Birthday

I got a surprise birthday party today. It was funny. Heather said she would take me out to lunch today, even though my birthday isn't for another two days. Apparently her husband's birthday is the same day as mine, so she's spending time with him Thursday before work, and she said today we would do the birthday lunch.

We went to this huge gourmet buffet restaurant, and as we stepped onto the elevator from the garage, I saw Grace, one of the Korean teachers in there. I was like, what the hell, why is Grace in the elevator? I almost said it was a small world (because in Korea, it really is), but then Heather pointed out that Leon was right behind me and I realized what was going on. Then I noticed Grace was carrying a cake. In retrospect, I noticed she had a really guilty look on her face when we got in the elevator. One of the other teachers, Sue, showed up once we were seated, too, so it was a nice little group.

The surprise was a little botched, since I wasn't supposed to see anyone until we actually sat down, but that's okay. I noticed Heather was stressing about time when we were driving to the restaurant. I thought it was because it was so late in the morning and we had to be at work soon, but I guess it was because we were late for our reservation. Grace said we were about ten minutes late when I asked in the elevator, but I guess we were all running behind or they'd have been at the table already.

Heather said on the way to the place that this restaurant had "one hundred foods," according to her friend, and I think she was right. And almost all the food came in individual tiny dishes, each of which was a little work of culinary art. The food was really good, but sometimes it seemed the art had become more important than the food. For example, there were little wedges of avocado in one dish, with a ball of shredded seafood salad and a pile of tiny cubes of pineapple, but the avocado was so tough, I wasn't even sure it was real. I was really excited about that avocado, too.

Before we ate, they showed me the blueberry cake they'd gotten me and sang to me and had me blow out candles. We didn't have time to eat it at the restaurant, though, as we had gotten there with only about an hour before we should have been to school (I was five minutes late to my first class, haha). Leon got me some cheese as a present, which was awesome. I bet he paid a pretty penny for it, too. Sue got me a scarf and mittens set that happen to be the same color as my armoire, my sheets, and my bathrobe, all of which match by total coincidence. I think sea foam green is my destiny.