life begins at 40!

i had the most splendid breakfast today! some leftovers of steak! this more than made up for an evening in the less than scintillating company of metal dog. the steak was from mrs captain's birthday meal. yesterday mrs captain turned 40 and to celebrate had the peeps round, along with some other friends.

somehow, herself was delegated to purchase the steaks. don't ask me why this was a good idea. herself hasn't eaten anything furry for nearly 30 years. so why she would know one end of a steak from another is beyond me. she solved the problem by going to the local butcher who is a man of great pride in meat. rather unwisely she said "i need 5 rib-eye steaks please. i don't eat meat so you will have to show me how thick they should be." mrs captain had told her that small fat ones were better than big thin ones which is herself's philosophy about people as well.

herself came home with a huge carrier bag which smelt simply divine. in spite of a couple of clever sliding tackles by yours truly she shot it into the fridge before you could say "rib-eye". himself came home later with a halibut steak for herself which i also unfortunately failed to divert my way. as well as the meat purchasing, herself had rashly promised the captain she would make a birthday cake.

in order to explain what happened next i will need to rewind to thursday night. i hope my poor readers can keep up.

on thursday herself came home in tears. this has been a much less frequent occurrence since she started taking the happy meds. something was clearly amiss. to make matters worse, the peeps had the hair-slayer round. this is a nice lady who comes every 6 weeks or so and gives their hair a trim. my boy used to make the most unholy fuss about this but lately he is quite into his quiff so it is a more peaceful experience. luckily the hair slayer is good with people in tears and soon herself had calmed down enough to tell them what was wrong.

it seemed it was all to do with human resources. apparently human resources is a department where herself works. the people there pretend that they are nice people. however their real purpose seems to be to bully people who are unlucky enough to get ill. herself has come into contact with them, not because she is ill but because one of her colleagues is ill. it would appear that she had ended up having a row with one of these human resources people, hence the tears.

anyway, after the haircuts herself and my boy went round to see the captain and mrs captain. the captain saw herself was a bit down so made her and mrs captain a gin and tonic. herself is very partial to wine but has little experience of gin. suffice to say that the captain, who rarely touches alcohol, was a bit generous with the gin. herself had to be brought home amid much mirth. she even made the captain say "chocks away" as he drove down the road.

so yesterday she was a bit tired. so much so that after putting the cake in the oven she decided to have a little kip so as to be fresh for the evening's festivities. the kitchen already looked like a chocolate hurricane had whizzed round it. she had broken the whizzer on the cake mix and had to use a soup whizzer which didn't seem to me to be quite the thing. because of herself being asleep the cake got a bit charred. so she then had to cut off all the burnt bits before icing it.

as by now they were running late they had to leave the carnage and rush off. they of course managed to forget the 40 candles that herself had bought. maybe just as well, given her propensity for disaster. wouldn't have been much of a birthday for mrs captain if the house had gone up in flames.

the evening seems to have been a huge success. the steaks were so huge that there were even a few little bits for yours truly. the kitchen on the other hand took nearly an hour for herself to straighten out. ho hum...