33 rocks. Not only is it a palindrome birthday year, it’s also a palindrome birthday date 7/14/17, as Suzi so amazingly pointed out to me. Surely this must mean something.

The entrance into my 34th year began with a tap, tap, tap on my foot. At 6:30 am I awoke to find Agustin with his massive grin and an arm full of homemade cookies. His friend was in town visiting the night before, and when I asked what they were up to, he replied, “man stuff.”

Manly Tollhouse cookies, thoughtfully constructed with wholewheat flour. You know, for health.

Starbucks very kindly reminded me it was my birthday and offered to buy me any drink of choice. I opted for a Nitro Cold Brew with sweet cream, that actually wasn’t sweet, but was legitimately one of the best coffees I have ever had from Starbuck’s. If you feel like dropping $7 on a coffee, I highly recommend it.

I was at work all alone as Ben sailed around Croatia, and Brian puttered around Corfu, for all of 10 minutes when Chris, TWM’s newest part-timer, popped with with a happy birthday surprise. A manicure / pedicure from a local salon. How sweet is that!?

Later that afternoon another birthday surprise! This time from Brian. In lieu of being at work, he left a super generous bottle of Magnien (Burgundy), with a very confusing card. It started with, Dear Hoboken…. 

The previous night Brandon very kindly brought over his saber. I suppose my birthday really started then, as I found out that I had passed my Stage 1 assessments for the Master of Wine that morning! We celebrated with Chris and Teddy and a bottle of Gosset Champagne, but saved the sabering for my actually birthday night.

See those cookies? Don’t they look delicious? Dana, a TWM regular, super sweetly brought over some homemade VEGAN cookies. And everyone LOVED them and couldn’t believe that there was no butter.

Then it was off to an incredible birthday dinner at Freek’s Mill. It was so nice to be surrounded by best friends of nearly 20 years…

Friends from college of 15 years….

…with new friends from New York and Hong Kong….

…and new boyfriends, wine friends, more Hong Kong friends, and more college friends….

Freek’s Mill was awesome. If you haven’t been, you gotta go.

Robert, my boss, very generously said that I should take a bottle for my birthday, so I grabbed an almost birth year bottle of some very old, very delicious dry Sherry.  I tried to share the love, but its a bit of an acquired taste. Sherry will make a comeback in New York. Mark my words!

After dinner and some late drinks, I head home to find the final surprise of the night; a bouquet of daisies and tickets to the Broadway show 1984 waiting for me on my bed ❤

It was such an incredible day filled with so many surprises, and more importantly, the faces and thoughts from my most important people- thank you! What a truly impactful and special day. If this is any indication of the year to come, it’s going to be nothing short of fucking awesome.

It’s so good to be home. x