Remember Christmas? Birthdays?

I mean the real excitement of Christmas or Birthdays when you were between 5-8? The anticipation for everything you said you wanted and the surprise as you opened presents. More specifically, do recall that joy of opening a present and getting just what you wanted – only you’d asked for it so long ago that you’d forgotten it, or you’d just recently realized you wanted it and hadn’t remembered to ask for it. It’s easy to forget about those moments, about how joyous it can be to get the “perfect” present. I’d really and truly forgotten what it was like to be so surprised.

Then today I got a box in the mail. Last week a friend asked for my address and told me he was sending a graduation gift.  Completely unnecessary I told him (and meant it),   but he said he’d ordered it months ago and was sending it anyway. Since items have a tendency to go missing from our porch I’d been keeping an eye on the mail, but had pretty much forgotten it.  (This is the same friend it took me two years to give a present.) I figured the next time we saw each other would be soon enough.

Then, like I said, when I walked in the door there was a small box on the book shelf.  Sure enough, the return address was from the ‘boro. When I opened the box I am pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot.

BSG “Elite Pilot” Flight Pin

For those of you who weren’t around for the previous incarnation of this blog.  I LOVED the new Battlestar Galactica.  Perhaps, even, I was a wee bit obsessed with the show. (Viewing parties at my house, incessantly pressuring friends to watch.)There is even a colonial fleet propaganda poster currently hanging in my office. (Another gift from a good friend when I passed my comprehensive exams.)

I had to blow this up and lighten it. Not the best picture, but this is what I have instead of a window.

I didn’t even know these pins existed, but this is by far the best present. Anything that makes you feel 8 again qualifies as the best ever!

The watch Bradley let me pick out as a graduation present is nice, and sweet. (And he says he will eventually engrave it with something.)

The story of how I picked it is a different post, but I do love it.

The Keurig machine the DH’s Brother & Sister & their respective spouses went together to get me is definitely the most useful graduation present I received.

These wings though, these wings are by far the most fun present I’ve received. I’m still smiling like an idiot.

I didn’t even know I wanted them.