Forty-(cough, cough) years ago today my poor sainted mother was too drugged and tired to tell the nurse what name to put on the birth certificate.  I was supposed to be named Desiree.  Instead, my grandmother stepped in and saved me from my future career as a New Orleans pole dancer and wrote “Robbin” on the birth registration.  Probably why I turned out a bespectacled academic instead.  Even worse, a bespectacled FORMER academic. It’s all for the best, I suppose.

My celebration was low-key.   It so happens that yesterday was my wedding anniversary.  This conveniently means that my husband is only at risk of getting in trouble once per year.   But he is also kind enough not to roll the two events into one.  So last night, we went out to a nice, candlelit, restaurant for a meal where (thanks to Trixie) I didn’t have to fill a sippy cup or pick food up off the floor.  We then indulged in another rare luxury – a trip to the bookstore for coffee and an hour of book browsing uninterrupted by the need to pry my son off the top racks or search for him under the sale tables. It was sheer nirvana. When we arrived home, we found that Trixie had survived Disney movies and toddler yoga AND that Harry had fallen blissfully asleep moments before we walked in the door.  Which means we got to celebrate our anniversary in much the same way we celebrated our wedding night.  Yeah, me!  It’s enough to make a girl wobbly in the knees.  At least if you do it right.

To top it off, I got a cool set of Zune-compatible speakers for my office:

And just when you think life just can’t get any better, I got cards for both my anniversary and my birthday.  If you don’t know my husband, this doesn’t seem like a big thing. If you do, you can appreciate the level of miracle this involved.  I had to look out the front door to see if the blessed Virgin herself was waving from my front lawn. 

My natal day itself was spent quietly between church, the Italian buffet at the bowling alley (hey, we have class, you know), and home.  There was triple chocolate cake and real vanilla ice cream (the kind with the little vanilla bean seeds in it) for dinner, which I pre-emptively ran off the calories to account for.

My run was made more bearable – heck, BEARABLE, there is no “more” – by my birthday present:

As a gadget girl, I married my dream husband.  Yes, he gave me the last of the iPOD line that really excites my interest.  My desire for a Shuffle to inspire my workouts was brought to a fever pitch by the fact that they introduced PURPLE to their 3rd-gen Shuffles.  It’s so cute, it’s almost jewelry.  Better than diamonds.

Only kidding. 

For future reference, jewels are also perfectly acceptable.