Happy Birthday to me, pt. 1

This weekend, my oldest friend and I took the train down to Springfield, IL, to celebrate my birthday. We went to the Lincoln Library and Museum. As always, the museum is the best way to feel close to the man who gave us all the United States and the liberty we enjoy today. Today, as we welcome another President who, like Lincoln, toiled only briefly in Springfield and was accused of being "not ready" for the office, it was all especially poignant. I find it comforting to know that Obama is a student of Lincoln.

We also spent a lot of time in the library. It has ancestry/geneaological databases that anyone can search for free, so my friend and I looked up our families. I was tickled to find my grandpa's name on the manifest of the Bergensfjord, the ship he took from Norway to Ellis Island, back in the 1920s. I wish he was still here so I could ask him how/why he came over from Norway, instead of Germany where he lived my greatgrandparents. I also found my parents' marriage license. It was so cool!

Best of all, I will remember this weekend for the salmon. We enjoyed a room service dinner and I opened my gifts (a heartwarming cat book and a movie trivia calendar -- does she know me or what?) and I had shrimp cocktail, baked potato and grilled salmon. Then, for breakfast, I had lox and bagels. I do sooooo love salmon.

I'm home now, and boy do I know it! No one is celebrating me (and won't until I go to the theater with Barb on Wednesday), I'm eating a Lean Cuisine instead of salmon, and I've got two loads in the dryer downstairs.