It's all about ME!

On this day, throughout history:

1489 - The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.
1794 - Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin.
1804 - Johann Strauß, Sr., Austrian composer (d. 1849) was born
1879 - Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955) was born
1883 - Karl Marx, German political theorist (b. 1818) died
1923 - World's first hockey broadcast
1991 - Kurt Browning wins third consecutive World Figure Skating
In Japan and Korea it's White Day - A holiday similar to Valentine's Day (men give gifts to women)

And, most importantly, on this day, many years ago, I was born!

Here's how I spent this most auspicious occasion.
The sneaky people here for the meetings asked me to go down to the corner store to fetch some cold Cokes. So while Grace and I were getting the Cokes, they brought out the cake that Pam had baked for me this morning :) So when I came in, they all started singing Happy Birthday. And later, I'm going to go out to eat some Ethiopian food with a few of the folks here. Maybe we'll even take our new truck which came a few days ago with some folks who are here for a meeting from Uganda.
So far, for my birthday, I've had a cold Coke, a chocolate cake, a little bag of peanut M & Ms, and a beautiful water color card from Jackie.
And in a little while we're going out for Ethiopian food again... it feels a bit lush to spend so much money AGAIN on Ethiopian food. But really, it's my only pleasure in life here :D And a girl only turns 30 once in her life! And you know, if I was back home, I'd probably celebrate my birthday the exact same way!