Her birthday actually was Wednesday. Dani works at a location which does a huge amount of business over the December holidays. Which meant long days at the warehouse. She was returning home so exhausted that getting time with her dogs and the occasional meal was a real stretch. By her request, we put off her birthday dinner till tonight.
Our family tradition has been to go out for dinner to the restaurant of the birthday person’s choice. Given that we lived in Europe for decades, some of the more horrible, child friendly US locations were never an option. This year, with George still in that 100 day home restriction post stem cell transplant, I ordered in. After careful perusal of the menu, I found something that was reasonably safe to order for him (yes, take-away is also on the banned list. Unfortunately, most packed with preservatives is completely safe, so is cooking at home, but not leftovers).
Her choice was Korean from one of the places on Solano Avenue (Bowl’d). I hadn’t eaten then, but am quite likely to do that in the future.
It is hard to figure out what to give adult children; an Amazon gift card just seems so impersonal. At the same time, it let her pick what she wanted. And she did. Noah and I also make a bookstore and paper store run so she had some presents to open (books are always good, and magazines, and coloring books). I actually think that the Bob’s Burgers Cookbook and the Dark Crystal (Jim Henson’s Muppet original) color book were her favorites.
We ate an overwhelming amount of food and still had enough left overs for meals tomorrow. I didn’t take pictures or bake a cake. Instead, I selected a number of individual tortes at Masse’s Pasteries. [And no, I have no clue as to why my browser gave me some kind of security warning. I have been gettin a lot of those lately, none of which have been valid.]
On the fiber side, I decided against knitting a third “Cal Colors” hat and started turning the yarn into a narrow scarf while watching a heart-breaking loss of the Cal Women’s Basketball team. I think they are still working through the changes that have come with a new coach as well as not always having the skills to deal with a really aggressive opponent that barely skirted the boundaries of good-sportsmanship play.
The Case of the Empty Cookie Jar is finished. It still needs to be washed, pressed, and framed. Since it is one of a set, I may delay the finishing until the second one is done so that they match.
Since my choices were clean, organize, sort–you get the idea–or find a short project, I started a Thea Gouverneur sampler featuring the essential food group of chocolate. I had purchased it Amazon and have the matching 2 – Coffee and Tea on order.
