Mark's Birthday Today

A day off, together.  Lovely.  We took Joaquin to his pre-school and headed into the city for breakfast at Pat's.  Pat was nice enough to take our photo:

Mark recently shaved off his goatee and mustache because Joaquin didn't want to give him kisses because he was too "pokey".  Now he looks about 25, even though he turned 39 today.  It's so annoying.  When we were dating he looked older than his true age, because he smoked and drank too much and caroused around too many late nights.  Now he eats a lot of healthy vegetarian food, never gets a night out, quit smoking, and rarely drinks more than a beer here or a glass of wine there.  So...I married a guy that looked close to my age and now...well...not so much.  Oh well, if that's my biggest complaint with him (and it is) I consider myself very fortunate.  He makes me feel loved and encouraged every day and he's a lot of fun too.

After breakfast we visited the art galleries at 49 Geary.  Had a nice little lunch at the cafe at Neiman Marcus.  We observed a driver of a Bentley suited up and standing beside the car with the door open.  Standing there for a good 20 minutes.  I thought...oh my!  A really rich person like you see in the movies is going to come out of the store soon.  Sure enough...out comes an elderly lady in a wheelchair assisted by two store employees carrying zippered garment bags.  People really do live like that!  huh. 

We headed over to one of my favorite bars, Marlena's, for a hot toddy.  And then strolled around the shops, ending up at a gourmet chocolate shop and sampling several chocolates in lieu of a birthday cake.  Too sick this week to do any baking.  This darn bronchitis just won't let go.  It was a lovely day and I never get tired of hanging out with my husband.