T’s birthday

In our years together, T has had a string of disappointing birthdays.

The first was terrible – probably the worst. He was in a car accident the night before (thankfully no one was hurt). But he was uninsured, and got completely screwed over by the other party’s company, despite not being at fault. Then the next year he was sent out of town for work, so we weren’t even in the same city. He did, however, spend something like $100 at a bar. And finally last year we had drinks at home, ending in heinous flatmate having a bustup with his crazy girlfriend and ordering her out of the house, only to have her storm through and throw a rock through his back windscreen.

Nothing spectacular this year either (cheers, recession :P) but at least it wasn’t disastrous. I left uni early, getting a ride home with a classmate, got home shortly after lunch, and we drove over to his sister’s for a visit. She actually shares the same birthday as him, but she’s 5 years older! I felt bad that we didn’t get her a present, but we ended up buying her cigarettes which she was desperately in need of. Damn smokers.

Then we debated back and forth about what to do – the day started off with torrential rain, but eased up and got sunny later on. But it was still too cold to warrant doing anything outdoors…

We settled on going out to a nice dinner at the Angus Steakhouse which boasts the biggest steaks in town – and they are not lying!

They were huge, massive, enormous! I got through half of mine, with a little help from him, and he managed about a quarter of his.

They even have cute menus with a picture of a cow, telling you where each type of cut comes from on the animal. (Sorry vegetarians!)

And the salad bar was to die for. All you can eat, with pastas, potatoes, rices, regular caesars and coleslaws and even a couscous type thing which was divine.I’m wishing I’d taken photos… but at least I got a picture of our steaks. And that’s after we’d eaten our fill; what’s in the shot is what we took home in our doggy bags.

His leftovers...

.. and my leftover

So although I didn’t get him anything, I (obviously) paid for our meals – $32 for any steak, plus uinlimited salad – and $20 for him to spend on himself. A nice, quiet and uneventful birthday. That, and his friends came around on the Friday for the traditional beer jug – or boot, in this case. Observe…

The beer boot, warming up in the hot water cupboard and waiting for the foam to settle

I’m really not down with the 21st traditions, having been raised by typical Asians, so all this kinda shiz seems silly to me, but I just go along with it! I’m just grateful nobody expected me to drink any beer on my 21st birthday *shudder*