Fruit tart 2.0

Today is Jonathan's birthday! And what a fun day it was. For me, at least. He actually had kind of a bad time at work. In a way I think I was clairvoyant, because I had arranged for balloons and a stuffed bear to be delivered to his office; at lunch he called me very stressed out, and then an hour later, he got the bear and said it made his day! So that was nice.

I only worked a half-day because I'm still recovering from being sick, and that was much needed; I came home and crashed, HARD, for two hours. At 5:30 I went to pick up the cake I had ordered (to anyone who's interested, Whole Foods has a great bakery and will make custom things). Well, I get there, the cake (fruit tart really) was beautiful, I approved mightily, the woman put it in a box, lifted it up to show a coworker.... and dropped it. Upside down. All the pretty peach slices and berries falling falling falling. The people behind the counter were mortified. "We'll make you another one!!" the woman cried out at once. So I wandered around the store for a half hour while they remade it. (As penance at the end when I paid for it, they gave me free cannoli.)

So I arrived home quite a bit later than I had planned - after Jonathan in fact - and Sarah arrived a few minutes later. Her husband Chris had a last-minute meeting and couldn't come, but the three of us trekked over to Lemongrass, a great Thai restaurant, and ate til we rolled out the door. After getting home Sarah showed us the great presents in her trunk; she has a set of china dinnerware that she doesn't need, and she wanted to know if we could use it. Yay! It's a set of 24, which will work out beautifully for all future Pesachs.

Following dinner, we were going to have dessert with Dave and Elbie. But then they called us - Dave had a bike accident and broke BOTH of his arms!! That poor man. We went across the street to visit and to bring them slices of fruit tart. I can't imagine being immobilized with both hands, he can't even turn his wrists. And they were going to leave on a road trip tomorrow... oy. Thank goodness he has a sense of humor about it.

After leaving their house we came back to have more cake and to open presents. Jonathan is agog over Sandra and my mom's gifts (a very cool spice rack and two lion mugs from the MGM Grand, respectively). At the moment I'm lounging on the couch, watching Simcha and Osher be fascinated by the balloons on the ceiling, and listening to Jonathan play Overlord, a PS3 fantasy game where you get to have goblin minions and a fancy sword. (Antonio, you'd love it.)

All in all, it ended up being a very good day. Good food, good friends, and most importantly (after work at least), a lot of relaxation.