It's a challenge, trying to make someone's birthday experience nice when they're in the middle of law school finals, don't much like birthdays to begin with, and occasionally have some level of dread associated with reaching another decade birthday milestone. In my family we usually play "king for a day" games where you get to be in charge of anyone and everything. This appeals to my control freak instincts and most people don't mind going along with it for 16 hours of a day. Greg prefers things a little more subdued and a little more subtle. So he vetoed my "Look who's 30!!" newspaper ad, and didn't want me posting a party invite to the everyone@ mailing list at the school. That said, I thought we did okay. Thanks to everyone who contributed photos to the happybirthdaygreg collection. We didn't do much on the actual birthday day, just looked at pictures and had some pizza while Greg studied for his last final. I swam 30 laps as a tribute. It's 5/6th of a mile, pretty taxing.

Friday Greg went to school while I stayed home and chopped vegetables, moved lawn furniture and coordinated cake delivery plans. Greg took his last final and came home to a house full of food, beer and friends and someone else willing to staff the grill for a change. Big thanks to Adam, Meredith, Rick, Sarah, Casey, Jill, Wayne, Stan, Hannah, Ola, Shamus and everyone who sent in photos and well-wishes.

Saturday he went for a 50 mile bike ride, beating his previous distance record by like 30 miles or so. I'm surprised he could get out of bed today, honestly. This morning we're up doing our own noodley things -- working on a talk for me, watching punditry and folding laundry for him -- while the nieghbors listen to two radios at once, one of them loud enough to drown out their caged barking dog. Yeah, it's that time of year again.