Another Trip Round the Sun

 

 

Is done.

 

My birthday was this past Tuesday, but we celebrated on Saturday night. And it was everything I wanted at this stage in my life: Family, doing family things together. I find myself desiring that more and more as my wife and children get involved more and more in their own lives separate from the family, sometimes in separate locations as Little One, living 45 minutes away at school.

 

The girls custom-make me a big birthday dinner every year. Since we alternate and last year was homemade lasagna, this year was the old juicy steak, potatoes and asparagus combo. Three of my favorites, and each lady handled a different part of the meal. And it was delicious. I washed it all down with my favorite N/A craft beer, Free Wave by Athletic Brewing Company and was pleasantly stuffed.

 

Afterwards we sat down together and watched a heartwarming family film, A Quiet Place: Day One. Just kidding. It was suspenseful and violent with a touch of gore, but Little One and Patch are big fans of the Quiet Place franchise. I thought the movie was okay after the first watch, but on reflection a lot of it doesn’t work and it’s probably the weakest of the trilogy by far. We took a break midway through for a dessert of fruit tarts.

 

I opened my gifts, embarrassed as always by the profusion of love and good will. Little One bought me a spiced pumpkin Yankee candle (my favorite fall scent if it ever decides to drop below 90 degrees down here). She also got me a book that hadn’t arrived yet; she said she thought it was titled “What did you do Dad” or something like that. Each page has a prompt for me to write something about, er, me. Kinda like this blog, I suppose, but handwritten.

 

Patch bought me a giant sombrero that I can wear while mowing the lawn. Yes, we all laughed, but yes, also, men do wear them down here while doing yardwork. Texas sun is strong. Sometime over the summer Patch and I were driving somewhere and I noticed a sombrero-clad mowerman, and loudly announced “that’s exactly what I need!” And lo and behold, she made a note of it on her phone and now I have a sombrero to wear. Pics to follow, maybe.

 

She also picked up two albums for me – Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in Dm and Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 in Dm. I dunno, must’ve been a D-minor day at the record store. Anyway, both worthy editions to my growing collection, both compositions by composers who I do not have. My collection is now up to 41 albums in just under two years, and Patch alone has gifted me 11 of them.

 

The Mrs. bought me three books on the Next Step in My Career. Rather, the Next Step in Finding a New Career. They say (don’t remember who “they” are) that the average American wage slave has seven career changes in his life. By my count I’ve had three. But I’ve been doing payroll accounting for 22 years now and my God is it ever time for a change. Hopefully these three books can help me un-stick myself from my stuckness in figuring out what the heck to do next.

 

She also bought me a box of “high-end chocolates” – a dozen truffles of dark chocolate from the Swiss company Laderach. Which is kind of funny, if you combine this with those three books. I’ve been joking for a while that I’m ready to chuck the spreadsheets and calculators and go after my dream of becoming a revolutionary chocalatier.

 

Who knows? Maybe this time next year, after yet another trip ’round the sun, I’ll be trading in that sombrero for a chef’s hat …