How Sweet It Is

I never have to question what a fantastic relationship I have with Christian, but sometimes he catches me by surprise and makes me love him even more. We moved about two months ago and I had been itching to have a party, so with my birthday last week, we agreed to have a housewarming/birthday party this past weekend at our place. We have been very busy decorating/buying new stuff for the place and I was looking forward to having our friends over. We used to have parties all the time when we lived in Washington and I have missed the entertaining. Christian decided to make some white-wine sangria, Dana made some delicious crostinis, and the we had a ton of beer and liquor waiting for the crowd to arrive.

The party was going along very well when Christian called me into the living room and I knew what was coming. I had almost told him not to get me a cake because 1, I donÂ’t really like cake, and 2, this was really more of a housewarming party than a birthday party anyway. I mean, I turned 32, its not like its that big of a deal or anything. So what does he do? He presents me with a cake that he had made from a picture that was taken the first day I got my MINI convertible. We were staying with his sister out in Marin, right across the Golden Gate bridge, and after I had given each of the family members the obligatory ride, I went out for a cruise by myself.

After a delightfully curvy drive around the perimeter of the area, I drove into Tiburon, which is directly across the bay from San Francisco and has views of the GG Bridge as well. I was busy snapping pictures of ‘Coop’, as we named the car, when a passerby car drove by the small parking lot I was in, slammed on the brakes, hit reverse, and quickly joined me in the parking lot. The driver and his wife got out of his car and just had to know what the car was (my shipment was just the 2nd of the convertibles into the US, so it was still pretty new at the time), and that they loved the color, etc, etc. I thought driving with the top down across the GG Bridge was cool enough on my first day of owning this car, and then I get to have random strangers oogle all over it! Well, they offered to snap a pic of me with the car and the bridge in the background, and this picture was the one that Christian used as the basis for the icing on my 32nd birthday cake.

So in addition to thoroughly enjoying the company of all of the people who came out to celebrate with us, I also got to revel in the happy memory of the first day that I got a car I had anticipated getting for almost 3 years. While he also got me a fantastic present (the new SLVR phone with iTunes!) I bet it will be this cake that I remember when I reflect on my 32nd. Happy birthday, indeed.