So this was a good weekend.
My birthday fell on Tuesday this year, and Tuesdays being what they are, a very inconvenient day in the middle of the week to have a birthday.
Rather than take Monday and Tuesday off and have to wake up at 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday, which seems a bit anticlimactic and would put the kibosh on the celebrations for a Tuesday, I basically worked through the week.
But we went away last weekend, and this weekend the celebration continued—not in any major way, but in a really, really nice way.
Tuesday: Birthday Proper
My birthday itself on Tuesday was a fun one.
I grew up in England, and I’m constantly in search of anything that tastes like my childhood. There aren’t really a whole bunch of English restaurants around St. Louis, but there is one place called The Cheshire, an English-style hotel, and in it there is a pub, and in it they serve English pub lunch.
I went looking for the traditional shepherd’s pie, and was a little disappointed when it turned out they no longer made it. Why? Because shepherd’s pie is a mixture of beef and lamb in a red wine sauce with vegetables and mashed potatoes on top, baked to perfection.
I guess lamb is a little bit exotic and perhaps a bit difficult or pricey to come by, so they substituted it for something called a cottage pie, which is essentially the same thing, but beef.
It was really, really good. It didn’t quite taste like my childhood, but it made for excellent birthday yum-yums.
(Yes, I’m a grown man calling them “yum-yums,” let’s move past it.)
Perspective Check
One thing that really struck me going into the weekend was having our listener, Black Belt Judy, in the studio, along with Steve Miller, whom we all know from his work with the local IHOP franchises, and Phyllis.
They were all there volunteering for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and to talk about the Out of the Darkness Walk that we're all doing on the 28th at Creve Coeur Lake Park.
I knew that each of them had been personally affected by suicide—either through a family member's attempt or loss—but I hadn’t realized that they were all survivors themselves.
It was an amazing lesson in how far people can come. We know them as cheerful, happy individuals who bring smiles to our faces, but they’ve been through incredibly difficult experiences.
Seeing their resilience and their willingness to help others, despite everything they’ve gone through, was a lesson in humility, and I’m truly grateful for it.
(Meanwhile, my big hardship this week was that I had to settle for cottage pie instead of shepherd’s pie. Perspective, folks.)
Saturday: Spa Day
Amy, my wife, had booked me—or booked us, rather—a couple’s massage. And it was fantastic.
Here’s the thing about a massage: it’s not so much the getting a back rub, that part is great, but it’s one of those times where you have nothing to do but slow down. The room is dark, it is quiet, it’s relaxing, your cell phone is off, and for however long it lasts, the outside world really doesn’t matter.
And the back rub part, the massage, was fantastic.
However, getting a little bit of time away from the world where you don’t have to deal with anything or anyone, where it’s just you and your wife, and a couple of people who are highly skilled at getting the knots and the kinks out of your back that life gives you on a regular basis—it’s good, good stuff.
(Also the only time in life where someone can 12–6 elbow you MMA style for an hour straight and you pay them extra for it.)
The Massage Therapist Who Understood the Assignment
The other great thing about this particular massage was the massage therapist was not afraid to hurt me.
Generally speaking, I’ve got crazy knots and cramps from my neck, the back of my neck, shoulders, down to the small of my back. And it requires a bit of a Herculean elbow and a willingness to inflict some pain to do much about them.
And this is usually a problem I have when communicating how hurt I want to be by them. But this particular therapist took me seriously when I said, just go for it and we can back it down if we need to.
We never had to back it down, but she worked out knots I didn’t know I had. And it really, really, really made a difference.
(Basically, I went in shaped like a question mark and came out shaped like a human again.)
My First Facial
The other thing that happened was Amy booked us facials.
I’ve never had a facial before, and I had no idea what one was all about.
All I know is that my head feels about a pound and a half lighter than it did going in, and I think some fairly disgusting things were done in the name of extracting blackheads.
(I’m just glad nobody tried to charge me for hazardous waste disposal afterwards.)
That, and there was a cooling mask involved, and the cooling mask felt great.
