Me birfdy

My birthday was Monday and Phyllis and Kosov made a delicious meal of spicy chicken drumsticks and a version of fried rice. They also bought a stunning birthday cake and while I am not a fan of chocolate cake, it was terrific. It was a bit mousse like with hard chocolate atop. 

In appreciation, I made a magnanimous offer, that Kosov is welcome to stay overnight as often as he wants. Yeah, well, he hasn't been to his home since. He is a nice young man and him staying now has little impact on me. He is polite, friendly and helpful. Neither Phyllis or Kosov use the living area when I am here. I watch my tv, listen to my radio and sit here typing, just as I have for a couple of decades. I'll get back to this.

Tuesday night, the evening after my birthday we had drinks and nibbles here. I know what an effort Ray would have gone to and how stylish his presentation would have been, but I just did my best. Ray would not have approved. I realised I have donated away dishes that could be used to serve dips, along with a nice correctly sized platter for the dry biscuits.

You could say it was a very mixed group, myself, Phyllis, Kosov, my neighbour H, Our Friend in Japan and our Hairdresser Friend. We crossed the road to our very nice local Thai restaurant where I had booked, and had a nice meal and very good chat considering we were four pretty well over sixty white people in the company of two male 21 year old Indian lads who have been in Australia for only a year or so. Neighbour H made a special effort to engage with them, well she was sitting opposite them. 

After dinner, back home we ate more of the chocolate birthday cake. 

Someone who wasn't here said it might be a sad birthday for me, the first without Ray, and of course that was in my mind, but it wasn't. I must do something right in life to have such kind people around me.

Getting back to saying Kosov could stay freely, I used the analogy to them both of one of my work experiences when I asked a public transport security officer about how he wakes up drunks on trams when trams were returning to their depots, and so the person had to be off the tram.

He said, you go in hard and aggressively wake them, shaking them if you have to. You present as a powerful and authoritative law enforcement person. Once they are awake and seem fine, then you switch to being Mr Nice Guy and try to help them to get to where they to need to go.

That is what I did with Phyllis and Kosov. Once I grasped that they are good guys and not out to take advantage of grieving old widower, I've given them some slack. 

Mind, the next morning when I arose, the living area was stinking hot, with the heating setting raised from 20 to the maximum of 28. Apparently Phyliss stayed up until 4am and forgot to turn the heating off and the temperature setting down. Had he had done so, I might never have known, except I would have because I monitor my home's electricity consumption and mein gott, you should have seen the power spike from 1am to 7am when I got up and turned the heating off. I showed Phyllis the power consumption graph two days later and I don't expect that will happen again. 

Don't look at the fine print.

The height of fashion I suppose.

The Brunetti cake box reminds of our visit to the The Grand Hotel in Brighton with Fun60, where we took our left over food back to London by train. I managed to fit mine into my backpack and so was not embarrassed by The Grand Hotel food cardboard boxes. 

Things I don't understand appear in The Highrise. I mucked up the stylish shell arrangement by having to use the printer. You would not believe the story behind the shells, that involves sex, pain and a young woman's libido. Do not worry. Phyllis gave her counselling at a nearby beach as they collected shells. Ok, you are such sticky beaks. She likes the guy more than he likes her. They have sex often, which causes her pain and bleeding at times but she really enjoys the sex and doesn't want it to stop. Racial difference doesn't seem to apply when it comes to sex. 

 

My dinner, so nice. 

I was given a badge too.

The fabulous cake. 

Even the card envelope was special.