20 | July | 2012 | A Fork In Each Hand

I’m a birthday girl. Meaning I love my birthday. Not only is it the one day of the year where I can truly do whatever I want without any outside influence from anyone else, but I also get to celebrate another year of my life. I’ve never been one to moan and groan about my age. It is what it is and I can’t do anything about it. Rather than be sad or depressed that I’m yet another year older, instead I look at it as I’m a year younger than I’ll be next year! Some people don’t like a big fuss about their birthdays and that’s fine. And honestly, I don’t like a lot of fuss about mine either – I just like to celebrate it. When my birthday falls on a weekday, I always take the day off. Period. My boss makes fun of me, saying he doesn’t know anyone who likes their birthday as much as I do but the reality is that I just know that working is the last thing on Earth that I want to do. Even if I have no other plans, you won’t see me at work. My birthday is this Sunday so since I’m already off, I’m taking a nice long weekend. I’m heading to the beach today and then heading to Baltimore with my girl friends tomorrow just to get out of Dodge for a while and let off some steam. And I’m planning on taking these S’mores Sea Salt Martinis with me.

S’mores flavored vodka is mixed with half-and-half and served in a chocolate-sea salt rimmed martini glass. I’m a big fan of Three Olives Vodka so when I saw the S’more flavored bottle, I didn’t know whether to be excited or frightened. But I went for it because if I were on a deserted island, I would want to have s’mores with me. So why not a s’mores cocktail too? This cocktail is good but I think I’m going to experiment with it a bit. I’d probably omit the salt, mix chocolate syrup in with the half-and-half, and maybe add in some Baileys or chocolate liqueur. There are all kinds of possibilites with this.

Anyway, having your birthday in the middle of the summer could be a real bummer as a kid. For people whose birthdays fell during the school year, I got to watch as they had their lockers decorated, cookies were brought in, and people chimed “Happy Birthday!” as they passed in the hall between classes. Not only that, but if they had a party planned for the weekend, it became all everyone talked about on Friday at school. When your birthday is in the summer, you don’t get any of that (although a co-worker made me brownies and decorated my office with streamers yesterday). On the bright side, I never had to go to school and I always got to go to the pool. So there. My mom always made my birthdays special so they are still special to me. She doesn’t get anymore birthdays so I will celebrate each and every one of mine for as long as I can. Now as an adult, around where I live, everyone disappears for the shore in the summer. So it’s kind of like being a kid all over again. But that’s ok, I’m used to it. Later on today, I’ll be at the shore too. Have a great weekend, everyone!