Birthday Month Update: Broken Bone Edition

Sigh. Birthday month has been thrown for a bit of a loop, but I\'ll get to that part in a minute. Let me begin with the fun parts, the happy news, the things that were rudely interrupted Tuesday when being in a hurry and seeing a lizard run across our deck steps became the formula for disaster.

My birthday was last week. I don\'t necessarily mind getting older as long as there are plenty of celebrations and shenanigans to mark the occasion, so it thrilled me to no end that we had birthday plans with friends both Friday and Saturday. This birthday girl likes a full calendar.

Friday evening, we dressed up a bit and indulged in a slightly fancy dinner at The Palm with our friends Les and Melissa. Give me crab cakes, and I am happy. Make me a dirty martini with blue cheese olives to accompany my meal, and my day is basically made. We happily made our way through an appetizer, entrees, AND dessert, and made big plans for getting our caricatures on the wall like all the other very important Palm regulars.

With Les and Melissa after our feast at The Palm. Eat, drink, be merry: check, check, check!

Saturday was a dreary, rainy, day until late afternoon, which was ideal timing for meeting Ryan and Jason to continue the birthday month fetes. Reid\'s in SouthPark is one of our favorite regular spots, and the weather actually turned out to be patio perfect to enjoy live music and our friends over charcuterie, fried oysters, and a lobster roll for myself. I was surprised but excited when they also had a birthday dessert for me!

Such a great afternoon, from the food to the friends.

This chocolate caramel 12-layer cake was as good as it looks.

Can you tell Ryan and Jason know me well? An Anthropologie candle, cocktail napkins with the perfect sentiment, statement earrings (but of course) and a Golden Girls card all made for the perfect gift.

As you can tell, I was cruising along on quite a high note. I had some mundane things to do this week, but that was made well by the anticipation of a visit to my parents\' house in Georgia for Easter. Not only were we going to do our usual Easter activities (baskets, brunch, and an egg hunt), we were also going to celebrate my birthday yet again. I had requested a Junior\'s cheesecake and a ladies\' lunch at the Swan Coach House in Atlanta and I could not wait for that and anything else my mom may have planned for the occasion.

Monday afternoon, I hurriedly dashed down my back deck with an empty Amazon box, headed to the trash can. A bright green lizard ran across the step in front of me, and as I sidestepped that little reptile, my feet just tangled up in each other and I fell. I heard a crack and knew instantly that I broke my ankle. I limped inside and my poor left ankle was already roughly the size of a tennis ball, so I grabbed my keys and headed straight to the ER where the x-rays confirmed: I fractured my fibula. 

Clint was out of town on a business trip, so I called in the rest of the cavalry. Mom and Dad immediately got on the road to come to Charlotte, and I called poor Jason to come rescue me from the emergency room. I felt almost as bad about my appearance as I did about my bone: I had been cleaning house and I had on no makeup and my Dollywood t-shirt. Oh, the humanity. Jason rescued me and plied me with McDonald\'s and pain pills, and Mom and Dad arrived about two hours later. 

Poor Clint hopped on the red-eye back home, and we took the first appointment of the day at OrthoCarolina to see what my fate might be. Thankfully, my fracture was \"ideal\" (the doctor\'s words, definitely not mine) and I escaped having to wear a cast in favor of a boot for the next six weeks. I\'m writing this with my foot wrapped in an ice pack and elevated on two pillows, and the couch will be my home base for the next several days until I heal a little more. 

This boot is a most unnecessary birthday gift.

Upon this advice, I cancelled my Thursday hair appointment. I already have a broken bone; what if I came home with bangs, too? Yikes.

We are still debating, but I think our trip to Georgia may be delayed. I\'m not sure my fibula and I are ready for a road trip just yet, although we all know I am always ready to celebrate. On the bright side, I suppose this just means the birthday month activities will be extended a bit longer due to unforeseen circumstances. 41 and having fun, isn\'t that right?

This ankle needs to heal quickly; I still want to squeeze in a shindig, whoopee, jolly, and a wingding (or two).