I’m not sure if this is something that I’m ever going to be doing again, but I will tell you this: it was an added amount of time lying in a dark, quiet room, not doing much of anything at all, while the rest of the world could go kick rocks—and that is an incredibly amazing thing.
Seeking Peace Over Pleasure
It’s something that is in stark contrast to what we like as kids.
I don’t know about you, but I found that all the things that we liked when we were kids, I still like now. I still like the same bands. I still like the same food. I still like the same TV shows and movies. I watch them over and over again. I’m all in on childhood nostalgia.
However, the one thing that has changed about me is that I used to be very easily bored.
Now I seek out boredom. I seek out nothing. I seek out quiet.
I guess there is truth to that expression: happiness is not pleasure, happiness is peace.
Because my main takeaway from getting blackheads extracted from bits of my face that I had no idea had blackheads in them was the fact that it was a little bit more time where the rest of the world had to wait on whatever the hell it is we were doing.
That is peaceful AF.
Keeping the Vibe Going
Afterwards, we kept that vibe going.
We went home, and we actually bought the same candle that they had in the spa that we went to, Amitee.
I don’t work with them. They’ve never done anything with the station. But man, were they good. I want them to do well so I can continue going back to them once every six months or once every year, however often we do this sort of thing.
We also figured out what music they were playing on the playlist. The plinky plunky new age zen garden spa music that they were playing really does something.
Music is an incredibly powerful thing, and it really helped me zone out and ignore the outside world.
We had that on in the car, and then we put that on in our family room. We sat out there saying and doing very little while the pets slept, and we looked out the window into nothingness, and we kept the relaxed vibe going.
It was quite the treat.
The Discipline of Relaxation
It occurred to me that all these things—the making time for yourself, the shutting out the outside world, the switching off phones, the lying in the dark room—it is much easier to get that stuff done if you are away from the house...but you can make it happen at home.
In a weird way it takes discipline to relax.
(Which makes zero sense, but also makes perfect sense, like “jumbo shrimp.”)
Saturday Night: Pizza & Presents
After the relaxation had come to an end, we looked at each other and thought, we’re hungry.
So we went out for pizza. It was fantastic.
And then we got home and I opened up a few presents.
Part of wanting to stretch out the birthday weekend was I didn’t open them on Tuesday night. The other part of it was Tuesday morning started, as these mornings do when you work in morning radio, at 3:30 a.m., and when it came time to open gifts or cards, quite frankly, I didn't have it left in me. I needed to go to bed.
I’ve entered that period of my life where I really don’t need anything, and because of that, it is difficult to get me gifts.
Also, I don’t really want gifts.
However, Amy found a couple of things that I didn’t know that I wanted until I saw them.
Thing number one was a pair of Mets underwear.
The other thing was a Mets Stanley Cup.
Also, in addition to the lucky Mets underwear, we decided that I was going to get a smoker, and I picked out one.
It should be ordered and arriving in a few days, and I look forward to a fall of delicious smoked meats.
I started smoking literally everything that one could smoke—and some things that one probably shouldn’t smoke—during COVID when I lived in Las Vegas.
But I always did it old school, on a grill with a pouch of wood chips. I’d never had a purpose-built smoker, so this should be good.
A lot of purists would argue that it’s smoked meat blasphemy to be doing this, but also it seems easier to create delicious smoked meats that can be enjoyed around game day without having to constantly monitor for temperature this way.
So I’m really, really excited about that and eager to swap smoking tips with anybody that has them.
Maybe if I wear my lucky Mets underwear while I’m smoking a pork butt, it’ll be that much more porky smoky and delicious.
(Feel free to insert your own sausage joke anywhere you like. I certainly wouldn’t stoop so low.)
Sunday: Summer’s Last Stand
Sunday, woke up a little bit early and saw that even though leaves had started to fall and autumn was basically here, we had one last weekend day—at the very least—of summertime.
It was in the 90s, so it could be the last time we do it before we close it for the winter. But we hit the pool and lounged around, and it was a good time.
That was when the Mets broke their eight-game losing streak.
