The Wrong Night for a Reservation

February fourteenth. Simone's birthday. Also, as Simone will tell you, and did tell me, approximately four times between Tuesday's session and last night, Valentine's Day is the single worst day to have a birthday if you enjoy eating at a restaurant that does not have 'prix fixe only' printed in red at the top of the menu. She is not wrong. She has refined this opinion over thirty-one years and it has the density of something load-bearing.

We picked a place that wasn't trying to be anything last night. A gastropub two neighborhoods over that apparently did not feel the need to drape itself in paper hearts and charge an extra forty dollars for a special menu. We got a corner table. It was loud for the first hour and then gradually less loud, the way those places go on a Friday when the couples have a reservation somewhere else and the birthday-havers have the room to themselves. That photo was taken at peak volume. I don't know what Simone had just said but I know it was correct.

There is a version of a birthday dinner that requires effort, the reservation you made six weeks out, the dress you bought for it, the moment where you feel slightly like you are performing having a good time. Last night was not that.

Birthday energy, specifically

It was the version where Simone made an extremely specific complaint about something and I watched it unspool for several minutes and then we ordered another round. Near the end of the night she got quiet in the good way, the way she gets when she is actually settled rather than performing settled, and I took a photograph without making it a thing.

End-of-night light

I'm glad I did.

Happy birthday to Simone, who has strong opinions, efficient posture, and the patience of someone who has been on their feet for years. Thirty-one. The wrong night for a reservation, again, and still exactly right.