When I'm 74

Today is Jerry's birthday. Doesn't he look good for a boy his age?

I got him a super-geeky gift, a t-shirt that displays wi-fi signal strength at the wearer's location. See? It's four bars inside, and two on the porch. This should be lots of fun strolling Hawthorne.


And here's the cake. It's chocolate, of course, under all that chocolate. Some people make fun of quilters for cutting up perfectly good fabric and sewing it back together again. This icing is just bittersweet chocolate, melted and mixed with a little cream. When it sets it's basically pure chocolate again. I see nothing wrong with that.


I've discovered that eating chocolate late in the day -- say, after a dinner of poulet Dijonnaise en filo, which is Jer's traditional birthday request, therefore on the menu for this evening -- keeps me awake at night every bit as much as coffee. So I encouraged the birthday boy to cut into his cake for breakfast. It didn't take much to persuade him. Happy birthday to you, sweetie.

Gifts

The girls next door believe in leprechauns. They showed us a tiny dwelling the other day that surely belonged to one. It looked like a bird house, but it was bright green (the same color as their garage door, oddly enough), and carpeted in rose petals. I'd move right in, if I were a leprechaun.

They also believe in magical fairy gifts. On more than one occasion, we've answered a knock at the door, realizing en route that it was best to rein in our distance vision and act surprised, and found a spray of flowers or a painted rock on our doormat. Most recently, it was a pair of stones, each wrapped in a leaf and tied with pink string, with a shell balanced on top. Later, a deconstructed coda: a rock in a leaf in a shell. Art is all about exploring your medium to the fullest.

Today's my birthday. It's an off year; I'm 61. Unlike most days, the friend calls outnumbered the telemarketers by about 8 to 3.

Jer and I acknowledged a while back that birthdates are arbitrary; we give each other gifts all year long. He cooked waffles from scratch last week, and chicken tagine served over bulgar with green beans almondine, and an incredible veggie dish consisting of shiitake mushrooms in a pinot noir sauce with asparagus and polenta. I'd requested salmon for my birthday dinner, and he made this amazing rendition with fresh basil, tomatoes and onions, cooked in foil on the grill. Sort of like a stone wrapped in a leaf, only much more succulent.