cornerofmadness

thanks to everyone who wished me and thanks to

priarani560 for the virtual cupcakes.

Mom said I could do what I wanted and it finally wasn't raining. But also all the beautiful cool weather was gone. Boy did it get hot. I wanted to go to the Allegheny cemetery established in 1844, 300 acres with a lot of famous people. I found some but sadly didn't find Stephen Foster or Stanley Turrentine. I wish I had more time there but it was fascinating, beautiful and peaceful. I do love this sort of burial place. Even the wall people mausoleum was nook after nook of stained glass chapels. I startled a poor fawn who was napping against a head stone (Her momma was a top the hill) She didn't go far and kept wagging her tail at me.

For lunch we went to the Church Brew Works Built in 1903, it started at St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church. It's now a brew pub. And the menu is amazingly upscale, kobe beef cheesesteaks, wild boar quesadillas and seven onion soup. My waiter gave me a free beer for my birthday. I got a coconut stout which was surprisingly mild and non-bitter. It was delicious. I went with the Yinzer cheesesteak (which is a Primanti's Brother rip off with fries and slaw on it). It was good.

Dad joined us at a new favorite Chinese restaurant. I got something new, Drunken chicken, all white meat with peppers, green beans and onions in a complex sauce rich with garlic slices, ginger and ground up chilies from hell. So hot, so delicious. Followed up with a tastee freeze.

My aunt gave me my choice of her flea market haul. I took a LoTR magnet and two silver rings

All in all a nice birthday. And now, Pictures!

( check out all the pretty )

Thank you to everyone who sent along their birthday wishes. I appreciate them. I went with Mom to the Pittsburgh Aviary. She says I was there once but I have no active memories of it. The aviary is also haunted. It was a nice time. The penguins were absolute clowns and in the tropical room the birds kept mistaking me for a tree or something. They kept flying at my head. I could feel the wind from their wings. I did go feed the Lories. Figures this is when my camera said memory card full. WTF? What I didn't know was that the indianapolis pictures said they were deleted and weren't. Mom doesn't take verbal instructions well when i tried to explain how to delete some of the others and I had a handful of ravenous Lories. Also the rhinoceros hornbill was a brat so i didn't get a picture of him.

Wow has the North shore of Pittsburgh picked up. In the 1880's it was a lot of lovely rowhouses, brownstones and mansions. in the 1900's it was warehouses and low income housing.Now all those apts have been reclaimed and redone and it's gorgeous.

We also went to the Rivers casino, the new one in Pittsburgh, for lunch. Ugly. Seriously. It was so unimpressive as a casino and small. I did win 20$ (I was trying to win a chance to play tic tac toe against the chicken for 5,000) It was nice having lunch and sipping on mojitos watching the river though. It was actually in the mid-70's today, perfect weather.

Tonight my parents and I went out for chinese. Prawns and scallops, yum. The only sour note was my grandmother who is now pretending we're all horrible and starving her to death (the woman has 3 freezers full of food).

Thanks to

angelfirenze &

caffeinified for the Vgifts and a huge thanks to

enemytosleep &

bob_fish for the Roy/Maes story that I have to read yet but I know it'll be great. Top Bananna

Thanks to flippy for the endless box of Asian goodies and Teavana teas and to Cat for the gift certificate and to