Happy Bird-thday!

The gang, celebrating on in the cockpit on Gaviota

3 years ago yesterday Dan had his emergency surgery, and now we celebrate that close call. In the hospital, they'd given him steriods that made him ravenously hungry, yet he couldn't use his right hand very well, so how to eat? He joked that he was like a baby bird, always hungry yet all he could do was tip his head up, mouth open, and wait to be fed. So "bird" became his private nickname, thus "bird-thday."

We had a fabulous weekend! Dan had suggested that he wanted a quiet, private celebration but that was not to be! Friday, we were sitting in the cockpit having a cocktail and quiet conversation when Pete & Tracy dinghied by and stopped in for a chat. No sooner had they left when Juan and Pablo came over. We pulled out all the snacks, olives and hummus and cheese and wine, and talked until well after dark. Never did have dinner!

Saturday, friend RoseAnn suggested we have a special dinner composed of all Dan's favorite foods to echo the time he couldn't eat. We bought salmon, potatoes, green beans, broccoli. But instead of a quiet dinner, we were invited to Juans for a 'small gathering' that turned out to be the Fiesta de San Ysidro (sp?) - the festival devoted to the patron saint of Juan's home town of Madrid. Hilarious bilingual conversation and fantastic food. And learned some fascinating cultural tidbits. For example, Juan's friend Antonio (sociologist? middle school social studies teacher?) said that you could divide people culturally in Central and South America based on the native Indian tribe they descended from, and which starch they favored and would eat nothing else - thus Mexico is a 'corn' culture; and one area is rice and beans; and further south they use potatoes; etc. And Pablo had us all in stitches as he described running with the bulls as a teenager. When we'd eaten and drunk our fill, we went home and were dissecting the party (a.k.a gossiping) when we heard a loud BANG! We looked topside and there were fireworks that we saw twice - once in the sky, and once reflected in the creek. The fireworks were for the end of the semester at the Naval Academy, but for us, they celebrated 3 years without cancer.