Yesterday was my life partner's birthday.   Asked what he wanted to "do" for his birthday, he said he wanted to have the second annual birthday lobster fest, with the usual suspects.  Not all of the usual suspects were in town, but those who were joined us.

The table was covered with newspaper.  The fish store had partly cooked (and therefore already killed) the lobsters.  The corn was husked.   The salad was ready.  It looked odd, since I usually insist on a certain level of formality at the dining room table.  Like, no plastic margarine containers.   And condiments put into dishes, instead of being put on the table in jars.   But this was a lobster fest, and informal was the name of the game.

An hour later, the table was a sea of firy red lobster bodies and shells, pale lemon yellow cadaverous corn cobs, interrupted by white plates, little flashes of silver from the lobster forks and other cutlery, and clouds of crumpled up paper napkins.  Yuck.  But the feast was worth it, and the clean-up a snap.   It doesn't take long to wrap up everything that isn't a dish or an implement in the newspaper and put it in the garbage.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Of course, in a hurry, it's inevitable that something wanted will be expelled with the unwanted; this year, it was only one lobster fork.  Not bad, all things considered.

But, the best was yet to come.  The birthday boy also got his choice of cakes: chocolate. Not any fancy, nouvelle anything kind of chocolate your understand.  Last year, we did a chocolate torte -- to die for, and enough serious chocolate to produce a migraine (for me) that lasted two days.  But, the love of my life announced afterwords, tactfully and privately, that he'd really have preferred Duncan Heinz.  I can't make either, but I could have bought on that was more like the mix, surely!

This year, Nora announced she would be responsible for the cake.   I knew what had inpsired this, but the birthday boy didn't.  A cake decorating store near her, that bakes and decorates cakes and sells all the paraphernalia that goes with it, had a cake tin in the window that she noticed, and decided then it would have to be.  It was none other than Marvin the Martian.  (In case you're not familiar with Marvin, you can see that he's still bringing Warner Brothers major money, even after all these years.)

To call Marvin my sweetie's hero would be wrong; his hero is Buckaroo Bonzai: astronaut, physicist and rock musician.  But Marvin is his favourite cartoon character.  His office is a shrine to Marvin.  Despite the high and numerous stacks of computer mags, software boxes, and other mystery piles, there are still Marvin signs visible. "Surrender, earthlings" reads on plaque.  The mouse pad is Marvin.  He even has the cel of Marvin and the other Warner Brothers characters in Marvin skirts, er uniforms.

The cake was perfect: Marvin stared at us from under his broom-topped helmet.  Even in cutting and serving the first round of cake, the birthday boy left is so there were little bits of cake to the side and below his head, so that they could be seen as his feet, minus the sneakers of course. 

Among us (including left-overs home with the guests), we ate all but the head that night.  And half his head left.  The next morning, our house guest and my sweetie each had chocolate cake for breakfast.  (My mother had always wanted to write a children's book called "Chocolate Cake for Breakfast", so it seemed a fitting way to include her posthumously in the celebration.  By the time noon dessert had come and gone, there was only an eye left.  The birthday boy plus one ate that for an after-work snack.

He pronounced this a perfect birthday; it's hard to beat any meal that includes good friends, lobster and Marvin, don't you think?  He thought so!

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