This has been very slow in the making, given the tedium of scribing 56 or so individual captions and cutting/cropping even more photos than you'd first expect from a birthday celebration, but it was a time to be celebrated. To introduce my Flickr® Photostream™ Slide Show below, I'll simply say that I am blessed to have been able to celebrate my 30TH birthday with such pomp & circumstance.
It was a celebration of pure decadence and lavish living, for a newly sober sane man, leaving behind his old face and his youth for a future filled with promise, potential and profound friendships. From the bottom of my heart, I thank every person who came to Ferguson Place on September 18th, 2009 to celebrate with me my birthday. I will always keep these memories dear to my heart! God bless you all as he has blessed me!!
The evening certainly did not begin with the lighting of the candles and the cutting of the cake, but I thought that framing these photos first would at least be a good introduction, with the bright bold thirty candles and all the sprinkles to shots of me slicing and serving.
Then we were in the kitchen for eats, and from there it's pretty much chronologic: the photo display. Next came the opening of the gifts, and boy, were they a delight!! My favorites (and I mean no harping on the lesser than gifts for being "oh, lesser than!" -- Just Kidding, of course!) have got to be the black and white OldNavy™ bamboo-rayon scarf I got from my nurse from UCSF 360: The Positive Care Center, Patrick F.; my bright royal blue SNUGGIE® from Timothy V., a Ferguson Place alum; and my box o'condoms from Thomas C., a previous graduate from Ferguson Place who was a client for about 2/3 the time I was there!! What a great surprise they all were!! Thanks guys!
But the one person I have to thank above anyone else is my sponsor, Jeffrey J., who I was linked to through John Olesen, MA: my Shanti L.I.F.E. Coach. To my great fortunate, Jeffrey J. just happens to be a very talented professional pastry chef, king of Cakedom® and an all around amazing person. I'm a really lucky kid to have him as my first sponsor in any 12-Step Program. He's been sober for over 5 years, and stays sane and stable by devoting his life to service, mostly baking cakes from original recipes for his closest friends' (and he's got a lot of them!) sobriety birthdays.
Jeffrey, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for investing so much of your time into baking me such a decadent chocolate cake, but mostly for all the strength of spirit and teaching you will bring into my life as months and years go on. Thank you for letting me into your life, even though it may not be easy for you sometimes. I look forward to working with you!!
