A Birthday, Some Recipes, and New Tires

Last Saturday was my son Devon's 21st birthday. It was a tough one since the same week marked one year since the death of Billy, Devon's older brother and my oldest son. So, there was sadness and and happiness mingled together.

I planned a surprise party for Devon. He is part of a Bible study at at protestant church, so I got all those people to come. My brothers and my sister were there. Actually, my sister, because she lives in a very large house that was designed entertaining let us have the party at her house. Also, several of Devon's cousins were there. His fave cake is cheese cake so I had one of those made for him by Sugar, Butter, Flour.

Everyone brought the ingredients to make a cocktail for Devon to try. He tasted a Campari Cocktail (2 parts gin, 1 part Campari, shaken w/ ice, strained into cocktail glass, twist of lemon), a BBC, a brain hemorrhage, a watermelon collins, and some others. He especially liked my wife's Gin and Tonic made with Tanqueray and Fever Tree tonic water. Devon only tasted each drink and didn't finish any of them. Wise. All the recipes (Many of them were illustrated by the party attenders!) for the drinks he tasted, as well as happy birthday wishes from all the people celebrating with him were written in a commemorative book.

Today I bought new tires for the Cruiser. Michelin. I don't know why exactly, but all the people I know who are really into cars say the only tires worth having are French or Italian. The store I went to didn't sell Pirelli (which I had on the Acura Integra) so I went with French. But that's okay. Michelin is what I've always used on the Cruiser and it is used to those. It might not have reacted well to a change like that. You know, it's like serving Coke to a Pepsi drinker. Hmmm. Now that I think of it, maybe the reason Pirelli and Michelin are recommended has more to do with those calendars than with tire quality, after all, the people who swear by the tires are men. I mean, do BF Goodrich and Yokohama even have calendars? Let alone, world famous limited edition collector item calendars?

There is one thing I'm not sure about. I usually buy tires with 800 hardness ratings (When I had the Integra and regularly drove over 110 mph I used to care about speed and traction ratings, too. I don't worry about those with the Cruiser.) so I'll get 90,000 to 100,000 miles out of them before I need to replace them. Unfortunately, this store, the store with the best prices, only special-orders tires with hardness ratings up where I like them. So, because I am always pressed for time, and because I have a long road trip coming up soon, I got the off-the-shelf 740 rated tire. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts compared to the 800s I just got rid of.

For dinner tonight I made something my mother always called Summer Salad. I diced several tomatoes, two cucumbers, half a red onion and dressed it with mirin. Anselm Samuel and Basil Wenceslas didn't eat it (they hate onion) but Devon Abram had several servings. That made me happy. He isn't really used to the way we eat yet, especially during the fasts. I'm very glad to have made something he likes.