Happy Birthday to Us!

These cool cats celebrated their birthdays this past weekend!

DH reached a milestone birthday this year, and I originally wanted to have an open house/birthday party, but...pandemic. And he didn't want a Zoom party. So we just dragged out the celebration(s).

Friday night after dinner, we opened the cards and gifts that had already arrived while enjoying the Dairy Queen ice cream cake I had gone 20 minutes out of my way to pick up on my way home from work (Dear Husband's request). Thank you to family and friends near and far for thinking of us!

This was the white cake from DH's work colleagues. I think he was equal parts thrilled and chagrined that the cake was "on fire"--and that was with only nine candles! Some were accidentally the relighting kind, so it took a couple tries to blow them out for good. Normally the staff would help him eat it, but because of ongoing restrictions at church, it is up to just the two of us.

Saturday was his actual birthday. That evening I had arranged seats in the upper deck of PNC Park to watch the Mets play the Pirates. It was an unseasonably cool and wet night for FOUR HOURS of baseball, the first three of which were excruciating to watch in a stadium whose outfield bleachers were wall-to-wall New Yorkers, not to mention the Mets fans scattered throughout the other sections. The Pirates kept trying to rally with two outs. Finally, in the 8th inning they got on the board with 5 runs, and although the Mets earned an insurance run in the top of the 9th to go up 7-5, and in the bottom of the 9th the home team's star batter struck out looking on a full count with the bases loaded and one man out, the catcher came up to bat...and hit a walk-off grand slam! There was pandemonium! Fireworks! A long spontaneous ovation! Do I know how to pick 'em, or what? Sometime after 11pm the official fireworks began, and we discovered that I had chosen exactly the wrong seats for a good view of them. Ah well. It's still a night we will remember.

Sunday after church we went out to lunch with a friend at a place where the street had been blocked off to provide outdoor seating. Monday was my birthday and a partial work day for me, on either side of an hour-long massage. In the evening we went out for our first fancy, indoor dinner since the pandemic began. We were hoping to be seated in the gorgeous main dining room of The Grand Concourse, but given the small volume early on a weeknight were put in the side room overlooking the Allegheny Trail, the Monongahela River, and the Smithfield Bridge. It was just okay, given the price.

Afterwards we rode the Monongahela Incline up to Mt. Washington, since we'd only ever ridden the other incline (Duquesne). We walked along Grandview Drive and sat for a while looking at the city, but due to the wildfire smoke from Canada, everything was hazy and orange. Finally, on Tuesday we had an after-work pool party at some friends' house, just the four of us (and some cake). For our second pandemic birthdays, they were pretty good. Thank you for thinking of us!