Adventure #8 -- Heather's 36th Birthday

Adventure - Marty

Description: To celebrate Heather's 36th Birthday.

(Marty's Report):

Tip for husbands: when your wife asks you if you have something planned for her birthday, it is not a simple question, and the appropriate answer is either "Yes!" if that's the truth, or an enigmatic yet suggestive shrug if you haven't yet planned something. "No", is not the right answer.

So after failing this test, I set about planning for Heather's Bday celebration, her 36th year of life on this planet in this incarnation. At one point, mid-week before the designated Saturday, I got frustrated with her total dearth of instruction, and she let on that perhaps a meal at a belly dance restaurant would be interesting. So, what happened was:

1) Breakfast in bed: around 9am, I start cooking breakfast burritos. I hate eggs. I find the smell nauseating and the taste like yellow tasting rubber (that weird description is meant to convey the weird experience), and yet, uber husband that I occasionally am, I cooked eggs for the first time in forever. For me it was tofu, but for the birthday girl, chicken excreta. Um. But I couldn't do real sausage, so phony tofu sausage, which nonetheless also was rather nasty.

But! As an act of love, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and love the little ritual of coming in and shaking Heather awake, then setting up the folding table and bringing in courses of breakfast grub, and having a disheveled, cover strewn morning with the beautiful spring light and air coming in from our beautiful city.

So, along with the breakfast burritos, we had some coffee (Heather's ironic morning brew, given that she used to sneer at me drinking my "battery acid"), then a bowl of berries and Heather's favorite coconut water drink, with chunks of coconut pulp. We luxuriated in that, then I informed her about the rest of the day.

2) The Conservatory of Flowers: This building, which was partially destroyed in the mid-90's, and reopened a few years ago, we had never visited. One of the ironies of life in such a city, where the main tourist sites often go ignored. Even when the place is several blocks from our house. So we were determined to go, in no small part because they had a train exhibit. (In the video below you can see the inside of the place, and the pretty tepid train layout.)

It is really a remarkable place, both architecturally (apparently the rebuild after the huge wind storm destroyed it consisted of pulling down the extant half, and replicating it bit for bit in the destroyed half) and botanically. It feels like such an old world experience, genteel and curious about the big world outside of the boundaries of civilization. Totally enjoyable.

3) Hanging out with the Sharpe-Madsons: We met James, a very pregnant Robin, and the B-Dude for a picnic, out amongst the flower beds in front of the conservatory. That also was very sweet, a couple hours of munching and gabbing, and playing ball with the boy. One very sweet moment was going with the boy (my turn on watch) and going into the tunnel under JFK Blvd. (the main drag through the park), where a four piece band was playing into the tunnel from the steps on the other side. We stood there, B-Dude on my hip, watching them play through a whole song while I filmed on my phone. Benjamin is a remarkable (at times) un-squirmy two year old, and he just observed the scene and the view through the camera-recorder.

4) Castro Hair Adventure: This adventurette-ito was a response to Heather not wanting to go to the Kabuki for a massage. She rather wanted to get a hair cut, being so totally over her long hair phase. And she was determined to go to a better stylist than the $20 Chinese lady down the street who had been abducted by aliens when a child. So she found, somehow, a flashy place in the Castro and we went down there to one of these walk-up places where everyone seems over-caffeinated and mandatorily gay. I sat in a corner typing on my new mini-computer, and she got a workup from images of Amanda Tapping, an actress from the show Star Gate. I was insufficiently praising of the haircut (second note to husbands: praise new haircut), but we worked through that spat quickly, and headed off for:

5) Dinner at Marrakesh: There are a number of Moroccan restaurants in the city, and this one looked good from the website when I was hunting around. We got there, to a somewhat seedy place on O'Farrel in the Tenderloin, and entered the un-windowed storefront to find a atmospherically lit replica of a Moroccan eating establishment, with the lush rugs and metal and cushions. We were seated in a corner in the back, and went through a whole elaborate series of events in the meal, which was very good and distinct. We especially liked washing our hands in the rose water between courses.

The place is definitely slanted towards the tourist trade, and when the belly dancing began, the woman obligatorily pulled people from the audience in what would be more enjoyable if you were somewhat inebriated. I don't know if we were emanating a "go away" vibe from the corner, but she didn't venture as close as us, preying on others in the audience. It's one of those odd tourist events where pleasure and pain are structurally built into the event.

Two highlights of the dinner were, first, on the darker side, observing the trio at the next table/couch. There was a 30-something man and two young college age women, who provided us with enough ambiguity and unconsciousness to be able to spin various theories around the curiosities and shadows of human mating behavior. And then on the lighter side was a discussion about cultural meetings--the wait staff was all Moroccan or Middle Eastern--and what constitutes respect at the border lands between cultures. Heather was really affected by the conversation, but I think it gave a lot of food for thought as we get ready to go to Egypt next year.

Roundup: And that was the events marking the 36th birthday of my dear and beloved wife Heather, may she have many many more.

(Heather's Report):

Gosh, what am I supposed to say after all that?

The whole day was fun despite me not liking my hair all that much at first. I appreciate my husband's willing to cook eggs despite his dislike. I knew he didn't like eating eggs but I didn't realize what passion of grossness he has for the entirety of the egg realm. Yellow tasting rubber indeed.

I also enjoyed hanging out with James and Robin, and Benjamin, who previously did not seem to take me much into his conceptual world. It's all about Uncle Marty and that's completely fair since he's spent A LOT of time with him since he was born. I'm just now starting to develop a neural cluster in his brain and he's starting to slightly remember who I am and not shy away from me. So while playing ball and on my "watches", he was just fine with me. Marty's right, he's a fairly un-squirmy, non-complainy child.

I enjoyed the food at the restaurant and the conversation although I did have some consternation about the conversation about crossing cultural boundaries. I do not want to be rude or disrespectful when going to a different culture but I did understand after a bit of conversation that I am probably going to step on toes no matter what, coming from such a different (and although I don't think so, but I know they will, rich) life and not to be too hard on myself, especially just to accept that it will happen and that I'm not a bad person. But on the other hand, I wanted to find the rose water for home after the luscious hand washing. The belly dancing was so-so. The creepy trio next to us was... creepy.

Overall, my husband rocks!