Today was my half-birthday, and as my regular readers know, I often celebrate it. I hadn't thought much about it this year until Tiffy asked about it. Two Christmases ago Travalon had given me a $50 gift card to Ishnala so we could go for my half-birthday, but I forget why we didn't go last year. It was on a Wednesday, so that may have been part of it. This year I had no meetings (for once), and everyone else was taking it off, so both my bosses said I could have it off.
In the morning Travalon and I went to Ogden's, a little diner on North Street that we pass every Sunday when it's packed. We thought if we went early on a Thursday we'd be okay, but there was still a 20-minute wait, so we took a 20-minute walk. I ordered a quiche, and Travalon said it was a quiche muffin:
Travalon sent me a photo of a toy where he works that looks like Stalin:
Propaganda?? He says this is the train conductor. Speaking of trains, we heard one as we were going back to the car, and yesterday I saw one on campus.
I went downtown to meet Tiffy, and we had lunch at the Globe, got bubble tea, and hung out on the top floor of her sister's building until Travalon was back from work, and then the three of us drove to Ishnala for my half-birthday dinner. They told us it would be about a two-hour wait, which turned out to be very accurate, and that sounded perfect. We went to find a hiking trail, since the restaurant is in Mirror Lake State Park, and a rowdy trio of middle-aged women in a convertible followed us and asked if we were leaving so they could have our parking spot, but we said no, just going for a hike. We couldn't find the path, so we went down toward the beach and sat around a barrel to have a mocktail and listen to "Dennis," who was singing and playing the guitar. The rowdy trio of ladies were going to sit at the next barrel, but a man in a high-vis vest told them they couldn't, someone else was going to sit there, and they said, "You're the guy who said we couldn't park in the spot we found either!" He ushered a couple to the barrel, and Tiffy said, "Are these barrels by reservation only? Did we take someone else's barrel?" so I gestured at the two barrels side-by-side nearby and said, "I reserved a double barrel!" One of the rowdy ladies, apparently named Heidi, got up and sang with Dennis at his invitation, and she was actually really good - "I'd rather listen to her than him," said Tiffy. Heidi was a pistol, and the Dennis and Heidi show was pretty entertaining, probably lubricated by the old fashioned cocktails they were both drinking.
It was quite hot out, so after we finished our mocktails, we tried to find somewhere to sit in one of the indoor, air-conditioned bars, but they were all packed. We found a shady spot on a patio overlooking Dennis, who also played the fiddle quite competently, and we chatted until the buzzer went off, letting us know our table was ready. I had the daily special, a filet mignon in a pistachio pesto with goat cheese, and the sauce was delicious, but the meat was too good for a sauce. Travalon and Tiffy had surf and turf, a tenderloin with butterfly shrimp, and then we all had ice cream drinks: I had a grasshopper, Tiffy had a chocolate brandy Alexander, and Travalon had a salted caramel one. They even gave Tiffy and me tote bags for our leftovers!
As we were leaving, we saw a little golf cart that must take people to and from the overflow parking lot, since it's quite a ways away. Travalon said that might be a fun job, so we imagined him wearing a high-vis vest, driving a golf cart, and telling people what barrels they can and can't sit at. We saw a lot of deer along the side of the road heading back home, but downtown was very quiet so we had no problems with pedestrians while dropping Tiffy off. Then we got to our area of town, and there were police barricades everywhere, and a very rude policeman wouldn't tell us how we could get home when they were forcing us to go south, but Travalon figured it out. Still, a twenty-minute drive from downtown took us an hour! But then I came home to an unexpected surprise: the guy who leads that secret club I'm in had sent me a Happy Half-Birthday video! He said be sure to celebrate it because Adultitis hates that. Believe me, I've been celebrating it all day! But I appreciate the message.
Famous Hat
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