On this last day of this year of my life, it suddenly occurred to me that for 364 days now, I have been in my prime. Tomorrow it passes, and I subside into common divisibility for another three years. Then I did some basic math and realized that no, this year was not one of my primes. Tomorrow I merely cease to be odd for a year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, peacefulchaos!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, chauni!

1. For a couple of years now, I've been saying that the digital camera my dad sent me was "in a box." After the first few months, this became a euphemism for "lost forever." This Saturday, while rooting around for a box to put Netfriend gifts in, I found the perfect box... and the digital camera was in it! I powered it up with some AAA batteries, and it's acting all cameralike about itself. I'll know whether it really works later tonight, when I try to transfer the pictures onto the hard drive.

Note to self: Do not take any potentially embarrassing pictures until you know you can retrieve them yourself.

2. stormsdotter gave me her old laptop! *squeaks* It's light and simple and about 11 years old, so it's perfect for my writing notebook. As soon as Stormsdotter gives me the password, I can write Inuyasha/Ed Elric fanfics anywhere I like.

Also, the triple birthday party at Stormsdotter's new place was great fun, the birthday cake was as black as Snape's soul and twice as tasty, and there were plenty of new people to chat with and flirt with. Would have preferred that the most promising one didn't turn out to be 19. Apart from unplanned detour into ephebephilia, excellent party.

3. The little Haitian/American/Spanish/African grocery on the corner was open this morning while I was waiting for the bus, so I stopped in and got a "chicken pate" and a larger-than-fist-sized wodge of... something sweet. The chicken pate was, as advertised, finely ground chicken highly spiced and baked in extravagantly flaky pastry, and the wodge turned out to be thick curls of coconut clumped together with crystallized sugar syrup. It was the spiciest and most delicious breakfast I've had in a long time. I'll have to be late for the bus again.

And there are two more kinds of intriguing wodges to try out, too.

My birthday--like the rest of the week--was a thing of strangeness, but I'm feeling cheerful right now, so I'm just going to catalogue my birthday dinner:

Fried rounds of little Spanish cheeses with honey, on a bed of caramelized onions

Wild boar in some sort of orgasmic cream sauce

Pumpkin canelones

Roast duckling in berry sauce

Paper-thin slices of pork tenderloin in a bleu cheese sauce, topped with slices of mushrooms

Pork sausage and figs in fig sauce

Sauteed artichoke hearts

Baked goat cheese with tomato and basil, which turned out to be a tomato-basil sauce with a round of goat cheese melted into it, the better to spread over bread

Batter-fried shrimp in a green garlic sauce

Bread served with chickpea spread, which was also served in every other sauce I've listed because they were too good to be allowed to leave the table once the main part of the dish was devoured

And for dessert:

flan

besos de amor: marzipan-stuffed dates dipped in sweet batter and fried, then sprinkled with powdered sugar and served in a pool of tamarind sauce with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream

selkiechick, stormsdotter, lagaz, Rivka, and I went to Dali, a tapas bar a ways outside Harvard Square. It was an hour's wait and by the end Lagaz and I were plotting to eat the screaming women at the office holiday party in the front room, but the food was ohhhh so worth it. We ate ourself round, then had dessert. There's nothing quite like good company at a food orgy to celebrate your birthday.