Birthday Month (So Far)

Tuesday, April 9 was my birthday, so if you noticed a crackle of excitement in the air and wondered if it was some kind of special, magical occasion, your instincts were correct. Many of you know by now that I prefer not to confine my birthday to just a 24-hour period, but rather to spread the birthday enjoyment out over the entire month of April for maximum celebration. We are just about a third of the way into birthday month, and I have to say, it\'s going pretty well so far.

My college roommate and darling friend Sharon kicked off birthday month: on exactly April 1, a package arrived containing glitter crowns, drink umbrellas, and a wonderfully sparkly card. She knows me well, and it was a fabulous way to set the tone for my month. Sharon, you never disappoint.

I love everything about this (including the way the birthday package came addressed).

We enjoyed our drink umbrellas out on our patio last Saturday. Hey, you have to put your gifts to good use.

I love getting mail, and every day I\'ve been walking back from the mailbox with a big smile on my face as the cards have rolled in. My kitchen window is lined with birthday sentiments from friends and family. It\'s like a little party waiting for me whenever I walk by...well, that and a big box of cupcakes.

My awesome assortment of birthday cards this year.

My friend Sylvia also sent me some birthday goodies last week, and again, it\'s so fun when your friends know you well. It was a bit dreary Friday afternoon, but that brightened up quickly when I opened Syl\'s package with an adorable tote bag, a package of my well-loved Peeps, and a fresh gossip magazine, all for me!

What a fun package of birthday goodies!

Fast forwarding to Tuesday, the actual day of my birth, and I woke up once again to rainy weather. This is another reason that birthday month is such a wonderful thing: there\'s no pressure for any one day to be just right, because I knew I had a whole month full of days! Rain or not, I was determined to enjoy it to the fullest. I let myself have some great guilty pleasure fast food for lunch (I love a good McDonald\'s cheeseburger and fountain Diet Coke), and then treated myself to a manicure and pedicure. It\'s impossible not to have a good day when the nail salon employees all gather around you, wishing you a \"Happy 18th birthday!\" and laughing, \"No drinks for you today! You not old enough, only 18!\" For that reason alone, I highly encourage a nail salon visit on your next birthday so you, too, can feel 18 again for a moment in time.

Clint came home bearing gifts. I had given him two ideas for presents this year: a purse I highly coveted since the fall and a pair of sandals I felt I really needed. What a pleasant surprise to open BOTH! 

Honey, you shouldn\'t have (and I\'m glad you did).

This Kelly Wynne bag is stadium-approved for Clemson game days (and gorgeous for any other day, too).

And can we take just a moment to gave upon the best card, maybe in the history of birthday cards?

The perfect card doesn\'t exi.... (And the inside read, \"You\'re almost too awesome to be real.\" Aww)

For my celebratory dinner, we tried a fairly new restaurant in Charlotte that serves--after the fuss I made last week--small plates! Don\'t worry; I knew we were going and I was actually fine with it, mainly because this restaurant serves more medium-sized plates and because I knew what I was getting myself into. It was fun to try something out of our ordinary, and I have to say that everything we ate at The Stanley was absolutely delicious. I snapped a few pictures of the plates we shared, in case any of you foodies (or just hungry people) wanted to see.

The Stanley began our meal with complimentary champagne, so we were off to a great start.

This was our favorite. Surf and Turf: beef tartar and fried oysters with veggie slaw and truffle aioli. I could have just ordered 3 of these and left happy!

These steam pork buns are a customer favorite and they were basically upscale, tasty comfort food: sweet and saucy pork belly on doughy, tender buns.

I don\'t eat any food on the bone, so this was Clint\'s choice. Tempura quail over veggie fried rice (I, personally, liked the rice).

We also had an amazing fresh raviolo (which I assume is the singular for ravioli, so you learn something new every day) with goat cheese, spring peas, and ham but I took a break from my picture taking at that point to sip some champagne and enjoy my meal. Picture it in your mind. For dessert, our waiter recommended the white chocolate bread pudding with a sweet potato ice cream. I don\'t like bread pudding or sweet potatoes, but Clint does, so he ordered it and said it was pretty good. I enjoyed blowing out the candle that came alongside and sipping the last of my champagne.

My favorite part of this dessert was the candle.

