posted December 27, 2006 12:48 AM
Thanks Moon666, my older brother by days!It's been a good birthday.
I got up to my dad cooking biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Had my mom, my dad, and my two younger sisters present for breakfast, so that was nice. The smoked sausage was excellent.
After that I opened gifts. The older of my younger sisters (Aries) followed up her coffee press Christmas present with a bag full of coffee-related items including coffee. There were literally like 6 gifts from her in that one bag. I then opened the youngest sister's gifts. She gave me a shoebox full of guitar stuff. There was electric guitar strings, acoustic guitar strings, two or three kinds of picks, a capo, PLUS she bought ALL FOUR of the CDs I'd mentioned I'd be interested in having: Keane, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, and Bloc Party. 
Then I opened the gifts from my parents. I got from them a DVD of Drumline, a portable DVD player (!!!), and a case for the DVD player. Not at all expected. I'd been playing DVDs on my computer, so I guess now I'll be able to watch a DVD, and talk to you guys (you know us Gemini Rising people).
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Directly, and fairly quickly after that we showered fast, and left for the planned birthday treat. They hadn't talked about it a whole lot, so I wasn't real sure what to expect. We went to Nashville for the Nash Trash Tour. It's a tour put on by two female sister comediennes, and it's held on a big, hot pink school bus! We were the first to arrive, so we were given the first seats. My Leo mom let them know it was my birthday as we boarded the bus. We sat fairly close to the front. It was my mom, dad, two sisters, and I. My youngest (Aqua) sister sat next to me.
They started the tour by getting to know everyone on board. They talked to everyone, and made jokes the whole time. The brunette comedienne decided that she would openly flirt with me the whole time as part of her show. (I should mention that their website asks for NO KIDS, because their humor tends to be adult) I loved it, of course (my 5th house Moon was smiling from the attention). During the introductions they of course tried to link my youngest sister and I romantically, and upon finding out she was my sister said that was perfectly ok in the South (inbreeding in the South is an American joke of sorts). There were actually a couple of male 13 year old cousins on board, and the women offered to be their prom dates when they got older.
The tour wasn't terrific as far as site-seeing, but the show was pretty priceless. Their jokes and personalities were great. They started with a snack for everyone: Cheese Whiz and crackers. They also performed at least four a capella songs with harmonies. As we passed various places, they did tell stories about local country celebrities that were quite entertaining.
I forgot to describe the inside of the bus. It was typical for a school bus, but the first couple seats were taken out, so they could use the area as their stage. They had one seat lengthwise against the wall right behind the driver, and opposite it were two unmatching dressers. Topping one dresser was an awful monstrous pink make-up case sitting open in it's tri-level glory. All over the sides and roof of the bus were pictures of country celebrities cut-out from magazines. There were also a few (five-pointed, regular) stars. It was a very good setting for the Nash Trash Tour.
We stopped at the Country Music Hall of Fame for a break during the tour. People could get out, buy drinks, use the restroom, and take pictures there. My family all went to the restroom, and then came out for pictures. The brunette comedienne wrapped herself around me from the side while we got our pictures taken. There were various comments and acknowledgments from the rest of the audience at finally getting to see me. My dad offered to take pictures for a couple other families (while I tried to take pictures of the other families myself on my camera). I didn't actually get any pictures of myself on my own camera unfortunately, but I'll get some from my mom.
Then the tour completed in the way it had been going: jokes, stories and songs the whole way. As we got off the bus there was of course the parting joke/flirt with me and my dad. It was pretty cool. My mom has apparently been wanting to go on it ever since she heard about it. (The tour's also apparently pretty popular. Al Roker's been on the tour, and the following day Katie Couric interviewed them. They also mentioned a couple of benefit things they'd been involved with.)
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So then we came home. My mom baked a chocolate cake, and made dinner. We had salad, rice pilaf, and chicken for dinner. All of it was great. My brother, the youngest in the family, joined us along with his friend Russ. Directly following dinner we had cake. No fanfare, candles or song-singing, which was ok by me. The cake tasted really good. Mom made the white icing herself, and that was quite good.
After that my dad, brother, Russ, and I all went to watch the Nashville Predators hockey game. Nashville isn't quite as exciting as my team, but they are talented. They played the St. Louis Blues. As I seemed to remember from when the Sharks played Nashville, their ice is particularly slippery. The Predators were falling more often than the Blues even. The game was pretty tame until the third period. Then the game got tied, and then tied again, and all hell broke loose. I don't recall the exact sequence of events, but there were some hard checks, which were followed by fights. One of the fights was pretty big. Included a lot of people. Then there was also a moment when a Predator got out of the box, and immediately laid down a hard, open ice hit. The fans went nuts! There was another little fight after that. In the end it was tied. Nashville played terribly (safely), and unaggressively during the 4 on 4 over time, but managed to keep the Blues from scoring, so it went to a shootout. Nashville won on, I think, the 6th shot.
Then we came home, and here I am now.
It's been a pretty nice Birthday. 
Thanks everyone for the well-wishing and lovely pictures. 
Lindaland
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posted December 26, 2006 07:49 PM
posted December 27, 2006 12:48 AM
posted December 27, 2006 01:52 AM
posted December 27, 2006 02:45 AM
posted December 27, 2006 01:04 PM
posted December 29, 2006 05:04 PM
HAPPY B-DAY AG!!!!