Joyeux anniversaire, James!

Yesterday was James' 33rd birthday. To celebrate, James got to drink a lot of tea and eat a lot of bread and some potatoes with herbes de provence. Not the most exotic or celebratory of meals but James is recovering from a bout with the stomach flu so we have postponed his birthday celebration. Dr. Ng at NU Health Services would say to wait at least three days from the last symptoms, but I think we may throw caution to the wind and celebrate tomorrow. After all, a certain other doctor at NU Health Services would tell him to take some naproxen and come back in a week, so who are we going to listen to?

James did get two new books (one in English and one in French) and he got to open these presents in the picture. No, that one on the right isn't a briefcase, it's a very clever box. It's also, however, a very small box. It's funny because the clerk who rang me up obviously saw what I was buying and these were what she gave me. When I got home, I discovered that they didn't magically unfold into something larger than they looked like they would in the store and were really the right size for a shirt or thin sweater (the one on the right) and maybe a pair of underwear and an undershirt (the one on the left, which is actually more like an envelope than a box). It made me wonder where the clerk thought I was going to put the actual items she rang up, but it turned out she was sort of right: gifts were stuffed into each container (and they didn't tear -- neither the gifts, nor the boxes!) and another was "wrapped" in the plastic shopping bag from the store. I don't know where you buy boxes and wrapping paper around here yet.

The good thing is that once James is totally recovered, he can celebrate in style!