Motion to make every week BIRTHDAY WEEK

I've been waiting to post this in hopes that I would magically find better photos to include, since I'm all about the photos. There are none. Sorry guys.

The entire week of my bday was fantastic. We ate so much. If this were a standardized test, the solution would be:

Beth and Jonathan : eat :: pioneer children : walk

Wednesday, my actual bday, was enjoyable. Probably not the best day of the week, but enjoyable. That morning Jonathan turned off his alarm and let me sleep in, which is funny because I wasn't planning on showing up late to work. I got there eventually, and a few hours later I received word that I passed my thesis. That was a great birthday present but OH MY GOSH can you imagine if the opposite had happened?? That might have ruined birthdays for me for life.

I mentioned in my last post but it bears repeating that District of Pi happened. I looked around I saw that most couples there split a pizza and salad. We split a pizza and a pizza. Our waiter tried to tell us we were ordering too much. Jonathan and I just looked at each other like, "Is this guy new??" before assuring him that we did in fact want that much pizza.

Thursday I had five tours at the Phillips . The first one was a group of fabulous private school moms. I mean fabulous in every sense of the word. I was glad I dressed nice so they could take me seriously. But they ended up being a great group! The other four tours were just 15-20 minute talks for the monthly after-hours event Phillips after 5. The first group was rocky. Thirty or so people who did not care one way or the other about art. I resisted the urge to laugh when every question was met with blank stares. I wanted to shout, "I am not forcing you to be here, people! You? Go. You? PEACE. You? Yeah, you're OK, you can stay." But not everyone is into art, I guess. I would argue that those are the same people who should steer clear of participatory art talks, but whatevs. The next three groups were much more fun. In fact, the fourth talk lasted 30 minutes because everyone was getting really into it. For the last 10 minutes or so I just stood there and died laughing as this group of strangers shared some really personal information based on this work of art:

This is Arthur Dove's Me and the Moon (1936), and it makes DC's young professionals very forthcoming. One second we are talking about the supernatural associations with the moon, then we are talking about the artist's spiritualist beliefs, then it's group therapy.

After Phillips after 5 Jonathan and I walked to the theater for a late-night showing of Captain America. It was so thrilling. Everyone needs to see it. There are a lot of face punches but it mostly involves the bad guys. It was also great seeing so many places we frequent (such as across the street from the Phillips) up on the big screen! And S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters is walking distance from our house, guys.

This is after the movie. I am still so high on life from all the explosions and roundhouse kicks to the head.

Speaking of Captain America, let me tell you about Friday. It was this magical day in which everything turned out great and I ate pizza three times.

Friday morning I was at the Portrait Gallery a-workin. Around 3:00 I left early to surprise Jonathan at Foggy Bottom with a good luck Coke and a good luck Ritter Sport. Poor guy had to take his oral exams for his Masters program and he had just had a late night.

Just outside the Foggy Bottom metro is a lovely walking area with benches and shrubbery. Unfortunately, it is full of drifters and people who need a cigarette break. I sat there for 45 minutes and told about 45 people that I did not have change and I did not carry cigarettes or a lighter. So this part of my day was not the best. My friend Caitlin was on her way to Georgetown, so I offered to walk with her. The plan was to leave the Coke and chocolate (if I didn't eat it first, the jury was still out on that one) at the building where we would take his exams. If he decided to show. But luckily Jonathan showed up just after I arrived to drop the items off, so I got to surprise him anyway.

THEN (it's been over a week and I still get excited just thinking about it) MY PARTY!

Our ward is full of intelligent and immensely talented people. One such person is Betsy, party/event planner master. She very generously offered to help Jonathan plan my party, and it was so perfect. [update: since I wrote this I saw that Betsy wrote about the party on her blog! Great timing.] So many dear friends came and helped me celebrate. Jonathan assured me he took photos but after the party I checked and there were a lot of blurry images of the back of my head:

Jonathan, I love you tons, but this is no good. #toughlove

Then I gave a friend my phone, and more blurry pictures happened. In the words of Michael Bluth, "I don't know what I expected."

Betsy also teaches the Sunbeams (3 year olds) at church, and I like to think that the above picture, while not a clear likeness, captures her energy level perfectly.

OK, I take it back, this picture is quality. I should have my other arm around Betsy, because I really do like her a lot, but if there's one thing that EFY taught me it's that putting both arms around people in pictures WILL make you look like a barrel-chested double amputee.

