My big fat Greek birthday

You know the parties are getting out of hand when your teenage son is excited to have several days off from them. It seems like a lot of my new friends were born around now, and a birthday party is a party I won’t miss if I can help it. My favorite party so far has obviously been my own! Haha!

I have been craving pumpkin something or other, and one of my friends here with access to the naval base bought me a couple of cans from the base grocery store. If I don’t bring treats I baked somewhere to share, I’ll end up eating most of it myself. So I decided to bake pumpkin bars (like a pumpkin cake) using my great grandmother’s recipe. I wore my best bald eagle apron because, while I am currently not at all proud to be an American, bald eagles are still absolutely rad and my favorite killer bird.

It was super windy when I woke up, which I thought was the end of my birthday nature plans. I am not into wind, but it died down a little by the afternoon. I didn’t make it on a good walk as planned, but I did get to go sit in my little rocky cove and even got in the water a bit in my birthday suit. Sometimes you just have to make a titty offering to Poseidon, you know?

I did get a walk in with Felix on the way down to the bar. About halfway down, I told him that my birthday wish was to get to pet Bobbie, and I get what I want on my birthday.

There was no Monday karaoke in the village that week, and I told Stathis, our karaoke DJ, that I was sad about no karaoke on my birthday week. He asked what day my birthday was and then arranged to do it on Thursday instead. My little black heart was so happy that he offered and that the bar agreed to host. I think at one point most of the family that owns the bar was there helping out.

I had two goals when we moved here. One was to sit around topless, which I started achieving right away. The other was to have a local bar or taverna or something that would be like my Cheers bar. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name? And they’re always glad you came? I feel like I have accomplished this as well!

I also consider it a win that I had TWO DOGS come to my party. One of them by choice, the big village dog whose name I do not know how to spell but who we are all hopelessly in love with, and the other, Brutus, who’s mom made him come.

Another birthday success was having not one or two but THREE cakes. I of course made the one myself. Gabi made me a delicious lemon pound cake with lemons from her own tree, and Patrik made a strawberry cheesecake with white chocolate and an oreo crust!

I would also like to point out that Patrik did not RSVP or even acknowledge that he was invited. He considered his attendance part of the birthday surprise!

Yiorgos loved my cake so much that he had to kiss my hand, and the photos of the experience are some of my favorites.

It ended up being a pretty wild party for a Thursday night. Joshua and I eventually left around 1:30 am, but word on the street is that it kept going until around 3 am! Big thanks to Giannis, our official bartender for the night, for putting up with us for that long!

Side story: A couple days after my birthday I did something my mom always warned me against- I picked up a hitchhiker! When I was a teenager on road trips, she always forbade me from stopping at rest stops. Eventually I started ignoring her as they’re usually a very nice place to uh, stop. And rest. And go to the bathroom. So when I saw a cute teenage boy on the hill with his thumb out, I stopped immediately. It was Achilleús, the teenage bartender whom I like to bribe every week or two with candy. So the danger was low, but now I can say I’ve done it. Hahaha