It was my first born child’s 21st Birthday yesterday.

He’s not my oldest, but he was the first. It’s quite a complicated and yet very common set of circumstances that accomplished that odd juxtaposition. Anyway, note the image to the left. We’re from San Diego and as such long for that south of the border cuisine. Here we are south of the border, the border of Canada! Not that I don’t love Canadian Bacon (or as they call it, ham) but it’s hard to find authentic Americanized Mexican food around here. So a tradition started several years back with my daughter (she’s older then my first born btw) where I would take her to our favorite Mexican themed restaurant on her birthday. You see, I had been there a few time with my wife and was well aware the establishment had a little birthday production that they carried out. While she went to the rest room I just happened to mention to our waiter that it was her birthday and as he was bringing the check to our table, he and several other staff members started singing happy birthday in Spanish and placed a large sombrero on her head for a lovely Polaroid.

I hadn’t ever done this with my son Jared and thought it would be nice for his 21st (a nice Margarita wouldn’t hurt either).  Now keep in mind, as a family we had been to this restaurant many times (it’s not San Diego good, but this is 3000 miles from Mexico) and had witnessed a dozen or more of these birthday processions. I of course had mentioned to the waiter that Jared was newly 21 and got the knowing wink from him. So what happens? Jared decides to go to the bathroom not 60 seconds before the big sombrero came out. So everyone reset and waited for him to return. Now my sons sitting there wondering why the bill hasn’t come yet, and curious about the large hat that had suddenly shown up in the booth a few tables back from ours. I can’t be sure, but I think he was actually quite surprised when I pulled out a digital camera. As you can see, he was thrilled about the whole thing.

Happy Birthday Jared!