Happy Birthday To Me....

My birthday was a few days ago, but I was not here, I was in Nashville, celebrating my birthday weekend with my friends. I can't believe I'm officially 31. That sounds old. I'm not old! Ha!

I had a ton of pictures, taken with a camera that was my birthday gift to myself. It was lost/stolen the last night of my trip. I'm still hoping it's on its way back to me... I really miss the thought of all my pictures gone.

Anyway, on Thursday, I had the car packed up and left town mid-morning right after dropping the kids off at the bus stop and having breakfast at the truck stop with Keith. It's a 12 hour drive from here, so I planned on just making it into Nashville around 9pm CST.

The drive went pretty smoothly, with the exception of me having to pee like constantly - which pissed me off because I normally have a bladder of steel. When I finally rolled into town, I parked right at Losers and went in to celebrate Erv and Steve's birthday. It was their birthday party that night, so I knew that some old friends would be there for sure. I was right! I even got to meet some new friends, including a wonderful man named Randy. The pictures from Thursday were funny and goofy.

On Friday, I woke up early and Mark and I drove through Jack In The Box so I could have a quick breakfast before meeting Cari and heading to the hair salon. Renee was doing my hair for me as a birthday thing, so I was headed to Music Row so that I could get all beautified. Renee did an awesome job. I only have a picture of me in the chair that I took with my cell phone...

Then when I was finished, I had to rush over to Las Palmas, for my birthday lunch celebration. I was running a few minutes behind, as Renee was straightening my hair and making sure it was perfect. But it ended up working out just fine, and I quickly had the biggest birthday "party" I've had since I was probably like seven. I think there were 10 of us at the table. I took pictures to show my family for proof. Damn, I am pissed those are missing! Hahaha! It's a running joke about me and parties.

At the lunch, I was able to meet Brent in person and hand deliver the sweethearts gala painting. We took pictures of us smiling and it glistening in the sun. Again, gone.

So then, Cari and I decided it was time to do a little shopping around town. She needed some things, and I was more than happy to check out shoes at Off Broadway. I ran into my friend Earl Clark upstairs in the offices, when I went to go find Mark (he didn't want to go shoe shopping). I ended up picking up three pairs of shoes (all clearance!)- a pair of hellacious red stilettos, a pair of cute mary jane type shoes and some comfy bearclaw boots (lined).

We took Mark back to his apartment, and Cari and I went to her place to change for the evening. We had been invited to meet up with Brent for happy hour, and this way I could sign the back of the painting (which I hadn't done before) and put all my information on it. We met Brent and his friends at Tin Roof, had a birthday drink, and then we parted ways. She was headed home (her car was in the lot there since the morning) and I was planning on heading downtown.

It was still early, so I stopped into Losers to see if I could see any of my writer friends that liked to hold their afternoon meetings on the patio. When I walked in, Erv, GR, Steve and Randy were all there, and I was quickly invited to join them. A few more birthday drinks and I started thinking about how dinner would be a good option. I guess Randy felt the same way, because he asked me if I was hungry and told me that he'd love to take me to dinner. What girl turns down a nice dinner with a great guy? Not this one!

The weather was beautiful, so we walked the three blocks to this new restaurant, called Giovanni's (supposedly a Nashville version of the New York establishment). It used to be a bar/club called Layla Rul so it was kind of neat to see the transformation of the space. Dinner was fantastic, and Randy was such a gentleman. We had an amazing appetizer that was their "mixed fried seafood and zucchini with marinara sauce", and we popped open a bottle of cabernet. For dinner, I had the "marinated rosemary chicken breast served with polenta and asparagus". It was divine. I can't say enough about it. It was simply to die for. My taste buds were in heaven. For dessert, Randy arranged a bit of a surprise. I picked their chocolate dessert (can't remember what it was called) and it came out on a plate, that had "Happy Birthday" written in chocolate. We smiled for pictures (missing!), and dug into the most decadent chocolate dessert I have had in a long time. I thanked Randy for such a wonderful dinner and such a great night of getting to know one another.

Conversation and the red wine ended up being enough of an evening for me, so I decided to not go downtown after all, and just call it a night around midnight.

The next morning, I woke up early and headed out of town to go see Todd out in Nolensville. He'd moved out to the country in an effort to get away, and I had promised him I would come see him. So, I drove the half hour to his place and we caught up. I played and sang my new songs for him, and he LOVED the "God Help Me" one. Told me we need to get that demo'd and pitched. We spent the majority of the day together- him, me and his son Wyler. We went back into town, had tacos at a roadside stand, to Friedmans (hunting store) where they got boy things, ICON Midtown, then we had a late lunch at Kalamatas before I took them home. I had been craving that gyro for over a year. MMM. It didn't disappoint!

When I dropped them off, I had talked to Laura about trying to get together and plan our night for later. I also talked with Cari and told her I would meet her down at the Eric Heatherly show at The Listening Room Cafe around 8:30. I popped my head into Losers and ran into Randy Houser who had just rode in on his bike, hadn't seen him in a while but he was exhausted from being out of town. He stuck around for a soda and then headed back on the bike. I laughed with Tony and Phil for a while then decided I should change into whatever I was going to wear for the night and head out.

(I'll finish the rest later- got some stuff to do....)