Pete Alonso hit a three-run bomb after he’d been going through a bit of a dry spell, and it all worked out.
I have to imagine it was the lucky Mets underwear.
(Never underestimate the power of novelty undergarments.)
The Seasons Shift
It really is amazing how quickly the seasons have changed.
A couple days ago I was noticing some red and yellow leaves on the trees, maybe one or two falling.
Now there's actual piles of the things on the ground, and despite the 90 degree heat, you can definitely feel that fall is in the air.
It all happens faster than we want it to...
Milhouse & the Dollar Store
Case in point...
I was walking Milhouse after a grocery shopping trip, and as we passed by the dollar store, the woman came out to give Milhouse a little attention.
After some pleasant doggy banter, I said, “Wow, you’ve got all the Halloween stuff out already!” and she replied, “Oh, we have all the Halloween stuff, but I don’t even want to talk about it; we’re getting Christmas stuff in now. Ew, gag me with a spoon!”
I couldn’t help but laugh because gag me with a spoon isn’t something I’ve heard for a long time and now I think we should be bringing it back.
And I was glad to know she has as big a problem with it as the rest of us.
Good to know that people who work retail also find it ridiculous that they’re trying to sell us Christmas stockings when it’s 90 degrees out.
Steak & Cake Finale
Over the last week or so of celebrating my birthday, stretching the game out, I have, for more or less two weeks straight, been treating my body like a human dumpster.
I have eaten indiscriminately every sweet and delicious thing that I could lay my hands on and done it in the name of celebration of another trip around the sun.
If I want to get through another trip around the sun, I'm going to have to calm the hell down is what I told myself when I woke up on Sunday morning.
Then I remembered that this time last year for my birthday I went to Brasilia, the all-you-can-eat churrasco steakhouse out in Tower Grove, but I decided I couldn't possibly....
However, right around three o'clock in the afternoon I started feeling a little peckish, and I remembered that not only did they have all-you-can-eat meat on spears, they also had the most unbelievable tres leches cake I've ever had in my life.
I decided it would be prudent to revisit, and even though I'd gone grocery shopping with Amy, it was important that we, before the weekend was over ate delicious tres leches cake until we couldn't move.
So we took all the groceries that we'd set aside for dinner, stuffed them in the fridge, and drove to Tower Grove to eat delicious never-ending Brazilian churrasco steaks off of spears.
(Nothing says romance like canceling your dinner plans for “meat on edged weapons.”)
In the spirit of “diet starts Monday,” vast amounts of both steak and cake were consumed.
George & Brasilia
Brasilia is a neat place.
It’s run by a guy named George, from São Paulo, Brazil. He’s a really interesting guy—came to Miami back in the day, became a U.S. citizen, joined the Marines, even worked for the CIA.
Eventually he followed a girl to St. Louis, and while things didn’t work out with her, he and the city decided they liked each other a lot.
Now he’s a restaurateur here, and I swear he puts that whole journey into everything he makes.
Reflection
Steak and cake are excellent ways to celebrate a trip around the sun; however, I’ll need to chill the hell out on things like steak and cake, especially in all-you-can-eat quantities, if I plan to make another trip around the sun.
So, I’m not saying I’m going on a diet starting Monday, but I will be cleaning it up.
That said, I kind of let go of any inhibitions when it came to eating over the past week and a half, and I really don’t feel bad about it.
It seemed like a good thing to do in the name of celebration.
Now, as I reflect on this, full of both steak and cake on a Sunday night, looking toward a more monastic, clean-living approach starting tomorrow, I actually don’t regret all the steak and cake followed by more steak and cake that was consumed.
So I really milked the birthday week for all it was worth.
Maybe having your birthday land on a Tuesday isn’t so bad.
That is so funny, Terri and I were just talking about the Cheshire Inn on Clayton Rd.. It used to be a place where you had to sell your blood to eat there, (Yes I know, stolen from A.D.) Will have to go there again sometime. I loved all the other stories, but I have yet to pay someone to touch my face or my feet. Maybe someday???