of course, as always, it's not necessarily what he says but rather the way he says it: like it just occurred to him before the beginning, or in the middle of, one of his songs.

So it was an awesome concert. Hawksley changed it up and played drums in one part, sat beside Lonely and played piano in one part and even played the recorder. There was also some accordion and xylophone mixed in there for good measure. The only thing that was missing from this concert was my best friend, but it was indeed a Happy Birthday!