04-16-05: fresh birthday pie

My brother's birthday is two years and a day before mine, so we've shared birthday festivities for the majority of our lives. When we were small we'd have separate parties for our friends, but since our birthdays usually fell around easter, we'd do the family thang as a joint thang. One year, my super-wise mom bought a Carvel ice cream Easter Bunny cake and had my name written on one ear and my brother's written on the other. A total 3-for-1 cake. What a deal!

Anyhoo, my brother brought his awesome family over to my folks' place tonight for dinner, freshly made birthday pie and good company. It was so good to see them; I don't see my family enough. I am sure I saw them more when I lived out west, which is totally ironic (don'tcha think?).

Over dinner, my mom re-told her fun Johnny Carson story for the Knapplets; the Cliffs Notes version goes like this: Throughout both her pregnancies, she told her fetiiii that we'd have to be born at a time that didn't interfere with her watching Johnny Carson, as she had gotten herself into a very strict Johnny habit. My brother dutifully obliged and came in around after 10pm, and I showed up just before 2am. Mom said she was comfortably watching Johnny both evenings, and to this day she appreciates our compliance. :-) That story cracks me up. A little bit of Knappicana for ya.

After dinner tonight, Mom brought out the (freshly baked) birthday pie, and it took about 28362 tries to get a picture of me and my brother smiling for the camera while cutting the pie together. You'd think two college-educated advanced thinkers like us would be able to handle such a task.

Just as my dad snaps the pic, I ask my brother whether or not he's looking at the camera or the pie. Our director did not tell us our motivation.
To be a wiseass, my brother sticks his brotherly head in front of my face as Dad snaps the pic.

So I naturally have to make a stupid face.

So now we try to have a nice legit "Before we cut the pie" picture, but it's all cheeze.



Which should make this the nice, legit "After we cut the pie" picture, but again, the lack of direction has us looking all over the place.



And to get back at my brother for pinning me down and drooling a line his thick iced-tea spit within millimeters of my nose and then sucking it back up when I was small, I posted this picture of him picking his nose. :-D

(Actually, it's more of a nose scratching, not so much the picking. I'm not that cruel.)


It's really great to be up at my folks' place. My dad and I had some good quality time together today, and I saw him ride his motorcycle for the first time in years. Behold the miracle of hip replacement surgery! Tomorrow will hopefully bring a visit from my cousin, gin rummy with my mom, and maybe a ham sandwich before I hit the road for Delaware. Not really looking forward to the drive back down since it did such a number on me on the way up (oh yeah, I guess you faithful readers don't know I was in the ER last weekend with another kidney infection/stone/something... my back is still really aching from it; otherwise I'm OK. Worry not.).

Hey look! It just turned midnight! It's my birthday! It's my birthday! Woooo!




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