Twenty-Fifth

I try my best to keep my birthdays low key. I sometimes go so far as to demand surprise parties. “We can’t do that, then it wouldn’t be a surprise,” they’ll say to me.

Moving three hours from home worked well, for the most part. Despite taking my birth date off of Facebook, I still received a lot of wishes. Thank you. And despite changing my address, I still received some mail from family and friends. Thanks again.

***

The day before my actual birthday Jacqui took me out for dinner and a movie. Dinner was at a small Italian place called Eduardo’s only a few hundred yards from our apartment. The food was good, fresh, and homemade. We started with steamed clams, which were very good. Jacqui had a chicken and shrimp pasta dish, and I had seafood ravioli. Both were excellent, and the portions were satisfying.

We then went down the street to the local movie theatre. It’s a small home town theatre that plays the same movies as the AMC’s and Regal’s of the world. The prices were, as are with all movie theatres, outrageous and insulting. $11 for a ticket, $4.50 for a (very) small popcorn. The movie we watched was The Town, the new movie staring, and directed by, Ben Affleck. It was very good. It was very much like if a person were to take the movie Heat, put it in Boston, and change the characters from a crack team of professional bank robbers to a hand full of real people, friends, who happen to be very good at robbing banks. Often times in movies like these the characters do dumb shit that they know they shouldn’t, like “oh, I just gotta tie up this one loose end before heading off into paradise.” They need to kill a guy, or find the girl, or something, before they get on the plane, or train, with a bag of money. Even Carlito knew he should have killed Benny Blanco early in the movie. But in this movie, Affleck’s character reacted more realistically, and didn’t fall into the Hollywood trap of making the audience yell “Why!?” at the screen. It was a legit movie as far as bank heist action flicks go.

Anyway.

Jacqui got me some nice gifts, including Always Sunny Season 5 on DVD and a fancy V-neck sweater to make me feel more scholarly and classy.

***

My actual birth day went pretty well, I’d say. As it is with most days, Jacqui woke up early and left for med school. And I sat around wondering what I should do with myself.

Basically, I ended up walking around town. It was a rainy fifty-five degrees, so I threw on some clothes that made me look classy and scholarly and walked through the rain. I went to the bank, dropped off some money and said hi to my buddy Bill.

I went to the Library where they were having a book sale. Fifty cent paperbacks and dollar hardcovers, aint bad. Bought a few books and kept walking. I walked until I found a bar called Katie Mac’s. At 3:30 in the afternoon it’s a quite spot. The bartender is a bigger guy in his mid to late 40’s, with grey hair. He sports a white short sleeve dress shirt and a bow tie. He knows the seven people at the bar by their first names. Four of us are named Jo(h)n. His name is Jim. I order a Guinness and a “Philly” cheese steak. After the first Guinness I throw five buck in the juke box and pick eight songs. A few pints later, I meet a guy who sucks down two Vodka and Sprite’s in under ten minutes and then leaves to visit his in-laws. We talked about Vic. I tried to say “the Eagles” instead of “we” or “us.” I was undercover. Jim gave me my last beer for free, even though he didn’t know it was my birthday, and I left the bar an hour after I came in. It was a nice experience.

I got to eat a delicious sandwich (not really a cheese steak when it’s on a Kaiser roll) have a few tasty beers, and get out under $27 after listening to some music of my choosing. I whistled my way home.

It’s a good day when you end up at your local Irish bar with a carimac cap, a fifty cent copy of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, a few pints of Guinness, and Tom Waits
growling on the juke box. Happy Birthday, indeed.

Cheers.