Another Year Older
A few minutes before the end of work yesterday, I heard a familiar sound climbing the stairs through the building towards my office, followed by a co-worker saying “hello!?” in a somewhat surprised fashion. I turned around to be greeted by three teenage girls, and my other half. They stood quietly, grinning, and watched while I checked source code in from the command line.
“He’s making all that up – just typing things in to look like he knows what he’s doing.”
Everybody smiled, and I said my goodbyes. After climbing into the car parked outside, we headed straight for the local cinema, and the “LEGO Batman” movie. I’m not sure I would necessarily have picked it myself, but within moments of the movie starting it became obvious if we had chosen something else, we would have missed out. It was fantastic -I haven’t laughed so much in a very long time. I’m not going to ruin it with spoilers – let’s just say it’s chock full of easter eggs, and clever references to just about every appearance of Batman on both big and small screens since the 1960s.
After the cinema, we moved next door to a faux American Italian restaurant called “Frankie and Benny’s”, where half the town appeared to be out to celebrate birthdays. After eating my own body weight in burgers, and drinking the first bottle of Budweiser I’ve had in years, the restaurant kicked into the regulation “let’s embarrass the customer as much as we can” rendition of “Happy Birthday” – along with cake, candles, and sparklers. I thought the children were going to die laughing.
While settling the bill, our waiter quietly sidled up to me, and said “Embarrassed?” – I nodded – he grinned, and waved goodbye.
So. I’m another year older. I’ve now completed quite a number of laps of the sun. I wonder what the coming year will hold in store? I know what this weekend holds in store – washing clothes, tidying the wreck of a house up, and all the usual chores that cause you to wonder why you look forward to the weekend.