Of course, one gets up late (because one doesn't have to be to work until 1 pm), and there are presents on the table. There's also a card with a Star Trek theme, and a computer chip inside preserving the voice of Mr. Spock warning of "absolute annihilation" if all the candles on one's birthday cake are lit at once. One opens two gifts, and saves another for the evening. A bottle of wine (riesling), two packages of chocolate, and the glorious Mrs. Beeton's cookbook! -- in a spanking new edition, to be savored and studied and cooked from forever.
Then one spends the morning goofing around, sparing time to visit the local bakery and buy -- with a gift of birthday money -- two chocolate-covered strawberries and no less than four chocolate eclairs. For later.
Then one has to get ready to go to work. Then one has to actually go to work. Such excitement! In the middle of the shift, five hulking teenagers -- well, not hulking exactly, but they do take up a lot of space -- flood and spill and exude into the store, and settle in to visit with one's teenaged coworkers. After two or three minutes of this, a customer pulls into the parking lot, and one then tells the five teens it is time for them to leave. They practically swallow their tongues with astonishment, but do leave. Co-workers then get huffy and don't speak for an hour, but eventually recover.
Home. What should be awaiting one but dinner, "fashionably late" at 7:30 pm, delicious baked fish and a better rice pilaf than I've ever made, and broccoli soaked in butter as it should be. The riesling, to accompany. Afterward, a nice big piece of the best chocolate cake to be had, carry-out, from a local Mexican restaurant. And a candle in it. Children and husband sing. One manages to avoid blinking for the photograph. And then, that saved present: what could be better than a few favorite movies, to study and consult forever? We picked The Illusionist.
Nearly midnight. One really must go to bed. Just a nightcap, a little glass of a powerhouse California zinfandel called Seven Deadly Zins. Another great favorite at Ye Olde Wine Shoppe. Barbecue -- plums -- velvet, my notes say, and if my notes seem cryptic or unhelpful, let me offer the late hour and the 14.5% alcohol level as an excuse. And all that chocolate.
Tomorrow? The celebration continues. One has long, long planned to make a special trip to buy a special treat, a new bottle of a hideously expensive French perfume that will last for years and so prove a terrific investment in the long run. Tomorrow one has the day off, so one may as well rob the bank first, and then go. And one hasn't yet even touched the eclairs.
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