Happy Birthday C!

 



   C's birthday was yesterday. It was one of those special milestone birthdays. I won't mention which one.  A birthday like this should be celebrated with a party or some big event. When I turned 40, we hosted a cookout at our house. When I turned 50,we hosted a lunch at a fancy restaurant. Thanks to Covid and a birthday in the winter we had none of these things for C. I could and did post a happy birthday message on Facebook. I tagged him so his friends would see it.

   We decided to have a special dinner at home for him. Normally I would take him out for a steak dinner but the restaurant that makes the best steak is closed. Thank you Covid. We decided that one thing we would do was buy what we needed for dinner and then go home to cook it.

  What would we do for the rest of the day?

   The first thing we did was go out to lunch. There is a good soup and sandwich place in St. Paul. They also make amazing cakes and cheesecakes. One thing we needed to do was get a cake. We decided that we would each get a slice of whatever we wanted to take home. C wanted a piece of German Chocolate cake. I had some chocolate toffee cheesecake. 

  What should we do next?

  It was too cold to walk outside which had been the original plan. We went with our backup plan. Go walk at the Mall of America.

   C had a pair of pants that he likes a lot and was hoping to get a second pair. The store he bought them at was at "The Big Mall" as we like to call it. I hoped we would find what he wanted there as I really wanted to get him some kind of present. 

  We got to the mall and went to the store first. After some deliberation and a trip to the men's dressing room (thankfully open) to try on his selection, we found some pants for him. The we exited the store and started to walk.

   It wasn't as busy as it would be in preCovid times, but it was busier than other times we'd been there. We have a route that we usually walk. One lap around the first floor, one lap around the second floor and a third lap around the third floor. Every so often we would stop to check Facebook to see birthday greetings that were coming in. One friend from high school posted C's senior picture with a happy birthday message. 

   I was looking for a nice morganite ring at a good price. We stopped at a jewelry store to see what they had. What they had was several gaudy looking things in rose gold with tons of little diamonds. Yuck! We stopped at the Aveda store where I picked up some gel and a few free samples. 

   We walked past the My Pillow store. We noticed that the cutout of the owner of  the company was pulled into the store. Normally it would have been out in the hallway. According to the news the owner had been a close friend of former President Trump and had made some suggestions to him on how to overturn the results of the recent election. This had caused a few national companies to stop selling his products. The store was had one lone employee inside.

   There is a yarn store in the mall. Normally I pass by it. Today I wanted to stop there. I needed to knit a baby blanket for a friend and needed appropriate yarn. The friendly gal not only showed me some good yarn but also gave me a lesson on how to do a magic loop so I could knit hats without double pointed needles.

  C and I paused at a Caribou so C could get his free birthday drink. We sat at a table in the food court to drink it. C looked at more birthday greetings. While sitting there C got a call from his sister, Virginia, wishing him a happy birthday.

   It was time to leave so we could get the groceries we needed for dinner. Right before we got to the first store, C got a phone call from Carrie. I was touched. I didn't know that she knew when her father's birthday was or even cared enough to call him. It made me so happy to hear their conversation.

  We finished getting our food and came home just in time to start cooking. I felt bad because C had to prepare much of his own dinner. Steak is something he likes to cook.  At least I helped some and would clean up the dishes afterward.

   C did something new with the steak and it turned out perfectly. It was a good dinner all the way around. We enjoyed dessert after the meal. I asked C what he liked best about the day. He said that he liked hanging out together with nothing that had to be done. I was concerned that he would be disappointed to have such a low key celebration. To C, he got the best gift of all, the gift of some good time with the one he loves.

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