I know I can’t be the only one. But I’d still wager that not many folks have had their incredibly talented spouse whip them up a Super Grover Cake for their birthday.
Yeah, my beautiful wife Allison took me completely by surprise this year with my cake. It was truly the perfect ending to a 51st birthday I wasn’t quite expecting.
I started with a relaxing morning working on a Lego Atari 2600 set and then went out for a late breakfast (early lunch) of blueberry pancakes at the diner with my no-longer-a-teenager son Jason. We read some comics too, and waited for Ryan to come home from high school.
Then it was off to the movies!
A Spectacular Movie
We headed to the Palisades Mall to watch Sony’s just-released Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. I really dug the first one and had heard some good things about this one too.
Without giving anything away (Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse Review coming soon!), I will say that it blew me away. I loved it so much more than the first and honestly wish it was longer than its 2 hours 16 minute runtime.
What I can tell you, though, is we glitched while watching this movie. We were about 2 hours into the film, with the big finale just starting. All three of us were lost in this amazing animated reality when…
The lights burst on.
The movie stopped.
And a faint beeping sound began. Kind of like when Alexa tells you your timer is up.
“What the heck is going on?” was pretty much what everyone in the theater was asking.
No one came in to tell us what was up. Instead, everyone slowly got up and exited the theater. And that’s when we saw everyone else leaving their theaters and employees ushering us all out of the entire cinema.
The main doors were closed and they rushed us out the exits. Lights were flashing, so clearly that light beeping was the movie’s fire alarms.
We waited outside the AMC Theater for probably about 20-30 minutes, along with probably another 50 to 100 people just standing around. Not once did anyone from the theater come out to tell us what was going on.
We did see police go in and out. Then a few firemen went in and out.
Then the doors opened.
Then they closed.
This was definitely not the way I thought my day would go.
Eventually they opened the doors and started letting everyone back in, checking our tickets. Unfortunately, they said any movie that started prior to 4 pm (ours started at 3) was not going to be continued. You’d have to start over at the next showing. Instead, they gave us 6 free passes to any future movies we wanted to see.
Annoyed. Disappointed. Dying to know how it ended. That’s what me and my boys felt as we headed back to our car.
I’m not going to say that we managed to find the movie already online somewhere just to watch the ending. Nope, I won’t say it. But I will say that “somehow” we now know how it ends…
I definitely hope to head back and see it again, in its entirety.
Some Scrumptious Seafood
Next up was an amazingly delicious seafood dinner at Gilligan’s Clam Bar and Grill. (The shrimp quesadillas were out of this world!) What we didn’t order, however, was the torrential rain that started just as we pulled into the parking lot. And it lasted a good half hour too.
Gilligan’s is a really fun, casual restaurant with a tropical vibe. The food’s pretty amazing too, with a crazy varied menu. Throughout dinner, though, the rain was beating down so hard against the metal roof that it was hard to hear anyone speak, even at the same table.
What’s worse, sit was down pouring so incredibly hard, that a few areas of the roof started leaking a bit. Luckily our table was safe and we ate our entire meal without getting wet. Just another wacky part of this 51st birthday.
I will add that the staff at Gilligan’s was fabulous at moving tables around quickly, mopping up floors and making sure everyone was okay.
Powerful Presents
As a family, we normally exchange presents after cake. But we were all so full from dinner that we needed to digest a bit. So we headed into the living room for the gift-giving event.
And I was seriously spoiled yet again.
It started with this adorably perfect Chewbacca Birthday Card. Besides the fuzzy Chewie on the front of the card, the best part is all the little Chewbacca heads on the inside of the envelope. Who knew Star Wars could be so classy?
Talk about a big score for this comic book and Star Wars geek. I finally got myself a good reading copy of Batman: The Killing Joke (so I don’t have to read my 1st printing), and I’ve been dying to read Batman: Three Jokers for years.
You can never go wrong with Peter Porker, and I’ve been looking to replace my old Sandman trade paperback collection for awhile, so I now have one cohesive collection of all things Dream.
Jason got me this gorgeous whiskey glass (at least that’s what I’ll be using it for!), with an AT-AT beautifully etched on the side.
Ryan gifted me with the latest literary work of the insanely talented Alan Moore. This one’s a series of short stories by the Watchmen author, so hopefully I can get through them all without my mind exploding.
And you may be shocked to hear this, but I finally got my first-ever Twisted Sister T-shirt. I will (and already have) wear it proudly.
Opening all those presents definitely worked up an appetite for me. Which was good because it was cake time!
Super Grover Cake
Last year, Allie did the unthinkable and somehow made me a Galactus Birthday Cake. I’m still in shock at how she pulled it off, including the half-eaten Earth and dozens of superhero cupcakes to battle the Planet Eater.
Granted, it was my 50th birthday and how do you celebrate a big birthday? With a big cake, that’s how.
So this year, I had no idea how she’d top herself. Well, she not only surprised me, she made what is arguably one of the cutest, most adorably delicious cakes you’ll ever see in your life.
Fifty one years to wait for a Super Grover cake? Definitely worth it!
My wife, the true superhero in my life.
Me and the boys, mere moments before doing what no other supervillain has achieved to date… devouring Super Grover.
I probably need to show the boys (and some of you readers) a few classic Sesame Street episodes so you’ll truly understand the pure genius that is Super Grover. Well, consider this the start of your education.
🙂 Congrats and happy birthday!