Thursday

Kyle turned 25 on Wednesday the 14th. Laura had to coach that evening so she said she'd take him out to celebrate on Friday but she gave him his gift on Wednesday. She planned, though, to have a surprise dinner party for him at Benihana's on Thursday evening. She had invited his dad, his siblings, his cousin from Long Beach, and several co-workers. Laura and Kyle would drop by the house, I would mention what a great happy hour they had at Benihana's and that the free birthday dinners there were only good from Monday through Thursday. Laura would suggest they go right then, and I would volunteer to take care of the baby. That all happened as planned. Since Dad was in the Health Care Center now, I didn't worry about how late I would go to visit him. If Laura and Kyle got back at 8:30 or 9:00, I'd go over and see Dad for a while and then get home to be in bed by 11:00 because I was scheduled to teach until 1:00 p.m. on Friday, a minimum day. Laura and Kyle didn't get home until after 10:30, and by then I was ready for bed. Even running into his cousin in the parking lot and seeing his brother on the sidewalk hadn't tipped Kyle off to the surprise party. When they got to the happy hour, 10 people were there to celebrate with him. It went off beautifully. Kyle had lost count of the shots he'd had upstairs at happy hour. The party had migrated down to the restaurant where everyone ate dinner complete with chefs twirling giant knives and throwing eggs in their pockets and nesting them in their hats. The food and drink flowed freely, and Kyle was blissfully, obnoxiously drunk by the time they got to my place. They spent the night out in my guest house. Early the next morning, after Laura and I had had coffee and Kyle had purged himself of all of the prior evening's imbibings, we headed off to our respective jobs.