And this is a good one of Betsy, too. I believe Jonathan took this. Please note that every one of the cupcakes (so many cupcakes!) has a licorice shield. I mean, come on already. So perfect.

These are hand made. Each one. It boggles the mind. This was certainly the classiest (and oldest) Captain America birthday party ever. I was so happy the entire time. When it came time to blow the candles out on the zillions of cupcakes, I was so excited and happy and overwhelmed (and out of breath) I forgot to make a WISH! No wishes means life must be really stinking good already.

Part of the clean up. Betsy suggested that we go Retro-Americana with the food, since it's Captain America and all. That included bottled soda (yes please!), which meant the recycling box looked like we had just hosted the driest frat party ever.

Saturday Jonathan and I had brunch at place in Georgetown called Farmers Fishers Bakers. We almost didn't go, because many of you know how precious my Saturday mornings in bed are to me, and I was still full from two rounds of pizza Friday night. I am so glad we went. It was heaven.

We also wore the same clothes from the night before, because we got out of bed shortly before we were supposed to leave the house.

As we left the restaurant, through the miracle of modern technology, we pulled up General Conference on my phone just as the opening hymn was starting. We drove back home and listened for hours to the most beautiful talks on Christ and love and life and it made me so happy to be alive and to be a Mormon. The fact that I stayed awake through the whole thing on such a full stomach was nothing short of miraculous.

Despite my best efforts to drag things out as long as possible, birthday week is long gone. I have mixed feelings about it, because while this means I must wait many moons until my next birthday, it also means we are that much closer to Christmas. I can live with that.

I am not fake

I will have to write about all the birthday festivities another time. It's been a phenomenal week.

The evening of my birthday I met Jonathan for dinner at our favorite pizza place. The pizza blew my mind, as per usual, but I have to share what happened in the middle of dinner.

Jonathan got a voice mail from our bishop. Thinking it might be something urgent, he dashed out of the loud room to listen to it. He came back and said, "You have to hear it." I took his phone and went to a quiet corner by the front windows of the restaurant. Our dear bishop, whose Facebook updates indicated he was in Panama at the time, had called to wish me a Happy Birthday. I was so touched as I stood there in the corner of the glass entryway.

When I turned around I was surrounded by a dozen gorgeous, ethnically diverse 20-somethings who looked like they had stepped out of a UNIQLO catalog. When I say surrounded, I mean they had formed a semi-circle around me, blocking me into the corner. The first wave, the ones closest to me, were about three feet away and closing in.

I yelled and jumped back. They yelled even louder and jumped back. The guy closest to me shouted, "WE THOUGHT YOU WERE FAKE!" I thought about that for .5 seconds before I threw my hands up and shouted back at him, "WHY ON EARTH WOULD I BE FAKE??" They laughed, but some of them were visibly shaken by the fact that I was alive. I was laughing, too, but for some reason we were still shouting at each other. Waiting for the adrenaline to wear off, I suppose.

A few of the pretty people tried to explain that they had just come from Madame Tussaud's wax museum around the corner. They pulled out their phones to show me pictures of them next to wax statues of Angelina Jolie, Janelle Monae, and other celebrities. Like I said, we were still shouting at each other, so as they flipped through the photos, I pointed and shouted things like, "That's a fake person" and "That one's fake. See the difference? You can tell who's real." It was very important to me that these young people be able to tell a statue from a real person, especially in a city like DC. There are statues everywhere. Heaven forbid they get to the Lincoln Memorial and scream, "How did he get up there?? Someone help that large man down!"

They tried to explain to me that I had been so still that I looked like a statue. I was beyond nervous for these beautiful dummies who A) in a city full of wonders, chose to go to the wax museum (???), and B) were so mesmerized by the wax statues that they could no longer differentiate between wax replica and human being on a cellphone inside a restaurant that was in no way affiliated with the wax museum. Good thing they were pretty. I hope they can just ride that one out for as long as it lasts.

When I got back to the table, Jonathan (who had been watching the whole thing) was laughing at me. That kind of situation, like my Candy Crush experience on the metro a few weeks ago, is the stuff of nightmares for him. This is why he sings in the ward choir (my nightmare) and I am regularly confronted by strangers in very public places doing/saying bizarre things (his nightmare).

But here he is being so cute and digesting pizza.