Weekends go too quickly

Ain't that the truth? Here I was all smiley and happy on my birthday last Friday and then WHAM - it's Tuesday morning.

No one at work knew it was my birthday on Friday. I blame that on the GM. I know he was aware of it because I had taken the previous Monday off as my BIRTHDAY DAY OFF, which my company lets us do. I told him I wanted to take that day off rather then my actual birthday off on Friday and he said okay. I even saw my birthday written down on his desk calendar. But nope, not a word. Oh well.

Friday night was a blast. I got about 14 of my buds together and we all went out for dinner and drinks. My friend Brad the pastry chef made me this amazing chocolate cake. I know the manager at the restaurant we went to and he bought me a drink. It was just a fantastic time. My friend Courtney got me this hilarious book from 1968 called "How to Be A Minister's Wife...And Love it!" It is hysterical, and now I have some insight on what being a pastor's wife will be like...if it was 1968 and I was married to a guy. Now, where's my knitting....?

Then Amy and I woke up slightly hung-over Saturday morning. But who cares, we were off to Portland, Maine. Portland is a really pretty town, but I have to say I was expecting a bit more out of the downtown "Old Port" area everyone was telling me about.

There were some neat stores and this really amazing huge Coast Guard sailing ship, but that was about it. We even rode this little Maine narrow-gauge railroad around the town for a history tour. That was cool.

Sunday was very cool because I saw my first moose ever. I have friends who live up in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire and they saw that they're always seeing moose in their yards, but of course this never happens when I come visit. So Amy and I did the next best thing by going to the Maine Wildlife Park, which is like a zoo but without all the exotic animals. This park takes care of injured animals and those that were raised by humans and now can't live in the wild. They have all kinds of great animals there that you do see around your homes, but you've maybe never been all that close to them. There were foxes and porcupines and a mink and black bears and deer and skunks -- and then there was the moose.

I knew moose were large, but man, this is a creature I would not want to run into on a nice hike in the woods. The female was the one that was closest to the fence and she was really neat to watch. Unforunately the huge bull moose was way in the back of the pen sitting down, so I didn't get to see him very well. But even from that far away, you could still tell that he was HUGE. And the antlers, sheesh! So now moose are #2 on my list of favorite animals, right behind ducks.

Sunday was also the big one year wedding anniversary, so Amy and I had to eat that nasty piece of frozen cake that we'd kept in the freezer since the big day last year. Amy was excited and quite the enforcer about this custom. I looked at the cake, all covered in freezer burn, and wondered why just the keeping of the frozen chunk for a year wasn't good enough. But, we thawed it out and ate it. It wasn't horrible, but I just kept thinking about what my uncle told us during the wedding last year when we talked about keeping the cake for the one-year custom:

"You're going to wish you'd just eaten it all the first time around."

It's funny 'cause it's true.

Anyway, after the moose and the frozen cake, it was time for a nice anniversary dinner. We gorged ourselves on seafood at this great little restaurant south of Freeport (home of 50 kajillion outlet stores, with 49 kajillion of them being various LL Bean outlets) called the Muddy Rudder. It had a great view of this neat wetlands with birds and boats and things.

Monday morning had us headed out to the local lighthouses in the area, which were beautiful. If you ever get a chance to visit Maine, you should go. People are friendly and laid back, and they nice New England accents.

Also on Monday we watched the local minor league baseball team, the Portland Sea Dogs, beat up on another team. We even got there early enough to take part in the free give-away, which was a Johnny Damon bobblehead doll. It's awesome. Johnny Damon is a Red Sox outfielder, in case you didn't know. His hair is getting too long, and while he is cute and a great player, I think he looks like a mon-chi-chi. Did you ever have one of those dolls while growing up? They look a little like monkeys? You make your own call.

Overall, the weekend getaway was nice. And once again, it's back to work.