A Birthday Celebration, Continued
January 12, 2019: After you have 52 of something, are they really that important anymore? I mean especially when you have one very year, whether you like or not. Well, that’s kind of the way I feel about birthdays. I’m not complaining, but come on, you get one every year whether you’re good or bad. And you ONLY get one every year, no matter how hard you try you can’t have more than one. Even if you completely ignore them, they still happen and you still have to count them. Some people are so unimpressed with the whole birthday process they don’t even celebrate on their birthday. They consider themselves a year older on January 1st every year, even when their actual birthday may be sometime in June! (We’re looking at you Kris!)
Betsy and I have had that sort of lackadaisical attitude toward our birthdays since we've known each other. Don’t get me wrong, we still recognize the day we came into this world to each other, but it’s never been a big deal to us. In our old lives our birthdays always seemed to fall during the work week when we didn’t really have time to celebrate them. For some reason our attitudes changed a little this year. When January 2019 rolled around, my date of birth rolled up on us quickly since it’s only 12 days into the year. Maybe it was the altitude here in Albuquerque. Maybe it was the dry dessert air here. (In the winter the humidity is really not that low!) Maybe it was just another reason to go out for a good meal. Who knows? For whatever reason, we decided to go out and celebrate my 52nd birthday! Ok, before some of you raise your eyebrows and say, “What?”. Our version of “going out” is not the same as some people’s. Our version includes a meal of well-prepared, good seasoned food. Time with just the two of us. Ended with a hot coffee or latte and a decadent little desert. Well this year was a winner all around. After a long day of tax work (ok, it’s not really that taxing!), we headed to one of favorite sit-down, fancy for us, restaurants, Seasons 52. Yes, it’s a chain, but their food is always seasoned well, prepared properly and served attractively. Their locations are always well-maintained and clean and their service is top notch. No, I’m not getting compensated in any way for saying this, they just do dining right. It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re in Alpharetta, GA, King of Prussia, PA or Albuquerque, NM, they’ve never failed us. And this visit, on my birthday, once again came through.
This could have been the end of the story, but why stop there. Since embarking on our full-time RV travels we really haven’t indulged too much in the area of eating out. Yes, we do occasionally go out to eat, but it usually involves a coupon, a special offer, or some other sort of situation that reimburses us for our expenses. Besides, I’m so lucky to have a wife who not only enjoys cooking, but is also very good at it. She always downplays it, but I always promise her that not every guy is so lucky. Whether it involves finding special recipes to accommodate my allergy to gluten, or to satisfy our current diet of choice, from the Keto craze to Weight Watchers, she always comes up with something delicious and safe. We both agreed that we enjoy the process of leaving work on a Friday (sometimes this might actually be a Tuesday depending on our work schedule.), still dressed up a little like the Tax Professionals we are, and heading out for a nice dinner and probably a coffee. Sometimes we even call it “Date Night”! Not necessarily to get away from anything or anyone, but just a chance to sit down and share a good meal. And as we’ve discovered, Albuquerque has been a good place to engage in this sort of ritual. We certainly didn’t think of the ABQ as a “foodie” city before our arrival, but we have discovered a pleasant mix of ethnic, local restaurants that have not disappointed.
As we look forward to our Summer 2019 at the Philadelphia South KOA in Clarksboro, NJ, we have already discussed the fact that all of the restaurants in the City of Brotherly Love will be at our disposal in a less than 30 minute drive. To some this may not seem like a big deal, but to us, we’ll continue to enjoy our little weekly indulgence, birthday celebration, or not!
