Go Me, It's My Birthday

Yesterday, August 23rd, was my birthday. Some people are fortunate enough to share their birthday with someone famous or important, like Abraham Lincoln or Christina Ricci. I get to share a birthday with Shelley Long. I used to say I share a birthday with Kobe Bryant, who was born in the same year as me too, but then he did that backcourt violation thing, so now I’m back to Shelley Long, who never did anything worse than “Troop Beverly Hills.” It’s either her or Rick Springfield.

I celebrated my birthday in the same way I imagine lots of people celebrate their birthday: I went to the dentist. I made the appointment months ago, six to be exact, and when the receptionist offered the date, I didn’t want to be one of those people who are too good to go to the dentist on their birthday. My mother happened to be in town for a few days to see her grandchild, help celebrate my birthday, and spend time with Abbie, which worked out well since she could watch Abbie while I sat immobilized so the hygienist can scrape my teeth. I imagine the office could have gushed over my birthday, but I never brought it up since they were too busy oozing with excitement over the news of twins. The dentist congratulated me after checking my mouth, though it occurred to me that I never specifically told him about the twins and he never mentioned it during the inspection, so I wasn’t sure if he was congratulating me on the twins or the remarkable lack of plaque in my mouth.

The good times continued to roll when I went for a haircut next. I normally wait a long time between haircuts, getting it cut fairly short and putting off the next trim until a curl develops at the end of my locks a couple months later. This time I had waited too long between cuts as the curl had transmogrified into more of a right angle, jutting my mane into a dangerous eye-poking hazard. With my mother along to amuse Abbie, I thought the time was right to lop an inch off the top. After the culling, Abbie seemed a little concerned about my sudden change of appearance. She kept turning my head to the side at first to view my face in profile, as if trying to verify that my nose, lips, and chin still protruded at their proper angles.

With my mother still in town that night to watch Abbie (thanks, Mom), Ellie and I went out for a nice dinner. We went to Cosi Cucina, my preferred celebratory restaurant. It’s a nice Italian restaurant that’s about as upscale as I can tolerate; it’s swanky enough to list the prices without the cents, but not so ritzy that you have more than one person waiting on you. It’s a pricey establishment, but I had a coupon, which meant that I could splurge a little without fretting over how many diapers we could have bought instead. The coupon had a minimum amount you had to spend, so we developed a game plan to order two sodas, an appetizer, two entrees, and a dessert to barely meet the minimum amount. The waitress ruined our plans though when she surprised us with a complimentary dessert, apparently after hearing Ellie use the words “his” and “birthday” in a conversation. We had to order another dessert to use the coupon, meaning we would not only far surpass our intended food consumption for the night, but we were also on the hook for a bigger tip because, dang, that’s good service.

We ordered a crème brulee and somehow survived. We returned home to see Abbie playing happily in the park with my mother. I had a pretty good birthday, way better than Rick Springfield probably had.