My family doesn’t make any bones about our nerdiness. So this year, we’re embracing the fact that Ian and Benji both achieved prime number ages (37 and 7, respectively) and yesterday I hit a square number (36) age.

To celebrate my entry into 36 years, Benji and mom created a scavenger hunt with 10 clues to give me the first 10 issues of the classic graphic novel series Lone Wolf and Cub that my family found at my request:

I stumbled across Lone Wolf and Cub on Hoopla and fell in love with the pace and the art and, of course, got sucked into the story: Would Ogami Itto avenge his family’s honor against the powerful Yagyu? What would happen to his (strangely never-aging) young son? Would any of them survive their final confrontation??

Fortunately, Mom found editions that are about the size of small paperback book, saving me from having to devote an entire shelf to the final collection when I have all 28 issues. We may just have to use a magnifying glass to see the artistic details.

And my friend Teresa, who makes cakes beautiful enough to rival any bakery, brought over a chocolate and strawberry cake for my birthday:

When we cut into the cake we discovered it wasn’t just chocolate with the occasional strawberry; the chocolate cake surrounds a layer of strawberry cake. Benji commented, “I didn’t know you could put a cake in a cake. Mind blown!”

I must say, since meeting Teresa, our birthday cake experience has certainly gone up a few notches.

Now we have a LOT of chocolate and strawberry cake, but we’re still under the stay at home order that makes it very difficult to share food. We’re in trouble. Benji already asked, “Can I have cake for breakfast?” Although I said no, I’m not actually certain how a slice of cake differs substantially from a donut…