Birthday perks

The great thing about being married to the birthday boy is that you get to enjoy all of the day's perks without being a year older. In our household, Matt's birthday celebration kicked off just minutes after I blogged Monday night, when we prematurely treated ourselves to a generous slice of cake. It's so much better when it's warm that it would have been a shame to save ALL of it for breakfast the next day.

Tuesday morning Claire helped me with the finishing touches (sprinkles) and then our whole family dug in, no one more enthusiastically than Evan. I made sure to wipe the kids' faces really well before school that morning. It's one thing to show up at 8:30 a.m. with traces of oatmeal or toothpaste around the edge of your mouth, but responsible teachers might frown upon evidence of chocolate cake.

For lunch the greater Kirby crew went to Mellow Mushroom, where we had the whole outdoor seating area to ourselves, so the kids didn't have to sit still or be particularly quiet while we waited for our food. Then for dinner Matt and I got a babysitter and went to a frugalish dinner at Ashten's. Through a Restaurant.com deal improved by my (waning) affiliation with Demand Studios we bought three $25 gift cards for $2 each awhile back, and this was the perfect chance to use one of them.

We claimed a couch and ate and drank and talked for a lovely couple of hours. In that time I realized I now hate light beer. I ordered a Michelob Ultra out of habit and I could not finish it because it tasted so watered-down. Matt has always said that and I have always responded by accusing him of being a beer snob. I think he felt vindicated and proud. We don't do birthday presents, but this was probably a good substitute. He's turned me on to IPAs lately and I don't know that there's any going back.

We ended the night by finishing most of our Christmas shopping and then having a two-person wrapping party for our kids from Amanda's Angel Tree (not too late to participate, people! Click here).


Before reading our book club's November selection, "The Man Who Was Thursday," by G.K. Chesterton, I knew of Chesterton only because he's credited with a quotation I once ran across and liked enough to write in my handy-dandy quote-noting book: "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

"Happiness doubled by wonder" pretty well describes how I feel to be living life as Matt's right-hand woman. Happy 33rd birthday, babe.


"It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy." - Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"

P.S. And one more from the same book, because it's good enough to be included with no relevance whatsoever to this post:

"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front ..."