Made it another year...

Fan-TAS-tic cake made special by Kelly Bowron (Global Nomad)


The obligatory cake shot. My mom has a shot of me holding a cake, or in proximity of a cake, probably every year since I was born until I turned 18. She's undoubtedly got a whole album dedicated to these shots, which are organized by year.
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Well, I've accomplished something-- I've made it another year. (Not that I have my date picked out or anything, but... sometimes it's the little things we celebrate)

With birthdays, usually people have one special day like Christmas, where all the good things get crammed in and then you're finished. However, I've found out that even in my short 8 months in Doha, I've made a whole myriad of friends. People who don't say they're rich or fortunate in life apparently don't have friends.

Anyway, I'd say my birthday started Thursday night, when I went night diving with my dive buddy Graeme to Old Club Reef. It was super-duper, with the highlight being a huge hamour hiding under the deck of a car. If I had my new underwater camera, I would have taken a picture. It was at least a meter long!!! Absolutely huge...

Friday I was treated to bubbly brunch by Graeme at the Marriott hotel. This was the first time I had been to brunch there, and I guarantee you I will be going back. Graeme and I were a little sad to see hamour on the buffet, and hoped it wasn't our friend from the previous night. Graeme was particularly upset, and refused to eat any. I, of course, sampled it and thought Herbie picked a good way to go. A nice cream sauce with herbs is good enough for anyone, I suppose..

There is a lot of spear fishing which goes on at Old Club Reef, you see. Which is fine, as long as the fish are being eaten and nothing pretty is being shot.

Saturday I went to the souks with Kelly and Amani, and scored some loud fabric, from which I will have more outrageous and ostentatious blouses made for work when we get over to the tailor. Someone has to be the weirdo in the workplace, you know.

Saturday night we ordered takeaway Chinese, drank beer, and watched Anchorman.

Last night was a DSAC committee meeting, for which I still can't believe I didn't send an e-mail confirming my attendance and food order. Doh! I have no idea what happened, even now. Sorry Lisa! Thankfully, since our chairman didn't make it, I got to try the Prawn Titanic sandwich. Very nice.

Then I went out briefly to hear my friend Glen sing at the Irish Harp. Very good, as always!

Today was a text message at 6.30 am, followed by more asynchronous birthday greetings on Facebook and e-mail. Even the Emergency Test Notification system didn't forget me, as it rang me twice at 7.40 am while I was asleep to make sure I was on the other end of the phone.

Tonight is dinner at Sakura (Japanese restaurant at the Ramada) with Graeme, thanks to a phoned invitation last night. I've not been to Sakura yet, so I'm excited to try it out. I'm even more excited to have good company, and am supremely confident that hamour will not be on offer on the menu.

Of course, knowing the Japanese, it will probably be hamour but renamed as "Japanese something-or-other". Better yet, they may choose some obscure word which actually means pencil (enpitsu 'en-pi-tsu', for your education moment of the day) and pass it off as being a well-appreciated fish. I never ate pencil fish, although I must say the bonito flakes you put on top of okonomiyaki and other dishes does vaguely resemble pencil shavings...