A. You're 70 ... B. So What
Since the dawn of 2022, the pirate's life has been a whirlwind involving -- to name but a few things and leave others out -- automobiles, illness, snow, a milestone birthday, and a puppy.
Allow me to elaborate.
For the last several months of 2021, TG and I had been discussing picking out a new car in January.
A new used car, that is. It's how we roll. That way, the pirate can get all the features she craves, without paying the price that they would be if purchased NOT pre-owned.
We acquired our first Cadillac in October of 2006; it was a 2004 CTS in Storm Gray, kitted out by me with the vanity license plate NOT2BE. We drove it pretty much exclusively until 2015, when it became an extra car, meaning only TG drove it.
(On January 15th he placed an ad on Craigslist for the sale of that car. Within minutes he had several interested texts, plus a phone call. He sold the car an hour or so later to the person who had called. Considering that she is an eighteen-year-old vehicle with a few repairs needed and more than 228K miles on her odometer, she fetched a fair and satisfying price.)
We welcomed our second Cadillac in 2015: another CTS, this time in Black Raven, leading me to dub her The Raven and plate her NVRMORE. She's a 2012 and still looks beautiful but we've put 100K miles on her and she was already relatively high in miles when we bought her.
On the actual birthday, we had a festive home-cooked meal
(That's the car that Andrew found for me online while lying on his bunk in the barracks at Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, on one of his deployments. Knowing my car needed to be replaced, he had texted me to ask what I was looking for in my next Cadillac.)
(Without hesitation I replied, I'm in the market for a 2012 CTS in Black Raven. Ten or fifteen minutes later, he sent me a link to the car that TG and I would drive to a dealership in Greer, South Carolina, and purchase the very next day.)
She's still a wonderful car and a joy to drive.
But looking at a trip to Oklahoma in a month to see Andrew graduate from pilot training and get his wings, even with a AAA membership in good standing just in case anything should go wrong, we thought we'd better get newer wheels under us.
(The irony of the pirate refusing to fly to see her son get pinned with wings is not lost on her. But it is what it is.)
This time I was after a 2015 Cadillac SRX in Platinum Ice Tricoat. Which is white. But a really really pretty pearly white.
My new used mode of transportation
Cadillac stopped making this particular model of crossover in 2016 but I had done some research and decided I wanted a 2015.
We found her at a dealership in Monroe, North Carolina, on January 8th.
She's stunning. I applied to the DMV for the vanity plate PIR8, which is coming today. And no; I don't care if you know my license plate number. Everyone on the road will see it whenever I drive my new used car.
That important chore of car purchasing -- which is not without its own special kind of stressors -- accomplished, I went less than a week before coming down with what felt like the flu but which I am pretty sure was the Omicron.
No; I did not get tested.
What I did do was feel pretty miserable for five to seven days, with all the symptoms one associates with the flu: fever, chills, cough, et cetera.
But I am fine now. I stayed home and rested and got better.
Shortly after I recovered, TG came down with the same thing, though his symptoms were significantly milder than mine. He felt slightly unwell for maybe three days.
He's fine now.
And he bounced back just in time, because this past Tuesday, he turned seventy.
We commenced the parties in celebration of TG's milestone birthday last Saturday.
Stephanie drove over that morning from North Carolina, by herself, to go out to eat with TG and me plus the usual suspects: Audrey and Dagny and Chad and Erica and Rhett.
But first, we had a snowstorm.
The view from my front door ... including The Raven clad in snow
All week, last week, there was an ominous snowflake on our weather apps for Friday. At first a Winter Storm Watch was issued, and that lasted for a few days.
As we got closer to what had been the designated snowflake day, that alert was downgraded to a Winter Weather Advisory.
Right up until the night before, it had all the earmarks of turning out to be nothing more than a cold, rainy day.
But on the day, the meteorologists kicked us all the way up to a Winter Storm Warning.
It began raining in the early afternoon but it was too warm for ice or snow. As nightfall approached, though, the temps fell to freezing, and then went below freezing.
Rain turned to sleet, then to ice, then finally to snow at around eight o'clock that evening.
It snowed in the back too
It snowed for about five hours and left three inches on the ground.
The next morning -- last Saturday -- it was very cold but sunny. Stephanie made the trip to our house without incident although her area had been blanketed with snow too.
The snow did not exactly melt within our neighborhood, but the roads were completely clear.
We had decided to eat at Texas Roadhouse, since we all like it. We arrived at two o'clock and were met with signs saying that groups larger than six people would NOT be seated together and that there was NO guarantee that the separated parties would be seated anywhere near one another.
There were eight of us.
The seemingly ironclad policy was confirmed by the girl at the desk where I put our name on the waitlist for a table. I said, but it's my husband's 70th birthday party and we are all from the same family! We eat together all the time!
She apologized but said she could not do anything about the rule.
She asked for two separate phone numbers so that each of our two groups could get a text when their table was ready.
Then she said, please wait outside because there is no waiting inside. Although there were at least two couples waiting inside.
We went outside.
Let's pull over and park here for a mo.
TG and his girls, last Saturday
TG and I went to the same Texas Roadhouse for supper several weeks ago. It was before Christmas. I think it was a Friday night. When we arrived, we were told that the wait would be "an hour, hour and a half." But I could see through the window behind the hostess that the restaurant's tables were mostly empty.
(Turns out that because they were short on servers, the management had decided not to seat parties until there was a server available to serve them.)
TG had gone to park the car so I met him outside, figuring he'd want to leave rather than wait so long. But he didn't; he wanted to wait. So we stood in the small outer lobby (it was a cold night) and made friends with some ladies who had been golfing for a few days at Hilton Head.
