BIG BIRTHDAY!

Humiliating myself with a 60th Birthday tiara from my evil friend, Lucy!

John, Mike and Kyle

Kyle, Ivy and Gregor

Mark, Lucy, Sarah

David, Trish and Mark

Vanessa, Ruth and Alan

Vanessa, Kent, and Judy

Kyle, Ivy and Gregor

Sarah, Carol and Kent

Most of the Gang

Today I not only celebrated by 60th birthday, but also my first year anniversary in Portland. Last night I hosted a pizza party at Gladstone Coffee and Pizza--the same pizza I've been raving about for a year now. John Mitchell, the owner, set up a series of tables together on the patio to accommodate my party. Kent, Vanessa and Judy, Trish and David, Ivy and Gregor, John, Kyle, Michael, Mark and Lucy, Alan and Ruth, Carol and Sarah AND Beau gathered for pizza, Caesar salad, John's house-made giardinera, wine, beer, and coffee.

Lucy having just celebrated her own similar milestone brought along a plastic tiara she had been given for hers. Deciding misery loves company, she presented it to me. Not above behaving like an idiot, I put the damn thing on. Weather was perfect. Beau enjoyed the evening, especially when his good friend Trish put him in her lap where he very quickly settled in for a long nap.

If you have to be 60, this is not a bad way to do so.

My thanks got Gladstone's pizza master, John Mitchell, for executing such a perfect evening. I'm told there are a few other great pizza joints in town, but when the pizza tastes this good and you don't have wait a pathetically long time to get your fix (a 30-minute + wait at A Pizza Scholls is not my idea of a fun time), then why are so many Portlander's putting themselves through that!

Beau, looking for food opportunities to drop out of the sky.