Fifty-six.

Fifty-six.

56.

How can that possibly be? Today is my birthday, and for the life of me, I cannot tell you where all those years have gone. I don't feel 56. I don't think I look 56. So maybe I won't be. Maybe I'll just pick a different number. Like 45. That's a good one.... works for me.

My husband and I went out for a birthday lunch today..... to the local Thai restaurant. Always delicious food there, although their soup today was extra-spicy and neither one of us could get through more than a few spoonfuls. The waitress noticed that and she brought out a different soup for us... a much milder one, with different vegetables. Much better. We'll have to remember that at other times when the soup of the day seems to be too peppery. The rest of the meal was excellent, and we splurged on dessert. We split an order of fried bananas with sticky rice and coconut ice cream.

The presentation of that dessert is just beautiful--- a square serving of sticky (sweet) rice in the center of the plate, topped with one scoop of coconut ice cream, surrounded by four slices of batter-coated/fried banana slices, tiny dollops of whipped cream, and very thin slices of red grapefruit arranged around the plate like flower petals. Unbelievably delicious..... and the entire plate looked like it should have been pictured in the best of the best gourmet cookbooks. Every calorie--- totally worth it.

The weather for my birthday has been the pits.... mostly cloudy, mostly cold, not very Texas-like at all. Then again, it's freezing up north, and tiny snowflakes are threatening to become blizzard-sized. So I shouldn't be complaining about cloudy days here.

The RSVPs for our Valentine's party have been coming in. Just waiting for a few more now.... we'll have our usual group of Charades players-- these parties are always so much fun, and they've only gotten better over the years. Maybe... just maybe.... by the time the party comes around, the sun will have found its way back here. (Okay, that was just a tiny little complaint about the weather.)