Exactly one hour later, we were shown to our table and immediately our server was there to take our order. As usual, the service was courteous and efficient. We enjoyed a delicious meal.
Fast forward to early January, when our pastor canceled a Wednesday evening service over Omicron concerns. After running a few errands, TG and I decided to again have supper at Texas Roadhouse.
We were shown to a table immediately. The place was at nearly full capacity seating-wise. Servers were everywhere and ours was most attentive. Again we had a delicious meal. Have you had the Critter Chicken Salad? It is very good.
For the birthday dinner rolls I put my new butter bell on the table
Between bites I remarked to TG that it was like pre-covid days, except still no pails of peanuts and no more servers forming up to line-dance to classic Country hits. I suppose those things are gone forever, more's the pity.
Back to last Saturday afternoon. We had not waited outside for long at all -- maybe five minutes -- before Audrey got a text that her group's table was ready.
I figured my text for my party would come later.
But Audrey, starting inside, motioned to the rest of us and said, She said for all of us to come ahead.
? ? ? ? ?
So we filed in -- all eight of us, together -- and were shown to an oversized oval-shaped booth large enough to accommodate every one of us.
The hostess motioned towards the booth and walked away.
We stood there, looking at one another, and then we all sat down. Together. It was a perfect fit.
Me and TG in full-on party mode
No one mentioned that the hostess had seated us in direct opposition to the restaurant's posted and spoken policy regarding parties of more than six.
Oh well. We proceeded to have a wonderful time. Those rolls! I ate only one.
Erica had brought balloons and party decorations. It was all so festive.
Later, back at home, I made coffee and served up the birthday cake.
I had picked up the cake at Publix that morning. It was white with black frosting around the edges and on the sides in a scroll design, and the writing was black too. No gooey gloppy buttercream flowers.
Here's what I had them write on top of the cake:
A. You're 70
B. So What
OK I guess you'd have to know TG. He is constantly, when talking, needing to list things -- like vocal bullet points -- and he always says A. whatever and then B. whatever.
Like, I might say, Darling why are you having a second bowl of ice cream?
And he'll say, A. It's really good, and B. I wanted some more.
So we all had a laugh at the cake and I assured TG that "so what" did not mean that we don't care that he's turning seventy, but rather that it's just a number and doesn't mean much.
Seven candles: One for each decade
We sang to TG and lit seven candles -- one for each decade -- and he blew them out, and then we ate cake and those who wanted coffee had some, with heavy cream.
The children had a few gifts for TG, with a promise of more to come on Tuesday, when we would gather again for a home-cooked meal on the actual day.
Erica and I and Baby Rhett went shopping on Monday for the groceries I needed for the meal. On the menu were Crock Pot Pork Chops prepared according to this recipe.
Sides were Party Potatoes, Mari's Confetti Corn, Green Beans Almondine, and Hawaiian rolls, with Arnold Palmer tea to drink. For dessert we had leftover cake plus a pecan pie -- TG's favorite.
After the meal there were more gifts for TG to open. Throughout the day he'd heard from and been congratulated by everyone from friends to old classmates to his siblings to the two children who were not able to be there to celebrate with us in person.
Where there's smoke there are often birthday candles
It was a good day and everyone agreed that we had feted our beloved patriarch in a fashion of which he is most deserving.
I gave him a bottle of cologne that I took a chance on from Amazon reviews. I had no idea what it smelled like except what I could surmise from its name.
Over the years TG has worn various fragrances and many of those are expensive prestige varieties made by Chanel and the like, but this bottle cost twenty dollars.
It's made by Cremo and named Spice and Black Vanilla.
I like it and he likes it and I think you would like it too
Wow, guys. I know that fragrance is personal and some readers would perhaps hate this scent, but I love it. TG does too so, when he runs out of this bottle, we will definitely be buying more.
Then, just this week, our Stephanie's family finally found a new puppy.
They'd been grieving over the loss of Shiloh for the last ten months.
Late last fall, they rescued a beagle mix that they promptly named Candace. In an unfortunate turn of events, within a few weeks Candace had to be returned to the rescue folks.
She suffered separation anxiety so severe that, when the family were gone from home for church or school activities, she harmed herself in her despair.
They would come home to find her bloodied and desperate, unable to cope with being by herself for a few hours even though all of her needs had been seen to.
She was fine when someone was home (which was most of the time), as long as she could follow them around and every waking moment be in the presence of people.
It was a difficult decision to return Candace, but when they did, and saw how happily she trotted back into the facility into the company of other dogs, they knew they'd done the right thing.
Candace needs a home in which a human (or another dog) is available to be with her literally all of the time. I pray she has found one by now.
Stephanie and the children resumed their search for a pet right after the New Year and, just this week, found what they were looking for.
Meet my granddog Piper. Photo courtesy Stephanie Bixler
She is a nine-week-old Golden Retriever mix. They've named her Piper. So far, everything is going even better than they could have hoped. The children are delirious with joy.
On to the next adventure! Which is, as I said above, our trip to Oklahoma in early March to stay a few days with Andrew and Brittany and Ember, and be present when our son graduates from Air Force pilot training.
He has excelled in this phase of his training, and he loves it, so we're grateful for his accomplishments and happy to see him realize a long-held dream.
Meanwhile it is still winter and you know what that means: Can spring be far behind?
The answer is no.
And that is all for now.
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Happy Friday :: Happy Weekend
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Monday, January 31, 2022 at 01:44PM 
Voilà! This is how mine turned out. Don't judge; I'm not Donna.
Don't skimp on the strawberries.
OK so I don't whip my own cream. You can if you want.
A Dutch Baby is egregiously -- and unapologetically -- eggy.
