Susan's (mumble-mumble)th Birthday

Yesterday this porcelain-skinned goddess (made all the more porcelain above by the nearness of the camera and the intensity of the flash) had a birthday! A couple weeks ago, the girls and I made a shopping run to browse for potential birthday gifts. About a week later, Susan offered to share a few gift ideas, which I wrote down. This past Sunday afternoon, I took the girls out to make the final purchases. We looked for things on Susan's list of requests and on our own list of ideas, and we found a few things that weren't on either list. It's a lot more fun to shop when there are little helpers along to contribute ideas, offer feedback, and schlepp around the merchandise.

Susan knew perfectly well what we were out and about doing Sunday, but she played along as the girls whispered and sneaked presents into the house and behaved secretly in general. She even answered my questions as I set about baking her a birthday cake. Perhaps you don't understand: although I cooked and baked regularly before getting married, my time in the kitchen has dropped dramatically since marrying a woman with excellent culinary skills. Besides manning the grill in the summers and feeding the children on the rare occasion when Susan must be out of town, I don't so much cook or bake anymore. Usually for her birthday, Susan gets from us an ice cream cake because I don't think cakes made in grocery store bakeries are that terrific and because I can have a tasty ice cream cake made and decorated in no time at either of a couple local frozen dairy treat establishments.

This year, though, I baked her a chocolate cake, frosted it with Hershey's chocolate frosting, and topped it with Hershey's Bliss candies. ("Susan, is this a 9" x 13" baking pan?" "Susan, how do I set the temperature on our new oven?" "Susan, where do we keep the hand mixer?")


On Monday, Susan's birthday, we awoke to a beautiful morning: still, crisp but not too chilly, fresh air--a lovely day. Susan and I got ready for work, but before the girls could get into their school clothes, Suzanna heard on the radio the announcement that school had been canceled! Hahza-kahza-WAH?! We looked outside, we looked back at Suzanna, we poked our heads outside, we looked back at Suzanna, we asked if she were certain, and then we verified it for ourselves on the radio. It's a mystery why in the world administrators canceled school yesterday when the weather was so nice--especially when they have not canceled school on days when the weather has actually been treacherous (like last week).

Anyhoo, Susan got a day off from work as a birthday treat. (Don't get too excited; the school district will make it up by holding school later in the semester on a day previously scheduled to be a day off.) We had a tasty breakfast during which she opened all her gifts, and she seemed pleased with them all. Here are pics of her opening a couple gifts to demonstrate her joy:

I spent the day at work but came home a bit early to take some medicine and have a brief nap to ward off an oncoming migraine. I was better in time for us all to go out for supper at Applebee's, where we had a tasty meal followed by a birthday sundae for Susan and a serenading by the wait staff, singing/chanting/clapping their own version of "Happy Birthday." We were way too full afterward for birthday cake, but we did cut into that tonight. (Note to the unaware: Schwan's vanilla ice cream makes a delightful accompaniment to chocolate cake, you know.)

Susan's a little older, a little wiser, but none the worse for wear, I'd say. It was fun to plan and shop with the girls and to see Susan's reactions to her gifts--and especially to show our gratitude for having her in our lives. One more year down, decades more to go!

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