The dessert worked out just fine for the birthday girl, however, because I came home and enjoyed a cupcake (which I wisely purchased for myself earlier in the day) in my pajamas. As I told a friend earlier in the day, \"no one knows how to celebrate me like ME.\" My neighbor left me a gift bag filled with dirty martini fixings by the back door while we were away, so that was a very nice welcome home, and something I assured him will be put to good use at some point this festive month. Cotton, our dog, was kind enough to throw up--I\'m sure from sheer excitement over my birthday--so I got to clean that up and wash a load of laundry before heading to bed, too. You can\'t win them all, but I\'m not through celebrating, so I\'ll get the last laugh, don\'t you worry. 

We have more birthday plans both Friday and Saturday with friends, and my mom has already reminded me that my birthday can\'t be over until I have celebrated at my parents\' house. That will happen over Easter weekend, and I can promise you I needed no convincing to keep up the merriment through the end of the month. It\'s tradition, after all. I\'ll be sure to keep you updated on how we commemorate the rest of April, and thanks to everyone for indulging me in birthday month! Like the email from my dentist kindly reminded me, \"Studies show that people who have more birthdays live longer than those who do not.\" 

To be continued, I assure you. 

It\'s A Small (Plate) World

I\'m about to go off on a tangent, but please bear with me: it is my birthday month, after all, and I suppose I\'ve reached an age where I am prone to ranting (the next stop will be yelling at neighborhood children to \"get off my lawn!\"). We have been trying to decide on a restaurant for my birthday dinner next week, and each time I check the menu for a new hot spot in town, I find the same situation: a menu full of small plates. It appears that no one wants to simply serve you a nice meal on a regular plate any more that consists of an entree and accompanying sides. Now, everything is meant to be shared (the Spanish term for small plates is tapas, which any time I say, causes at least one listener to go wide-eyed thinking I said \"topless\"). Have small plates taken over the world?

Dinner is served?

My first problem with this tiny taste phenomenon is, naturally given my er, frugal nature, the price of such an experience. Serving small plates is really just a restaurant scheme to charge $12 for three bites of food, thus requiring you to order 4 or 5 of these minuscule plates in an effort to actually feed yourself and accumulating a whopping bill. You see, if these establishments tried charging you $40 for an entree, you would wince. Instead, you are nickel and dimed for your myriad of wee little nibbles and don\'t realize that very small plates add up to very large bills when it\'s time to pay the check. It\'s deceitful, really (and not just a wee bit).

Not that I am a huge fan of vegetables or an adamantly healthy eater, but small plates practically guarantee that your meal will be junk food, devoid of any actual nutritional value. You see, when faced with the choice of a just ordering a few items to comprise a meal, when every choice matters, no one is going to choose the green beans over the fried oysters or the Brussels sprouts over the pork belly. And so, where in a normal setting your guilty pleasure would typically come with perhaps a side salad or some broccoli, suddenly your meal consists of steamed pork buns, beef tartar, fried chicken sliders, and short ribs...without a plant in sight. It\'s a cardiologist\'s nightmare.

My mom is notorious for eating like a bird; more often than not, when she is served a very normal-sized portion of food, she will survey her plate and ask us, \"Who could possibly eat all that?\" It\'s become a joke with Clint and me, since we are ravenous, hearty eaters. We usually just laugh and chime in, \"we can!\" But with these thimble-sized portions and tiny dots on plates that seem to merely symbolize food rather than actually being edible, I don\'t even think it\'s enough to feed Mom (although if you gave her a big cup of coffee...)! Who are we kidding with this, people? Who leaves these small plate establishments feeling full and satisfied?

I\'m sure this has become trendy for a reason, so people must like eating off of teacup saucers instead of ordering real meals when they dine out. I, personally, prefer an actual dinner plate. Give me a plate, a platter, heck, even an all-you-can-eat buffet. Put the food out family style, use a lazy Susan, heap those helpings, pile it on. I\'ll be fine with one of those plastic baskets lined with wax paper (which are usually filled with delicious food). Just please don\'t give me dinner that looks as if it belongs on the table in the Barbie Dream House.

Please do not attempt to serve me food that should belong in Barbie\'s dining room.

I\'m going to keep looking for the right place for a birthday dinner. Hopefully, it will include good atmosphere, real-sized and flavorful food, and portions that will make my mom ask, \"Who could possible eat all that?\" Wish me luck.