Birthday Bootie!

So Melinda and I celebrated my birthday yesterday, which included a surprise or two - it deserves its own post rather than an addendum to the previous entry. We agreed to meet our friend Carolyn for brunch at the Colonial Café (Pumpkin Pancakes!). We had just sat down when our waitress informed us that the person who had been sitting on our table had just bought our meal with a $50 gift card! What a birthday present! This is now the second or third time a stranger has surprised us with picking up our tab, and we've "passed it forward" and done the same, anonymously, of course (more fun that way!). After telling our waitress it was my birthday, I got another $5 off card for the next visit, so we can likely eat again for free with the remnants - how cool is that!

Beloved Melinda, after stating she had to go out and find me a birthday present the evening before (we kid each other about swinging past the convenience store for a car-freshener gift), surprised me with gold astronomical cufflinks! I don't think I've got any dress shirts that take cufflinks, but she has agreed to sew some buttonholes in a couple of my long-sleeve t-shirts so I can wear them! The cutest story is that she bought them shortly after we met - the above-named Carolyn was having an estate sale, liquidating some of the antique collections she and Bob had acquired, and she had only these two left. Interestingly, they are my (Sagittarius) and her (Pisces) signs of the zodiac!  So she has hung on to them for 8 years to give them to me - that woman plans ahead!

We made it out to dinner last night at one of our favorite pizza places here - Giordano's!  Famous for their stuffed-crust pizza, we'd not been there since Summer, so was a birthday-worthy event. We got what has been our increasingly favorite flavor, pepperoni, sausage and mushroom, both of us managing two pieces, assuring I'd have leftovers in a couple nights when Melinda and her nurse buddies have dinner together. It was pretty darn tasty - just what the occasion warranted. We even got home in time to relax in front of Rachel Maddow, as Melinda refers to her, "Dean's lesbian girlfriend", since I seldom miss her daily show. Anyway, a great birthday, now committed to the blog for all time...