Hopefully this birthday will be a success and no circumstances, foreseen or unforeseen, will materialize to derail even a moment of any celebrating we do. After sixteen years of Jack's birthdays, I feel that I can now approach it with some level of confidence in consideration of years past and the lessons I've learned.
Lesson 1:
Birthdays with zeroes at the end are important.
Don't screw around with them. Don't go to a sushi restaurant for the first time without getting at least one very positive personal recommendation.
I messed this up. Both times.
When Jack turned forty, he wanted to go eat sushi. Rather than go to our "regular place" in Murfreesboro, I suggested we go to a new place that had recently opened in Cookeville. Bad move. The food was OK but just barely. The service was nothing nothing short of horrible. We were both disappointed by what should have been a special meal, and neither of us was surprised when the place went out of business six months later.
For Jack's fiftieth birthday, I ended up pulling the same stunt. And worse. Again, Jack wanted sushi for his birthday dinner. Our "regular place" in Murfreesboro had changed owners, and our regular sushi chef no longer worked there. We'd heard rumors that he'd opened his own place to cut fish in Brentwood, and after some internet searching, I thought I'd found it. I didn't.
It wasn't a good restaurant experience. When Sis ordered milk for Lucia, the waiter looked at her like she'd sprouted a second head - Mom had to walk to a nearby Jersey Mike's to buy a carton. I inadvertently planned our dinner on a night when Dad and Chris couldn't join us, so Jack's big birthday celebration was down by two who should have been there with us.
We did manage to have fun, but there was another failure that evening, which became a lesson of its own and brings us to --
Lesson 2:
If there isn't cake, there should be a dessert of his choice.
I'd mentioned plans to have The Sweet Shop make a cake. I intended to order one, but it didn't happen. The worst part was at the restaurant, when Lucia looked over and asked in her sweet little voice, "Is there cake, Pammy?"
Jack's face was just as hopeful and expectant as hers. I wanted to crawl in a hole. It was truly one of those, "Death, take me now" moments.
Two days later I brought home a delicious triple chocolate cake, but it wasn't the same. I did learn quickly, though. I've not made the "no cake" mistake again, and last year when Jack said he wanted tiramisu instead of cake, I made one from scratch.
Lesson 3:
Beware of cats bearing gifts.
We'd stayed home to celebrate. Jack wanted a big steak, a big baked potato, and red wine. It was a Saturday night, and we had a roaring fire in the stove. At some point Jack decided he was heading to bed back in the "cool end" of the house, and within minutes he was snoring.
He'd been asleep for perhaps an hour when I noticed the cats were acting suspiciously. I didn't think anything about it until I went into the bathroom and saw the little squirrel. It had climbed halfway up our shower curtain to escape the reaches of the cats, who were taking turns swatting at it from the edge of the bathtub. It looked terrified and rightfully so.
"What in the world?" I asked the cats.
We'd gotten our roaring fire so roaring hot that we'd opened a sliding glass door for a few minutes to vent the heat from the house. One of the cats had obviously taken advantage of the evening's open-door policy to bring a new "catch" inside.
After shooing the cats from the bathroom and making a couple of half-assed attempts to catch the squirrel in a pillowcase, I felt I had no choice.
Me: "Honey, um... there's a squirrel in the bathroom. Can you, ah... get up and help me catch it?"
Jack: Mumble, snort, mumble... "What?"
Me: (insistently) "Jack, wake up. There's a squirrel in the bathroom."
Several tense minutes and many, many curse words later, Jack released the young squirrel back to the wild.
His parting words before heading back to bed were, "Happy Birthday to ME!"
Next time I'll close the door and let him find it himself. Damn cats.
Lesson 4:
Don't "stop by the office" - not even for a minute.
I'd been working a lot - a whole lot - and Jack and I hadn't had many opportunities to spend time together. My job at the time was demanding and not very much fun, and I'd started bringing a lot of negativity home with me.
All Jack wanted for his birthday was for us to spend a whole day having fun in Chattanooga - lunch, shopping, dinner, whatever we decided to do. I scheduled the day off, and we were good to go.
My office was pretty much "on the way" to Chattanooga, and I suggested that we stop by to just say, "hello," and let him get some birthday greetings. I could also pick up the birthday card I'd gotten for him and accidentally left on my desk.
When we arrived, all hell was breaking loose. As soon as my boss spotted me from down the hall, he shouted, "Thank GOD you decided to come on in today!"
I explained that I was "just stopping by."
Three hours later we were back on our way to Chattanooga, but Jack had flipped through more issues "Modern Healthcare" and "Nursing Leader" magazines than anyone should ever have to do in the corner of his or her spouse's office on his or her birthday.
Lesson 5:
Go with the flow.
One of Jack's best birthdays was totally on-the-fly. I had to work, and Jack day-tripped to Nashville with me. He had tentative plans to visit our dear friend Claudia and then do some shopping at "the good grocery stores" before picking me up at the hospital at quitting time and meeting the family for dinner.
I had no idea how he had occupied himself, but he was in a big way when he retrieved me from work.
Claudia had entertained him all day - a butcher shop, an Italian market, a visit with some East Nashville restaurateur friends, fun foodie errands... He'd sampled cheese and wine and met all kind of interesting people. He'd laughed and conversed and had a completely different day than he expected to have.
"I invited Claudia to join us for dinner," he said with a big smile on his face
"Fine with me, it's your birthday," I replied, smiling back, happy that he'd had a great day.
The whole family, including Claudia, met for dinner at Peter's Sushi in Brentwood. Jack and I had never been there before, but Claudia highly recommended it - as a matter of fact, when Peter, the owner, saw Claudia waiting with our party, he started pushing tables together and finding a high-chair for Lucia. The food was all delicious, nobody had to go on a milk run, the service was A+, and at the end of the meal when I whipped out the huge chocolate birthday cake, someone brought us clean plates and fresh napkins.
Jack proclaimed it was the best birthday ever. The curse was broken.
Plans and expectations are great, but some of the happiest times we experience are those that just happen, and the best we can expect is to move beyond our disappointments without shame, laugh about them when we can, and learn from them as we move into the future.
I love you, Jack. Happy Birthday.
