It was my birthday.

This was my first time being home for my birthday in five years. Actually, that's not even technically true, because I was technically in Virginia Beach for my birth-date. And I was sorta just going to dismiss it. But my mom found an Irish pub restaurant that had Irish music on Sundays, so last week instead of watching football (it very nicely worked out to be on a day without a football game. Elsewise who knows what we would have done) we went out to dinner. I requested "Galway Girl" from the musicians, the only, erm, "appropriate" Irish song I know. It was kinda like this --


Except instead of Gerard Butler it was two adorable Irish gentlemen who'd come over to America to escape the potato famine. And instead of young twenty-something native Irishfolk the patrons were families or other elderly Irishmen and women who had a surprisingly aggressive presence on the dance floor. My nephew wouldn't dance for fear of being trampled.

Then we went home for cake and ice cream. Now you must understand that growing up, we always had pretty extravangantly decorated cakes. We had castles and trains and scenes from Star Wars. My mom tried very hard to either fit the theme of the party or to have our cake symbolize something that had been important to us in the past year. When we got home, my sister informed me that I'd have to decorate my own cake. I enjoy all things baked and delicious, so this wasn't a problem.

First she pulled out a sheet cake. Then she started making the icing. When I walked into the kitchen, it was a lovely gray color. At this point I was really thinking it had something to do with second graders and education, like they were going to make me do simple math on my cake and send me into the shakes out of anxiety. But no, I was instructed to wash my hands thoroughly, which I did, and the cake was set before me. And then I got to do this --


I stuck my hands on the icing --


I signed my autograph --


And I had my very own edible piece of Hollywood legacy. Screenwriters only make Grauman's Chinese Theatre if they're also directors or stars, but I got a chance to practice just in case. My family did pretty well, didn't they?