The last bits and bobs of December were made up of a lil of this, and a lil of that. A lunch with my buddy Jean to dish about the woes of life, a pre-Christmas tattoo touch-up (ow), and a bunch of Cialis commercials. It looked a little something like this:
My real birthday arrived with significantly less than a bang. However, by the end of the day I would be buzzing like a cuckoo bird! Here’s the scoop.
After going to work for a couple hours (where the main task was supressing my excitement), I cut out at lunch and headed into Surrey where I leapt onto the Skytrain for my journey to the NHL. HEART OF A CANUCK indeed. I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I met with Jen for some pre-game snacks at Pivo Public House.
Jen is one of my oldest friends…on earth. So there’s a lot of history there. And so, she made me this:
LMAO. For the unfamiliar…the first bunch were Brad Renfro (Brenfro), Kevin Bacon (kembkn), and Mike Herrera (no nickname.) The second was Maxim Lapierre (Lappy.) The sad creature in the last photo is Justin Bieber’s head on Ryan Kesler’s body. BOOOOOOOOOO. None of that, please. Of any kind. BEST CARD EVER. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t even hold it up in the restaurant.
Eventually Jen and I bid adieu and I met up with Marty in front of Rogers Arena. I was frothing at the mouth outside the club gate doors the second they started allowing people inside. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.
Oh ps – in case you didn’t know by now, Marty’s birthday gift was Canuck tickets (my idea.) Row 6, baby. I die!!
Here’s Dale Weise. Who, you ask? Exactly. He’s a sometimes-fourth-liner who likes to bask in the glory of being the first Canuck everyone sees when they walk into the arena.
I waited at the glass with baited breath for the warm-up to start. I was soon surrounded by small children, all in $100 jerseys, discussing how they are going to go about getting a warm-up puck today. These kids are 20 years ahead of me in the hockey department.
Once they started tossing out the pucks, I knew it had to be getting close. The child pool around me began to swell.
At one point, I was on the big screen with Henrik Sedin. It was pretty rad. The children became rangy, hitting the glass and yelling at the top of their lungs to try and get the attention of their favorite player. It was like I was surrounded by a group of misbehaving monkeys. I was a little embarrassed for myself being lumped in with this motley crew. And then Lappy (#40) skated by.
Not perfect lighting, but the man in the foreground is the same one in my birthday card – the one that wasn’t Ryan Kesler’s body. 
Well, wasn’t that fun? Eventually the real game began and I had to mosey my way over to my actual seat. Although I feel like I already got my money’s worth…
Lu, doing what I call his “gorilla pose”.
Scrappy Lappy.
See Marty? They are fist-bumping!
So, in the end, we creamed those stinky Minnesota Wild. Lu notched his first shutout of the year and we scored four goals. Sounds like a dang-near perfect birthday gift to me.
That would be the last (also, first) time I’d see Lappy single…he suddenly felt the need to get engaged three days after this. Wahh, my life.
I’d like to conclude the birthday blogs with this picture of me drinking chai out of the smallest cup on earth during my birthday celebrations with my aunt. I’m old now! Small portions only!
