Tomorrow is my 38th birthday. For a few years, I would organize birthday dinners for myself with local friends and have casual drinks out afterwards. It was always really informal, with small groups of people that I love and enjoy spending time with. I’ve never had a ton of friends, so when I do have people I actually call friends, each of them really needs to count.

But then COVID happened. People stopped congregating. And even before that, a lot of our friends moved away. So there was less reason to have group outings. Pookster was born, and so then it became harder to organize group dinners. But after having friends over for a (takeout) dinner in early December, I remembered how much I love cooking for my people, so I decided I’d start doing more of that this year, just at lunch time so it’s easier on Pookster’s sleep schedule.

Well, I thought about doing this about a week ago for my birthday, perhaps the last week of January, but my impromptu thought was a little too impromptu. Not everyone was available who I’d like to invite. So then I settled on a belated birthday/Lunar New Year celebration in mid-February. Lunar New Year falls on February 10th this year, so we’ll have our meal on February 17. And this will also give me more runway to decide what to make.

The older I get, the less I really want “things” or anything big. I just want more time, togetherness, love, and well, time with the people I care about.