From Mark, dinner at an Uptown Italian restaurant. He gamely split everything with me so I could have lots of different things and not completely blow my diet: garlicky, caper-studded beef carpaccio; roasted red pepper crostini with tons of parsley and olive oil; spinach salad with fresh goat cheese, onions, and oranges; pasta with a sauce of tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, and carrots; tiramisu and carrot cake. And he drove us home, so I could finish that second glass of Montepulciano.
From my kids? Excellent behavior while they ate their pepperoni-and-onion-pizzas and drank their Shirley Temples, right next to us. (Perhaps the Legos I brought in little plastic trays helped, just a bit.)
You know what? If I can be promised that nobody'll throw any forks, I'd rather have my kids with me on any birthday dinner. I'm 34 today and life is great. To all my readers, may your next year be as satisfying as my last one has been. Believe me, that's a good wish.
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