The Not Your Birthday Lunch at 821

"I will pick you up for lunch at 1:00 but this is just a regular lunch, not your birthday lunch."

When I got in the car, I asked why he'd sent me that message.

Seems he hadn't had time to plan anything special.

Forget special, I told him, I just wanted to have lunch with you like we do almost every week and call it a birthday lunch.

No planning required.

To underscore that fact, I suggested 821, always a favorite of mine and now that I've made a convert of him for their black bean nachos, of his too.

Highlight #1: the server who for years has teased me about my inability to order anything but the black bean nachos admitting to me that she's now addicted to them, too.

What goes around comes around, sweetie.

Highlight #2: our server who when he noticed us admiring the James Callahan piece on the wall (my friend saying, "I just don't get the whole zombie thing") made sure to ask if we'd noticed "the shark and the boner in the tighty whities."

Actually, I had noticed the shark, thank you very much. Ahem.

And how better to end a birthday lunch than with a look forward?

We stopped by the National so I could get a ticket for a future show and then drove to nearby Shockoe Hill Cemetery for a reminder of the fact that I'm not getting any younger (or intending to be buried, but I digress).

Referring back to the first evening we ever spent together, my friend let loose an  inside joke.

"Another year older. Whoa."

Birthdays are for celebrating with smart-assed friends.