Rick's Birthday

October 18, 2011

It was Rick’s **’th birthday today. I don’t know if he’d like me posting his age for the world to see. When Lindsay, Maddy and I were at the grocery store we were trying to think of something fun we could do for him. We ended up getting birthday decorations, cake mix and frosting.

The decorations!

Rick was surprised. Hooray!

I volunteered to make the cake, as I’m the only one with a pan that’s about the right size. Friends, baking a cake in an oven that doesn’t have temperature settings is an exercise in stressful patience. I only bought one cake mix and didn’t want to burn it, but I also didn’t want to undercook it. It actually turned out ok. It was a little done on the bottom, and it had a nice rise on it, because apparently my oven is also crooked, so it baked funny. Le sigh.

After it cooled (I did this the day before, by the way) I took it down to Maddy. She was going to frost it and write on it with mini M & M’s. It turned out pretty good:

We met at Lindsay’s for ‘tea’ before dinner. Then we went to Spoons. It’s this long building with a bunch of different restaurants (and The Chocolate Bar). We ate at a place called Pizzetta and sat outside. After dark right now the heat’s actually pretty manageable. It’s the dust that sucks. The pizza was really good.

Friends, this was a school night. I was so proud of myself for having a life in the middle of the week! That, and I learned that I don’t have to give one of my students detention for speaking Arabic in class anymore. He’s one of the kids on the soccer team that Rick coaches. He told him that if he gets in trouble with me he’ll have to run killers for him. HA! Should I say I didn’t have an issue with the kid for the rest of the week?