Happy Birthday to Me!

I woke up on my birthday in a huge bed in a luxurious hotel room. I shaved and showered and then walked downstairs to the lobby, where Jake had pointed out the night before there was a dutch door coffee shop. It was closed last night, but the morning found it opened on the top with a personable young lady who gave me a large cup of the house blend and (to treat myself) a cheese Danish.

Sidebar: When I first was in management, client meetings always had Danish. Later on, this changed to donuts. Then (I suppose as people became more health-conscious) that changed to bagels and/or muffins. So, the cheese Danish was a real treat!

I went back to my room and picked up the copy of USA Today the hotel had thoughtfully left outside my door. Inside, I had my coffee and Danish, reading the paper (the first time in a long time I've read a newspaper). Then I checked out the view from my window and realized that, unlike most big cities I have been to, there were only two building in sight that were as tall as the original church steeples.

After Jake and Carla had gotten their coffee, we got ready to depart and then checked out.

We drove to a little restaurant called the Hominy Grill. It's little, yes, and in an old building, but it has been mentioned on three different Food Network shows. Jake said when he and Carla had gone there in the height of the tourist season, they had to wait a long time for a table, but we got right in.

Carla got an fried egg on a huge biscuit with a side of sausage gravy, while Jake and I ordered the almost the same identical meal: scrambled eggs, house-ground sausage and grits. The only difference was he got white toast while I got rye. Note: they don't butter the toast, which I found odd, but Jake appreciates. We put hot sauce on the eggs, like they do down south

Then we drove across a beautiful modern bridge to Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston. Charleston is built on a peninsula as well as two or three huge Islands.

Then we drove home.

About 4:00 PM, we started getting hungry, so Jake and I went to pick up an order of wings from a place Carla likes. We ate those while chatting.

Since it's a tradition in Carla's family to open gifts after midnight on Christmas eve, I went to take a nap.

Jake woke me up in time to shave and shower and then we went to Carla's brother's house. Besides the fact that I know and like these people, what really made it "Christmas" was Jake and Carla's nephew who's almost three. It's been a long time since I watched the delight on a small child's face when he opened a present. Then we came home and proceeded to open presents here.

Carla liked her cookbooks and Jake liked the instant read thermometer I got him, so I did good!

I had been forewarned that none of my presents were things I could carry home, so I got another box of small pictures. For my birthday, the pictures were of Charleston. This time they were of Atlanta, so there's more adventure afoot! And, I will take home memories, instead of overloading my suitcase, LOL!

We finally dragged ourselves upstairs to bed. It had been a long day, but a great birthday/Christmas eve.