Happy Birthday, Kristen!

Whew! A lot of them today!

Today is Kristen’s birthday, and a bunch of folks gathered in Humboldt Park to help celebrate with a combo potluck picnic and kickball extravaganza.

I didn’t know all that many folks there, and had a heck of a time trying to learn names (I’m so terrible with remembering names once someone introduces themselves). Met a bunch of good folks, and played kickball for the first time in I don’t know how long. I was sucking pretty badly at first, but got better as time went on (and got a pretty decent grass stain from a failed diving catch).

Here’s the birthday gal, kicking things off (literally):

Post-park, we all headed over to Innjoy – a bar I’ve heard a lot about, but visited for the first time tonight. We got some seating outside (which was terrific and, given our large group – pretty lucky).

Again, since I didn’t know all that many folks… I kept the camera in its bag for most of the night. I took a few things here and there, but didn’t feel like I knew everyone well enough to keep snapping photos all night. There were some pretty killer Polaroids taken though, by Kristen.

One pic I did want to get though, was this awesome tattoo that Brook has of The Threshold. I guess this is only exciting to folks who are fans of The Sandman.

I’ve forgotten who it was that brought these books along (I told you I was terrible with names). But a friend of Kristen’s brought along Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, expressly to read a poem to Kristen.