So the day started with Jane turning, as she puts it, "29 for the fifth straight year". That's quite a streak. After a pot of coffee and a nice lazy Saturday morning, I made ready to head out to pick up the surprise birthday cake, specially ordered weeks before.
Turning the car key, I am rewarded with a less than pleasing "click". The engine was not even turning over. Jane had been driving my car for a few days, and it soon became apparent that she had left an interior light on....for several days. Resorting to Plan B, I jump in her car and resolve to worry about the rest later.
I picked up the cake, from a specialty cake place that can make Jane a proper birthday cake that does not impinge on her allergy issues. After a quick detour to Canadian Tire, I headed home and presented her with her birthday card and first of several gifts - a brand new set of booster cables! But of course boosting the car would not be that easy....
In order to get my car to a spot we could boost it, I had to push it out of the driveway - no easy task when there is no traction for pushing. With Jane howling behind the wheel (the car was shaking from her laughter), I eventually lined up enough recycling bins against the garage so that I could actually push against THEM with my legs rather than the ice and snow. The fun began when she tried to bump start the car as we got some speed up at the end of the driveway - which failed miserably, leaving my car quite stopped and now in the middle of the street.
From a dead stop, on a flat spot, with no traction...I could not get the car moving again. Jane got out to help me push, something which many Birthday Princesses would not deign to do....and the two of us pushed the dead car right up into the neighbour's driveway....I jump into her Honda and pop the hood to check where the battery is locoated. As I pull as u-turn at the end of the street to circle around, some helpful chap in a very large dually pickup with Alberta plates and (I shit you not) a set of bull horns for a hood ornament stops me to proclaim "hey man, your hood's up!". Thanking him for his kind assistance, I circled back to the car. With much ado and a little luck from neighbour Mark, we got the car boosted and running again.
Soon we are off to dinner somewhere nice....tomorrow we are going to Owen Sound so that Jane's parents can treat her to a birthday lunch....as they are graciously literally waiting until the end of lunch tomorrow to depart for a few months in Florida. Seems they have had enough of the Owen Sound winter....
For those of you who remember my Avian Influenza chicken birthday cake from last summer...sweet vengeance was mine. True, her cake was custom-crafted to bypass all possible allergens....but still there was the psychological battle of eating a piece of cake from a giant peanut......
Jane's peanut birthday cake
Mike's birthday cake from last summer
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