It was all that!

The birthday sojourn was an Excellent Adventure. Talk about feeling like a grown up. I think dealing with valet parking ranks up at the top of adult behavior. The Oxford Hotel, built in 1891 to service the railway station a short block away, is the oldest hotel in Denver (okay, bear with me, my non-American friends. Denver itself was only cottonwood trees at two rivers' confluence in the 1860's). The decor in the lobby was lush, rich red-and-black Pierrot style. Our room was quaint and lovely. Within 15 minutes of our arrival, a knock on the door introduced a hotel employee whose job, it appears, was to strew rose petals on our bed. Um. We chose self-strewing, and postponed the champagne until pre-bed. Dinner was at the same venue where I'd met isiscolo last January. And the city is so gorgeous for the holidays: lights galore, folks walking all over the city center, bars doing a thriving business. And my massage was as addictive as crack.

Last night, my women friends bestowed a scepter on me. It's our group scepter. I must care for it until the next milestone birthday of one of us. I've never been a scepter-owner before. Hopefully it matches my minions: it's peach and silver. Is everyone tuned in to those colors? It matches the strewing petals, incidentally.

Isn't this icon pretty? Thanks, oxoniensis!

Today I finished the first draft of ATBT's sequel, Delicate Sound of Thunder. (DSOT in the vernacular.) I'm going to play with it a bit more, then off to the betas it goes! January. Until then, friends, here's another cookie:

( Feed your head: Draco and Harry go at it )