(Not) Walking the Camino: Day 25
Another birthday — that thing you grow to like less and less but it’s bad when they stop.
I was happy to spend mine with Dad and Celeste at Anajak Thai, a local place that’s earned raves and is kind of impossible to get into. It’s also kind of impossible to go with Amanda, since she does not easily tolerate Thai food.
So, win-win . . . ? Although I do wish she was here, eating a salad with us.
All in all a nice birthday treat: delicious meal, friendly service, lovely room, good company.
Amanda did call earlier to tell me where to find the present she hid. Thankfully, it was not a salad.
But I’ll hoard those squiggle-stamped Hostess treats for a while, since Celeste went all-out to bake this Birthday Blackout Cake! 😍
The Blackout Cake has an infamous personal family history. Once as a small child laying eyes on a Blackout Cake my Mom had brought home, enraptured by the most delicious thing I’d ever seen, I declared, “I could eat that whole thing by myself.” So Dad let me try.
I want to be clear: he wasn’t trying to punish me or teach me the obvious lesson (he was never that kind of father), nor do I think he actually wanted to see if I could do as I claimed. He just sat me down with a fork and said, Go ahead. And I did, only to taste, in very short order, not deliciousness but defeat. Tiny belly full, I think I left about half a cake when I waddled in shame to my room, so at least my sibs could finally have some.
Maybe I did learn something after all, because I don’t do that anymore. Except with vodka.
MEANWHILE on the Camino . . . Another rest day in Melide before pressing on.
I’m a little concerned that when Amanda gets back, she won’t be able to walk without those sticks.
TOMORROW . . . they ladies are doing the Willie Nelson thing, and I’ve got just a few short days to check things off my #Goals list.