Zingerman’s Giant Hat Box of Great Stuff

We may have overdone it for Anne’s birthday, at least in the food department. We couldn’t even finish our Acero entrees last night and had to repackage their accompanying salads for later consumption. By bedtime, we were still too full from dinner that we never did taste any of Anne’s homemade strawberry pie. Instead, we had some of that for breakfast today. Quarantine 15 be damned. The two extra pasta dishes are both big enough to supply us two a meal, each on their own. Then there is the little matter of the Zingerman’s box. It appeared yesterday, magically, as if in a puff of blue smoke. Even though I was doing yardwork in the front yard, I never did see its arrival, but only noticed it sitting there, on the front porch. Ostensibly, a Mother’s Day present, it had written on the box an order to open it immediately, which we dutifully complied with.

Inside its cubic cardboard exterior, was this big beautiful pictured cylindrical wooden box. Anne immediately made plans to turn it into a yarn box. You know how small children sometimes and cats almost always are more intrigued with the empty box that a present came in, than with the actual present itself? We had that kind of reaction too, at least until we opened the box. It was chock full of goodies that fortunately have enough shelf life that they too won’t be clamoring to be immeadiately eaten. That will allow us the opportunity to stretch out our food consumption a bit. After all, May is Anne’s birthday month.

Speaking of cats, I got Anne a cat themed birthday card. It followed in the rather bawdy birthday card tradition initiated by her father and his brother Louie. They both share the same birthday, just six years apart. This is a tradition that she too participated in, when Louie got too old to carry on without some help. The cover of the card featured cartoons of four cats, doing typical cat-like things (eating, sleeping, crawling head first into an empty box and did I mention sleeping?) and a caption that read, “4 out of 5 cats don’t care that it’s your birthday.” Inside the card is the punchline, delivered with another cartoon, this one of a cat licking its privates, “Okay. It’s actually 5 out of 5—But I care and that’s all that matters.” It was a complete success and elicited a hardy laugh from the birthday girl.