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It's a strange thing to be celebrating my birthday at the end of summer, but it's nice to be able to do it at an outdoor pub. With a pint of Kilkenny, down by the harbor. Yeah, it's different, but it's ok.

In Chicago, on my birthday I'd visit the garden at the Art Institute on my lunch break to see if the daffodils were starting to come up yet. Most years they'd be there, the first green shoots pushing up through the ground. Some years, one or two flower buds would be starting to form. Other years, the snow would make it sort of hard to believe spring was ever coming.

Last year was the first time that I wasn't working for the bank on my birthday in 17 years. I remember thinking I never wanted to work in an office again. A year later and, although it's been great to have the time off, with no structure at all my days all kind of run together. I'm still not dying to work in an office again, but last week I began studying for the local equivalent of the bar exam. Been to the law library every day for a week. It's a lot like being back in law school. Not exactly fun, but it's interesting.

Another weird thing occurred to me "on" my birthday - I didn't know which day it was. New Zealand is right next to the international date line, hence the East Coast tagline "First to see the sun." But I was born on the other side, and it wasn't March 4th in Chicago until 19 hours - almost a whole day - later.

I chose the obvious solution, and celebrated twice! Besides taking me out for a pint, Ali got us tickets to a couple shows. This is AK05 week, Auckland's bi-annual international culture festival. It's funny how much it resembles Philly's international culture festival, as if they were both designed from the same template. They probably were. I understand there's a whole industry now, putting together events using entertainers who do a regular circuit of festivals around the globe. Works for me.

On Friday we saw "Cabaret Decadanse," a very adult cabaret show from Montreal. With puppets. Of every shape, type and size imaginable. There was an exotic dancer with a kind of Betty Boop thing going on, and an erotic incarnation of Josephine Baker. She wriggled out of her sequined gown to dance topless, wearing only a skirt fringed with bananas. Turned the place into a XXX theatre. A transvetite sang torch songs a la Edith Piaf, and there was an "Argentine" emcee with a face like the Wicked Witch of the West. My favorite was a googly-eyed sock puppet, who conveyed all the pathos and urbane wit of a sophisticated gay nightclub entertainer whose day job was on the set of Sesame Street.

Saturday was "Bush," a remarkable show by Bangarra Dance Theatre, an Australian Aboriginal dance troupe. A couple years ago in Philly we were completely wowed by another Sydney dance company (only wish I could remember their name). Even though it's a pretty limited sample, I'm tempted to say Australia is developing some of the strongest dance companies in the world. Good on 'em.

Cheers,
Sandie