We celebrated Aaron’s birthday this past weekend. Given all that is going on (the packing, the moving, the house hunting, etc)… we did it relatively low key, although we did manage a quick trip down to DC to visit and celebrate with his family. (I will write it up and include pictures in my next post.) The good news is now we are officially the same age. Technically, I am about a month older than Aaron, but he insists on calling me the older woman.

So there is a Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant near Aaron’s work that he has been raving about for months called Wisteria House. We finally met there for dinner after work this week and the food did not disappoint. We started with wonton soup, crab rangoon and Taipei-style (i.e. longer, thinner and crispier) Peking raviolis. Then we dined on crispy salted chicken with basil (as delicious as it sounds) and my favorite of the meal, baby bok choy with garlic. The bok choy was fresh, crisp and had a simple, clean taste. Delicious.

I took this while traveling home tonight on the commuter rail, at 5:15 PM. If the window was a bit cleaner and the power plant wasn’t in the foreground, it could have been a nice shot. Oh well, isn’t it trendy to be gritty?

Amy recently leant us her Shrek 2 DVD. It was cute, light and entertaining. I enjoyed both the addition of Antonio Banderas (who would have thought?) and all the pop culture references. The DVD’s bonus features, especially the digital animation mistakes and goofs, were also enjoyable.

Yeah! We finally got a real snowstorm. It snowed here Saturday night and most of Sunday. Our total accumulation looks to be just about 2 feet of snow. I know some of you think I am crazy, but it just doesn’t seem like winter to me without one good storm. So now I’m good.

So it was my birthday recently and those of you who follow this blog may remember a post a while back about some co-workers of mine who started a birthday countdown for me here at work. Well that same group of co-workers teamed up and hired a fluorescent pink gorilla to come in to work and wish me a happy birthday. I was lured into the office cafeteria with the promise of a low-key celebration, and ten or fifteen of us sat down and enjoyed some homemade cupcakes and ice cream. Fine. Just as the little party was winding down and I was getting ready to go back to work, in walks the pink gorilla with a big bunch of balloons, followed by half the office (apparently they were intrigued at the site of the pink gorilla and had decided to follow him and find out what was going on). As he danced and sang my response alternated from embarrassment to amusement to horror. One of my thoughtful coworkers (please note the sarcasm) took the above picture with a disposable camera and passed it on to me. It’s a bit grainy as it wasn’t digital, but I think you can still get the gist.

We had dinner with Amy and Joe this week at The Riverview, a hole in the wall pizza place that both Aaron and Joe had been to as kids. The funny thing about this bar/restaurant is that it has no windows, so there is no view of the river, or anything else for that matter. The table settings include a sheet of wax paper, a fork and a plastic knife, and that’s it. The only thing on the menu is pizza, literally. Luckily for us the pizza was damn good. Afterwards we (Joe and I really) had a craving for ice cream sundaes, so we all hightailed it over to another childhood haunt, Putnam Pantry. Now when we were kids, Putnam pantry was THE place to have a birthday party. It’s a candy and ice cream parlor that features a smorgasbord sundae bar with what used to seem like miles of ice cream toppings ranging from hot fudge to cherry caramel. The above photo is of Amy and I making our sundaes. YUM-MY!

While at home last weekend, Dad proposed a toast to Peter and Maria’s engagement. Amy snapped this shot of Aaron enjoying his sparkling grape juice. It’s very cosmopolitan, don’t you think? I’m posting it simply because it makes me laugh.

This past weekend the family got together to celebrate Mom’s birthday. We all had dinner together at Ristorante Molise and then went back to Mom and Dad’s house afterwards. A great evening with lots of good food and laughter.

Punxsutawney Phil has come through for me again. It’s official folks, the groundhog has seen his shadow and forecasted six more weeks of winter. Sweet! Maybe now the real winter will finally begin.