A Perfect Day

Tuesday was perfect. Tom and I both had the day off so we decided to celebrate my birthday. We began at Perkins where I had, what else, pancakes. Then we headed to the Ashtabula Mall where we signed a two year hitch with Verizon, having decided it was probably time to get with the program and join the twenty first century. My number, by the way, is 440-813-9287.



By the time we left the mall it was snowing pretty hard and I thought maybe we should just go home. But Tom looked at me like I was crazy and we set off as planned for Erie.

Interstate 90

We dined at Olive Garden for lunch. I always enjoy their zuppa tuscana which is a fancy way of saying potato and sausage soup. That combined with salad and bread sticks is a wonderful lunch as far as I'm concerned. We shared a slice of lemon crumb cake and then it was time for the main part of my birthday celebration---Barnes and Noble!


Call us boring if you must, but we never tire of going to B&N. I had a specific goal in mind--my birthday present! Recently I bought a subscription to National Review which I enjoy very much except for the times I don't know what a word means and can't figure it out by context. My little paperback dictionary hasn't been much help either. I had been coveting a wonderful 2 volume dictionary and decided my fifty-first birthday was the perfect time to buy it.

Me with my big ol' dictionary

Maybe it's the relative quiet, the foofy coffee beverages, or the lack of dirty laundry crying out to be washed that make B&N's cafe so conducive to talking but we must have talked the better part of two hours. By the time we left the store we'd swilled plenty of coffee and solved many of the world's problems!

I love it when Tom drinks those dainty cups of espresso!

Chocolate cafe' mocha for me

After a stop at Office Max to research software, we headed back down the highway for Conneaut. Tom stopped at Orlando's Golden Dawn and surprised me with a birthday cake. When we got home we had fun trying to get 51 candles lit. When we did it made an impressive blaze!

Call the fire department!!

All in all it made for a day I'll remember for along time to come. Thanks, Tom, for a perfect day!