Birthday Labor
This weekend was marked by 2 birthday celebrations with a Labor Day thrown in for good measure.
On Saturday, Beth and I went down to Tucson for her aunt's 72nd birthday. It was a surprise party thrown by Beth's cousin Gary, and by all accounts it was a raging success. Beth's Aunt Inger (who is 75) flew in from Long Island to cap the surprise. The neat thing about Beth's Aunt Betty is that she's got a great sense of humor. In fact, I heard more off-color jokes come out of her mouth than I typically hear from most of my friends.
So we got down to Tucson around 1, helped set things up, and had the party. Around 7:00, we headed back to Phoenix. Ron's wife Elizabeth was also having a birthday party, which ostensibly started at 7:30. We got there around 8:45, enjoyed some burgers, chatted with a bunch of people, had a good time but left around 10:30 because we were beat.
On Sunday evening, we met Paul, Maureen, Ron and Elizabeth at Farrelli's Cinema Supper Club to see Terminator 3. Beth and I had never been, but we were mighty impressed. The quality of food was excellent - what you'd expect to find in a very nice restaurant. Our only previous experience with dinner-movie places was the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. However, they target the burgers-n-beer crowd, whereas Farrelli's is much more upscale. Whereas the Alamo Drafthouse would play trailers for tacky B movies before the main event, with Farrelli's, you get to watch a video of Peter Gabriel's US tour. Anyway, if you want to impress your date, Farrelli's would be a better pick, but if you wanted to relax and feel like you're still in college, the Alamo has your back.
Terminator 3 was good, but not great. The ending is definitely not what I expected, and I'm not sure if it leaves the door open for a sequel or shuts it for good. I had the Fettuccini con pollo with Chipotle cream sauce, and it was fantastic. Beth had the Chicken Farrelli, and she really enjoyed it as well. There were moments when I found myself with fork in hand, not eating because of the action on screen, and other moments when I was eating a little too intently and I missed something. Still, it wasn't that big of a nuisance. Afterwards, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. The cheesecake was good as always.
We spent Labor Day lounging around. We got some stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond that we'd been needing for a while and got a USB memory stick fob at Fry's for Beth's classwork. We also did some yardwork. Beth cut the grass and trimmed some bushes while I did some work on the two big trees in the backyard.