"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T. S. Eliot
As I regard the insides of buildings as hot lava, I am now always on the lookout for interesting outdoor activities. I heard that there was a park that was good to watch the sunset in. With a name like Sunset Park I figured the rumors must be worth investigating.
Lydia came up with a high tech solution to the glare of our roof office: putting her laptop in a box.
Sunset Park in Florissant, MO was very sunsetty indeed. There were a good number of other people in the park so we didn't venture too far from the cars. It was nice though.
In a way I think it was nice to have a birthday so early in the apocalypse because it was still a novel occurrence and so many of my friends showed their support. Meanwhile if your birthday fell on month 9 of coronavirus lockdown I imagine you got a roll of toilet paper left in your mailbox.
One of my hater Milwaukee coworkers posted this, displaying a shameful amount of jealousy.
Lydia's mom was going to send one of those edible arrangements and I vetoed that. They are just really overpriced. Anyway my economical request was just for some chocolate chips and a few fruits and I would dip them myself.
We got chocolate with three different cacao percentages. It was like a delicious experiment.
Zoe was kind enough to make me a birthday wishes montage. Everything's better with a montage.
Lainey and Chris won the award for longest submission.
Lydia got me a nice bottle of bourbon. It's a blend but like a fancy one.
"We hand-selected and married these bourbon barrels from our inventory to bring out the best characteristics of the whiskey contained in those barrels. It's bottled at cask strength so you can experience the true flavor of our bourbon. Lift your spirits."
Wow Lydia, wow.
I think Linda also got us some fun cocktails in these like reusable Capri Sun pouches.
Had me at "quarantini".
There was a cake, but somebody else got to eat it. Sad!
We then assumed our usual spot on the roof, but surprise guests showed up! It was real fun and exciting.
I got to watch Jenna try to park.
We played...
and I slayed.
It was a pretty darn good birthday under the circumstances.
All sorts of things that now count as exciting happened today.
I entered my bank account information into the IRS website to tell them where to send my stimulus check. Cannot wait to be stimulated.
We were getting down to our last raggedy rolls of one-ply toilet paper when we were blessed by Thor.
We wanted to have another car hangout but it was raining. So we improvised and parked in an empty mall parking garage in Kirkwood. I feel like we're a bunch of teenagers now.
We revived the famed 4Play Hike Club from our teaching in Ashikaga, Japan days. This is another instance of me seeing certain people more during covid than I did during normal times. Tung was upside down in Australia so he was at work in his cafe's kitchen. We visited the North Carlton Canteen in Melbourne a few years ago. No big deal.
It's funny, I've seen my share of disaster movies and they often depict a panic, but never have I seen one where half the country refuses to believe that there's any disaster at all.
We took a walk in St. Ann and there were several houses with thank you notes to delivery people.
Our beer pong training camp continues. We even did a video call with Zoe and figured out how to play three-way.