Today is Dan’s 30th birthday, hooray! Happy Birthday! My mom lovingly asked me if I was a cougar since I am the older woman (by 1 year). No, but thanks for placing me in the company of such luminaries as Ivana Trump and Joan Collins, mom. Anyhoo, I made Dan’s favorite childhood cake, a molasses-spice-coffee cake concoction. I could not find molasses anywhere, so I substituted some brown sugar and honey, cross your fingers that it worked!
As I type, I’m listening to the sounds of a film crew outside the window. This week a téléfilm, “Tombé sur la tête” is filming in the restaurant at the end of our street. It’s supposed to take place in Paris so they have conveniently changed the street signs to Paris street signs (good luck Belgian drivers!) We are pretending we live in Paris for the day, oh la la. I think it’s for some sort of mini-series or t.v. movie, but I’m not sure. I may have walked through a shot when I went to the market, so I’ll let you know if I’m on Belgian t.v. anytime soon (in ripped jeans and a wrinkled shirt, the shame!)
I think the summer is winding down, as evidenced by the cooler, rainier weather and kids in school uniforms. We did manage to take a few holiday’s over the past couple months, which were lovely. We went to Luxembourg, which was incredibly charming, and to Bastogne, Belgium in the Ardennes forest (site of the Battle of the Bulge). We both loved the t.v. series Band of Brothers, (which is based on the experiences of Easy Company, a Parachute Infantry Regiment from the 101st Airborne Division) and really enjoyed seeing the sites where the members of Easy Co. fought . You can still see the foxholes that soldiers dug in the forest–eerie and amazing.
We also took a trip to Dublin–Dan is working on a project with some colleagues at Trinity University, so I came along, we stayed an extra day and made a holiday out of it. This is the second time we’ve gone to Ireland together. We went 2 years ago as a sort of honeymoon. I say sort of, because Dan had a conference to attend, so basically I had a vacation, Dan had to work and Dan’s job paid for most of it. Kind of a win? As we walked around Dublin, ate bagels(!), and spoke english(!!), we realized that 2 years ago Dublin felt foreign compared to the U.S., and now Dublin feels like the U.S. compared to Brussels–the language, the look of the city, the bagels (did I mention how much we miss bagels?) Ah, perspective.
Well, it’s almost time to go out and celebrate the fact that Dan is getting old like me. Happy September, happy back to school, and here’s hoping for a dry, beautiful fall–my favorite season.
p.s. We had some technical difficulties here at Unintentional Housewife so this post is a day late, unfortunately. The good news is that he liked it! He really liked it! The cake was a success!
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