Birthday

So the usual deal in my fam is to celebrate birthdays at restaurants.

Which is cool. As much as I love to cook, I'm enough of a foodie to make a bit of a fetish out of the perfect birthday meal out. Stroud's, Jack's Stack, Hibachi, Hereford House, I can vividly remember excellent meals and good times with those I love at these places on the anniversary of my birthday.

I was struggling to pick a venue this year, though, because the place I was most interested in was an all-you-can-eat Sushi joint me and Corinna discovered, and awesome as it is, a significant portion of my relations look at a sushi joint as an attempted poisoning. I know, everyplace that serves sashimi around here also serves teriyaki to placate relatives and coworkers, but from what I can tell these also-rans are seldom first-rate.

Plus, since my car was stolen, I've been bogarting Corinna's ride on weekends and the nights I have my daughters. Which meant that to joint my fiesta, she'd have to break off from a grant she was finishing to pedal out to a restaurant in JoCo. She'd no doubt enjoy the ride itself, but when I suggested this to her, she pointed out that she could whip up some food for a fraction of a restaurant tab and we could have a party with as many friends as we wanted to invite.

I'm not sure it saved her any time on the grant; she rode to the River Market to get a shark (okay, a significant portion of a shark), shrimp, fruit and whatnot, then took the time to get all that stuff cooked, cut, prepped, etc. But she clearly had fun with all that.

The only downside to this plan was it came together very late, meaning the friends in question had less than 24 hours notice that the party was on at all. Plenty of 'regret' column entries from that, to be sure.

She got me a pinata, something I've never had. I have a dim memory of attending a birthday party with a pinata in Baldwin, which would mean I was four or younger. It wasn't my birthday party, and as I recall I was far too slow on the uptake to get much candy when the thing burst.

We tried to involve as many neighborhood kids as possible, but I think the house with the most invitees wouldn't let their honyocks come participate for religious reasons. I don't know the details of why these kids couldn't come take a few swings at a paper maché Barbie, but as far as I'm concerned any religion that denies children such innocent, social fun is a cult for shitheads.

We asked people to bring strange and unusual foods. Kind of a thing with me and Corinna, we're the ones who'll buy the bizarre, based-on-a-dare soda at the Asian market just to try it. Just ask the kids who finally got the booty from my pinata, which was filled 90% with candy (sugared ginger, for instance) labeled in oriental glyphs.

Partly owing the the short-notice factor, very little strange and unusual food showed up past the shark. A surprise guest (I invited her but since I hadn't seen her in twelve years, surprise) brought chips and dip, apologizing that it was 'junk.' I looked at our spread of seafood and veggies and realized that if this table needed anything besides the bizarre, it was probably junk food.

Another guest brought a cornbread which was very much to style except for being drizzled in a cocktail of food colorings.

When it came to smacking Barbie upside her plastic blond head, there were only a couple of kids on hand. But apparently Barbie inspires adult women, because the hardest, loudest blows the girl took where from a couple of women my age.

Jill had to be cajoled into taking up arms against Barbie, but once she did, she made startling noises and damaging blows. When Corinna took a turn, I heard Warren suck air, and I looked over to him and said, "She went to the Olympics in Judo. Wicked strong."

When it finally burst open, the kids greedily gathered up ten pounds of candy and then formed up into a little Board of Trade to swap what they each thought inedible for what each other thought was irresistible.

And Brian got climb trees as if he were born to it. Which, I'm certain, he was.