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Today is Richard's birthday. So naturally we started the day with him opening presents. Actually, when he got up this morning and headed for the bathroom, I dashed off to my secret stash and tucked all his presents under the blankets so he nearly sat on them when he came back while I pretended to still be asleep. I told him the Birthday Fairy had visited, but he didn't believe me. Go figure. I'd already given him a few birthday presents early, just because I can never stand waiting to open presents of my own, and thus hate waiting to give presents to other people. Those of you out there who got Christmas presents in the mail and actually *waited* to open them til Christmas boggle my mind. How exactly do you do that? No, really? But anyway, one of those early presents was this very cool gun that shoots rings of fog. It was so seriously cool that I knew he would love it. And as it turns out, it's also a great cat toy - both Rosemary and Allegra love to stare wide-eyed at the little rings of fog as they drift slowly to the ground. Allegra usually tilts her head as she watches, sometimes until she's very nearly upside down. I also got him (among other things) the Book of Vile Darkness because nothing says love quite like unspeakable evil. Although I did come pretty close to insisting that he promise to not use anything in that book in the current AD&D game he's running. Richard's birthday has a tendency to get spread out over a few days because it's New Year's Eve (this is where we usually follow it with the quip that the whole world celebrates his birthday. You may feel free to laugh now. Ha. Ha.), so we actually had his birthday dinner celebration last night. We went to our very favorite restaurant, where we quite predictably ordered exactly the same dinner we usually order - the fruit and cheese plate to start, the baby romaine salad, and then salmon for me and prime rib for him. Dessert, however, is where we usually get adventurous. He had a chocolate truffle cake with a dark chocolate center and mint chip gelato, while I had the incredible pear dumpling wrapped in filo dough with a chocolate and caramel center. I am not usually a fan of fruit, cooked or otherwise, but somehow I knew that at this restaurant, even old shoe leather would somehow turn out divine. Tonight we're off to the New Year's Eve gala at the theater in Davis, put on each year by the Davis Musical Theather Company. Last year we saw an amazing performance of Little Shop of Horrors. This year it's to be Chorus Line. I'll admit I'm a bit more apprehensive this year, since the offerings so far in the season haven't left me with much reason to get excited. But no matter how good (or bad) the play is, it will be followed by more Chinese food than any small country could eat in a week, and that will be followed by too many pies to choose from, and then there will be music and dancing and hats and noisemakers and more dancing and laughter and so on until midnight finally comes and we can all sing "Auld Lang Syne" and then crawl back home to bed and cats and sleep and a brand new year full of all sorts of wonderful possibilities.
Tis the season for Holidailies!
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