A very happy birthday to Magda from all the various residents of this house, including, of course, Chomsky and Minsky, whose birthday it also is.

Will you be making one of your special cakes to celebrate the occasion?



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Happy Birthday to Magda!!! Hope you got your ice cream cake!

Happy Birthday from me too, even if I'm notoriously bad at doing birthdays (I got less cards than the dog a couple of years back)



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Happy birthday. Go get vershnicket.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to yooooooooooo!

And in Hebrew:
Yom Haledet sameach, Yom Haledet sameach....(ad nauseam)

Anyone know any other languages to regale Magda with?

-Emma



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Revolt! Revolt! No matter why or when,
It's novelty--old novelty again.

AppyHay IrthdayBay!

Buon compleanno! (even if it is a bit late now...)



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Happy Birthday!

To also make your day, (this is top secret, don't tell anyone) but when I saw Jasper the other night he mentioned you in the talk and by name when he was talking to me at the signing - you obviously made quite an impression!

I forgot to include the four little people of the house say Happy Birthday as well, who I haven't yet mentioned, Cherry, Nugget, Poppy and Snowy the rats (not a wise thing to say with all the cat people around here)

It's all right. Minsky will hold a civilised conversation with a rat, if it's a sufficiently intelligent rat (rather like the Amazing Maurice); Chomsky is too lazy to chase anything; Heidi is too much of a lady to chase anything; and if necessary I shall sit on Klinsmann...



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Thanks Sarah! that's a relief, they are very civilised, they were only debating the reality of the Pied Piper the other day, I think that's what they were on about, very good escape artists they are too

I'm a rat person, although there isn't really space at my current house. They're cool, although some people can't get past the tail, for some reason. Having to dissect them at uni also taught me a lot about them...



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I wanna rat. I used to have mice, and they're very cool.



:--

Do something pretty while you can...

I've had them all...mice, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets....rodents and weasels are cool! But I love my kitties and it's hard to do all of those with cats!

Talking of pets my greyhound has pulled a muscle, and I keep bursting out laughing as she limps - I'm sure she's hamming it up to get more sympathy off us. The worst bit is when she goes to scratch her ear and falls over...



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

My brother used to keep rats, they were fun to play with, but I used to keep snakes, now that's a cool pet, and easy to keep too. Only need feeding once a week, never needs walking, doesn't make lots of noise, on the downside, they're the best escape artists I've ever seen, all they needed was a single hole, just larger than their head and within about 1/2 of their body length fromt he floor, even straight above. They can just raise their head right up, only resting on their tail.



.

Parabens a você
nesta data querida, muitas felicidades, muitos anos de vida
hoje é dia de festa
cantam as nossas almas
para a menina Magda
uma salva de palmas!

Hmmm...according to Babel Fish that's:

Parabens you in this wanted date, many happinesses, many years of life today is day of party sings our souls for the Magda girl a salute of palms!

Assuming I've got the gist of it, then thank you, Carla.

And as to everyone else:

Sarah:
Thank you! Please convey my belated birthday greetings to Minsky. As it happens, I didn't make a cake for my birthday, but I did still make two cakes this weekend.
For the Mothers' Day potluck at church, I did a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and buttercream icing, with a spray of buttercream roses on top and basketweave on the sides.
And I just finished a cake for my mother to bring to work for a coworker's 60th birthday. The top is done to look like a basket of flowers (light chocolate icing basketweave covering the lower third of the round top, and a rope handle piped round the rest of the border, and lots of royal icing flowers), while the side has white and yellow basket weave. I'll go take a picture of it shortly, before boxing it and putting it in mum's trunk (boot).

Twila:
Thank you! No, I didn't get an ice cream cake, but I did get free dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant, including a free birthday cannolli with fresh fruit (which I shared with my mother in exchange for some of her tiramisu).

Emma:
Thanks! While I didn't get vershnicket, I did have a nice glass of wine with dinner.

Gill:
Thank you for letting me know I've been mentioned. Hopefully the strong impression I made on Jasper was a positive one....
And hello to the rats. I'm rather fond of rats myself, but unfortunately my immune system is no more fond of them than it is of cats (allergies).

And thank you to all the other human and furry folks who've wished me happy birthday!

BTW, my main birthday present from my mother was tickets to see the Billy Joel and Elton John Face to Face tour, during their stop in Detroit last weekend. Fabulous concert with 3 and a half hours of straight music. Only annoyance was that the seats were very small (significantly smaller than a coach airline seat) and I'm not, so I had to wedge myself between the armrests. There were a lot of people significantly larger than me, and I have no idea how they managed to fit in the seats. Then the guy who sat next to mom arrived late (15 minutes into the concert), left 3 times during the concert to use the loo and buy more beer, and then left early. This means I had to wedge myself out of and then back into the seat a total of 8 times to let him in and out of the row. Annoying, but it didn't spoil the concert, by any stretch. Where else am I going to see Billy Joel sing "Stop! in the Name of Love" (Something I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see, but then again, we were in Motown). Particularly enjoyed the way the band dropped out and let the audience do the "La la la" bits in 'Crocodile Rock' and the chorus in Piano Man.

BTW, there were very few empty seats. All but the most expensive tickets were completely sold out, and this was a second concert added after the one the night before sold out. The arena holds 18,000 people with the stage set up (it hold 22,000 for basketball games). Needless to say, it took a while to get out of the parking lot afterwards.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Magda, you got the idea...

That is what we sing to the "Happy brithday to you" tune... at least it's more varied than in English
:-)

Von gerburtstag, viel gluck!

(minus the little '' things...)

And no, I don't speak german.



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.