Happy Birthday to me!

I woke up at 6:30 AM on my birthday, but decided to stay in bed until 7:30. Apparently Scruffy and Caley thought that was a good plan, because they didn’t get up, either.

After showering and shaving, I got dressed and faced my sixty-second year here on earth. I used the electric sweeper to tidy up the house (mostly removing cat hair) and, after turning on the Christmas tree lights, sat in the living room reading a magazine.

Jake and Carla showed up (they’d told me they wanted to make me a birthday brunch), But before we get into that, let’s talk about the calls and presents.

In chronological order, I had phone calls from my grandkids Joe and Riese (Joe played guitar and Riese sang “Happy Birthday”, Jake, my brother Joe, B___, Luanne, my brother Jim, and my daughters Amy and Melissa.

I also had posts on my Facebook page (which I never use) from my nieces Caroline, Mary and Hannah, my sister-in-law Kathy, my ex-wife Fran and my daughters Amy and Melissa. I also had one from my friend Tracey.

I opened the packages I’d received and both were from Lu and Sadie. One was a wine bottle, filled with dried beans and a spice packet to make a Texas bean soup. The other was a big sawdust block infused with shitake mushroom spores. It takes a little up front work and minor maintenance work, but I’m supposed to get two or three harvests out of it. Sweet!

So, Jake and Carla came and took over my kitchen (not the first time). Jake made handmade buttermilk biscuits, while Carla made her potatoes home fries. Then she made some pork sausage patties.

So, we had breakfast, or brunch, The trick was that you cut the biscuits in half, you smeared the bottom half with cream cheese and the top with fig preservers, You plopped in the pork sausage pattie and you had a gourmet breakfast sandwich. With the home fries, it was excellent!!!

Jake cleaned up everything and then I opened my birthday present: a non-stick grille pan. I really appreciate this as the cast iron, two burner grille pan I had was a pain in the ass. Then they took off.

When we walked outside, there was another Fed-ex package on the porch. It was from Melissa and I opened the “Happy Birthday” one (with two funny cards) which was a cook book. Thanks! I saved the Christmas one for tomorrow.

I spent the rest of my birthday resting and watching movies on TV. It was a good day!