A post in which we celebrate Dad's birthday

Work continues to chew my nerves slap up.  Alan started pushing me for the All Hands slides today.  We have to get them in and make sure they're perfect so everyone can sleep through the meeting without interruption I guess.  Who the hell calls a staff meeting for the Friday afternoon before Christmas?  Well he does.  He had a meeting on Christmas Eve one time.  The man is nothing if no meticulous.  Plus sales is trying to revive accounts of Purchase Past, I have labyrinthine write-offs to do in Canada, the ISO project to finish, the twit meeting to prepare for on Friday, and then there's my regular job.  Oy.  I'm really going to need a vacation at the end of this week.

One bright spot today was that I picked up the cook books from the printer.  They turned out really nice.  I love the cover.  After I finally decided on the name (going back to the title I really liked originally, but decided it was too gay), I decided just to embrace the gay.  I was also inspired by a Bewitched marathon on Logo the weekend before I dropped them at the printer. 

Since Dad was having dinner tomorrow night with friends of theirs (a man he knows shares a late December birthday), we decided to do his birthday dinner tonight.  Tuesday night is our dinner night anyway.  He wanted to go to Bonefish, so after some kerfuffle back and forth, we set up dinner for 7pm. 

We had a leisurely dinner.  I excused myself shortly after we got there to secure the check.  You just have to wrestle Dad to get it from him, and I don't feel that it's right for him to pay for his own birthday dinner.  I had Lobster Thermidor stuffed mahi, and it was really delicious.  If the portions were a little light, well I could use lighter portions anyway.  They had Bananas Foster, one of my very favorite desserts, and Dad ordered it for me even though no one else was having dessert.  I tried to share it.  Eve took one bite, Lisa looked as if I had asked her to munch on slug intestines (there was no chocolate), and Dad invoked tummy trouble.  Not being proud, and since it is, after all, my favorite, I ate every bite except for the one that went all down the front of my shirt.  So I left looking like a complete pig, probably with justification.  The waiter, bless him, did exactly as I asked and brought the check already rung up (I gave him my card when I flagged him down initially), and there was remarkably little ugliness about that.  Usually Lisa (proud, proud, proud, despite penury) gives me a ration of shit. 

We told Lisa goodnight and headed back to the house for the usual visit.  She had to drive back to Chapin tonight, and I worried about her.  She worked today and does again tomorrow.  That makes for a very long day, and I know she's worn down already. 

Dad opened his gift when we got back to their place, and if he didn't like it, he did an excellent job of acting like he did.  The gift receipt was in the bag, so I'm covered either way.  He knew that I had thought about him anyway.  I had intended to do the Grand Reveal of the cook book at Christmas, but I was just too excited.  I got the book out of the car and let Eve have a preview.  She and Dad both were surprisingly complimentary.  She loved the cover and the font.  She said it looked 'happy' (which I'm thinking in retrospect, hmmmmm), but even Dad liked it.  So my worries were for naught. 

Since I haven't slept through the night in about a week, I went home, took a pill, did a tiny bit of elfing for Lisa, and gratefully fell into bed.  I was wiped.