Another year older

In the grand scheme of things, I don't mind getting older. I am not one of those people who would relive my high school experience or want to stay in college forever; I definitely came into my own after those times were behind me.

I do realize that in the grand scheme of life, I am fairly young. In fact, that has always been my "thing" -- being the Young One. In my former career, I was a good 10-30 years younger than my clients and those we worked with. Among our post-college friends, I have always been the Young One. Ironically, I've always joked that I was 22-going-on-45 since I act like anything but the Young One. I can't help but feel that I blinked and suddenly find myself in my [gulp] late 20's.

This Saturday was spent in celebration of the 2nd Anniversary of My 25th Birthday. Thanks to a surprise refund from Uncle Sam that arrived on Wednesday (the government, not my actual uncle Sam) I was able to get the gift that I wanted but never thought we could actually afford right now. As if that wasn't good enough, we scored some of the most delicious Chocolate Cherry Bread from Central Market which served as the tastiest Birthday Breakfast I've had in a long time. Mr. Cupcake started the day off in one of my favorite ways -- with a schedule! In a mockery of my daily "To Do" lists, he created a schedule of the day's activities, including notated comments. There was lots of relaxing, eating the yummiest of my favorite foods and the dorkiest rendition of "Happy Birthday" via text/photo/voice message from my brother Eric.

What Mr. Cupcake's cake lacked in size, it made up in thoughtfulness.

Not a complaint to be had and it certainly beats the pants off my past few birthdays:

• Age 25 - Spent 3 days babysitting for Mr. Cupcake's supervisor's 2 small children while they were on a business trip. There were diapers. There were temper tantrums. Plus, they acted up so badly in my car that I ran a stop sign and got pulled over [no ticket -- out of the sheer pity the cop must have had for me] at 7:30am. There was not a lot of sleep nor fun for the Birthday Girl that year.
• Age 26 - Mr. Cupcake was working and I spent the day largely by myself, save for an embarrassing lunch with my friend Aimee involving a sombrero and an ice cream potato. Even afternoon tea at the Metropolitan Museum of Art could not redeem my dignity. While the Carrot Top sighting helped a little, the whole moving halfway across the country thing made the whole day more stressful.
  

Side note: The one thing I did miss was my special birthday dinner. Since turning 20, I have celebrated each birthday with dinner at a small restaurant named Bruculino's on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Last year we discovered that the owners opened a new French Bistro restaurant (Bistro Cassis) in it's place, which was incredibly tasty, but just not the same. Each year I'd await the braciola that melted in my mouth and the gnocchi that were like little potato pillows from heaven. I heard a rumor that they actually switched spots (Cassis was down on 14th street) and renamed it Pomodoro -- I may have to do some detective work when I'm back in NYC in November.