it's my birthday!

It's my birthday today. 26 big ones. yee haw. With birthday territory comes the "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" song, which scrolls through my head all day. I've also already planned out a birthday route which will get me the most amount of free stuff - breakfast at Denny's, free lunch at Mongolie grill, billy miner pie at the keg and maybe a clown ice cream come at Baskin Robins. I love free and I love birthdays. I took today off work to take advantage of all the birthdayness of the day.

Being a twin, our birthday was always a big deal - we got to celebrate twice as hard and long to make up for the sharing of the day. It was fun to celebrate a birthday with someone. Someone who was having just as much fun as you because it was her birthday too.

I'm the first one to spout the phrase "sharing is caring", but it's not necessarily something I live by. I mostly say it because it rhymes and rhyming makes me giggle. I'll share my food, I'll share my clothes, I'll share my unwanted opinions.. all these things I can do without batting an eyelash. The one thing that irks me to share, still, after 26 years, is my birthday. We would get the same presents, sometimes in different colours and most often it would be one cake with two names scrawled on top. Unless you time the opening of presents and blowing of candles exactly, someone will be getting shafted. It took Manda and I a decade or so to perfect it, but we managed to get Shared Birthday Etiquette sorted out.

I think I was 20 years old the first time I celebrated a birthday sans-sister. It was strange. Since then we've missed a couple more; one year I spent my birthday weekend in Vegas. I came home to a surprise party being thrown for Amanda. It was a very strange experience. Nobody has expected me to be home yet, so there weren't any presents for me. The cake had her name solely on it. I wasn't even wearing a party dress. I believe I went home and cried myself to sleep that night. It might have just been post-Vegas blues though.

This weekend I will be spending this birthday in Whistler, which is one of my favorite places. The sister will be absent from this trip due to a death in her husband's family, which makes me sad for them and then super sad for me being without an Amanda for the weekend. Lucky for me, I got a talking toy hamster for my birthday and I think that will replace her nicely. *lol jk.

Because of their abrupt change in plans, we decided to cancel our hotel room, which was a 2 bedroom suite. At this point I still have not re booked a room. I am toying with the idea of using the Suite Secrets feature on whistler.com. Essentially, it's like Hotel Roulette. You can pick how many stars, the type of room and where it is located in Whistler - but you don't get to find out which hotel it is until you've entered your payment information. Could be fun? I've put it off for two days because I was nervous, but now that I'm 26 years old I think I feel ready. Wish me luck...and more importantly, wish me a happy birthday! and then go and wish Amanda one. it's only fair.