A Birthday in the States

Happy Birthday to my friend Dan! The husband of my lovely friend Darcie, Dan has now joined us in the 40 demographic. It was quite a treat that we got to celebrate together--considering that Darcie and family are all supposed to be living temporarily in London right now. It's a long and crazy story as to how they ended up here, but basically my poor friend Darcie was stranded in Paris on a little vaca and couldn't get back to her family in England. Because of a screw-up with their visas, they all had to immediately come back to the states. I know it doesn't sound too rough to be stuck in gay Paris, but believe you me, it was not fun for her.

I feel very badly that they had to go through all of this, but on the other hand as I said to Dan because he got refused and old we all got to benefit by gathering at Chino Latino for an impromptu birthday dinner. It was a fun group of people, all people I've met and enjoyed over at Darcie and Dan's at some point. And get a load of that baby--his name is Crew, can't you stand it??--he was practically my little appetizer, I could have eaten him right up.


We all shared food and it was pretty good, but the best part about Chino is definitely the fun atmosphere--old suburban me feeling like I'm actually at a hip place for a change. And you've gotta love the tshirts that the employees run around in...one saying, "Wanna Bangkok?" and, "Ah, Phuket" ! All I could think of was bringing my kids in there and how their little eyes would light up with the naughtiness of it all. (I know, it's apparent I'm a parent.) Of course Sullivan wouldn't even get that Phuket could be mispronounced as a naughty word...he'd just be like, "oh, that's an island off of Thailand!" and then proceed to show me exactly where it is on the globe.

Tonight, more adult fun with Stephanie and John coming over for a raclette dinner. Not exactly gourmet food, but you can't go wrong with potatoes, ham and melted cheese. yum.