To some of you, the title of this blog may appear to be insane gibberish. But that's only because you're an uncultured American capitalist pig-dog! The letters in the title are Cyrillic; the language is Russian; and the message (translated into English) is "Happy Birthday To Me." My thirty-ninth birthday celebration (yikes!) involved a little bit of Russia and a little bit of outer-space drama. But, sadly, there were no cosmonauts included with the outer-space drama; that would have been an amazingly awesome culmination. But as it was, my birthday still turned out pretty well.
Space stuff first: I snagged a copy of Andy Weir's bestselling hit The Martian from our local library. I'd been hearing a lot of buzz about the book and thought I'd give it a try. It turned out to be even better than I'd expected, and it hit all my sci-fi- and space-adventure-loving buttons. The story is a simple one: The first manned expedition has landed on Mars and is settling into its base camp when a large freak storm forces the astronauts into an emergency evacuation. One of the astronauts, a botanist/engineer named Mark Watney, is swept away in the storm during the evacuation; he is lost and presumed dead. But in truth, Watney survived the storm, and now faces the prospect of surviving alone on Mars for a long time while awaiting rescue.
It's a pretty simple premise, but it makes for an engrossing, thrilling book; it reads much like an interplanetary, high-tech version of Robinson Crusoe (with a bit of Apollo 13 thrown in). Watney is the narrator for large chunks of the book, and he is such an engaging, funny, brilliant, and optimistic character that it's impossible not to start looking for the upside to every single near-death experience he has. Watney has to contact NASA (with no working communications array); feed himself for several years (only one month of food was sent with the astronauts); produce enough water for him to survive; and transport his entire base of operations several thousand kilometers away, to the site of the next landing party. This is all explained and carried out with page upon page of scientific babble, but it's done in such a matter-of-fact and clear way that I, as a non-sciency person, was able to follow it pretty easily. I won't lie; the story beats are somewhat predictable, but it's inspiring and fun to read all the same.
And then, just after I finished reading the book, Nathan and I were able to go see the movie adaptation of The Martian in theaters to celebrate my birthday! I'd actually heard about the movie's release a few months before; it's what inspired me to check out the book in the first place (I try to make a habit out of reading a book before seeing the movie adaptation).
I was a little worried the movie would disappoint, after enjoying the book so much. Isn't that often the case with movie adaptations? Luckily, it ended up being very enjoyable as well. Matt Damon, besides being an attractive fellow, is a great actor and he was the perfect guy to portray Mark Watney. In fact, the whole cast was excellent, and the script and the direction were all top-notch. I did notice a few changes in the story (and I was surprised by how many "big events" from the book's final third were left out of the last third of the movie), but I recognized that these were changes that streamlined the story and made it more "cinematic" without removing any of the drama or significant plot points. It was a great film and I'd highly recommend it! Older kids and teens would probably enjoy it as well (just watch out for some of the salty language that is sprinkled throughout).
Our movie date was just the first portion of my birthday date. Since Grandma Barrett was not available to babysit on Saturday, October 24th, we decided to split my birthday date "down the middle," doing the movie on the 24th, and the dinner a couple of weeks later when Grandma was available. Side note: our trip to see The Martian in theaters was also the first time we'd gone on a date while leaving our children behind unattended. Nathan and I were very nervous; the girls less so (of course!). But things all worked out in the end; we adults enjoyed our movie in the theater, the kids enjoyed their movie at home. In fact, all three girls were peacefully asleep in their beds when we arrived home. We are so grateful to have such obedient, well-behaved girls. Let's hope that trend continues into their teenage years.
The "dinner" portion of my birthday date took place a couple of weeks later, on Saturday, November 7th. For a couple of years now, I had wanted to try out Kalina, a Russian/Ukrainian restaurant in northeast Tucson. We first heard of them via their booth at Tucson Meet Yourself, and it gave me a taste of their delicious cooking. Though I acknowledge Russian cuisine isn't among the world's finest, it has a special place in my heart because of the time I spent in Moscow as a missionary for the LDS Church many years ago. Nathan thought my birthday would be a good time to finally try Kalina out; that, plus we had some coupons!
When we arrived, we found that there was to be a large family gathering there that same night, and the long table had already been completely decked out for their arrival. The place settings were so beautiful (and the food smelled so good) that I was immediately filled with confidence as to Kalina's quality.
We'd looked at the menu online before arriving, but we'd had a hard time deciding what to order. Once we arrived, however, we discovered a new item, unlisted on the website: the "First Russian Dinner for Two." It was basically a seven-course meal, with a sampling of a lot of famous Russian dishes. It didn't have every item Nathan and I were interested in, but it was close enough!
As you can tell, I was pretty darn excited to get started.
I did splurge a bit and get a pot of tea. If I'm eating Russian food, then I'd darn well better have some tea to go with it! This was lemongrass tea, which was delicious, but I think I'd like to try another kind next time. Nathan doesn't drink hot drinks, so I had the whole pot to myself! Hee hee hee.
We got a small basket with some rye bread and white rolls. Neither type was the best bread in the world, but it was the only mediocre part of the evening. First course was an appetizer platter: it featured salami slices, a mushroom deviled egg, a blue cheese pastry "bite," a salmon roll, and a slice of bread with tomato/eggplant bruschetta:
Soup course was next, featuring borscht, the most famous Russian soup, and a potato barley soup. They were both good, but one guess as to which one I was slavering over the most:
Russians aren't much for green salads, so both the salads in the salad course made heavy use of root vegetables. The top salad is known as an "Olivier" salad; it has potatoes, carrots, ham, eggs, and peas. The bottom salad is the "Vinegret": it has beets, carrots, peas, and pickles. Both were delicious!
We got vareniki (top) and pelmeni (bottom) as our next course. Russians love these little boiled dumplings, and will fill them with a wide variety of ingredients. On this night, the vareniki contained mushrooms and the pelmeni contained pork. These were probably my favorite part of the meal..definitely the best vareniki I've had since my mission!
The main course was beef stroganoff, which is beef in a heavy cream and mushroom sauce poured over egg noodles. Done right, it can be very tasty (if a bit heavy). Nathan loved it, and I did too...but I was getting pretty full by this point, so I had to take most of my plate home!
For dessert, we got a nice lemon layer cake to share. It was the perfect finish for our heavy meal; we needed something lighter!
Overall, we were both very impressed. Everything was delicious, and the service was prompt, helpful, and friendly. We will definitely be returning! We took the long way home, and tried to get a look at the building site of the new LDS temple that's going up in Tucson, but by this time it was quite dark and we couldn't see much. Oh well, there will be plenty of chances to revisit it later!
So what did I do on my actual birthday? Not much...just ate some cake...
...namely, this carrot cake (not pumpkin cake; the pumpkin's just there to look cute) that I made myself. The cake was covered with white chocolate-cream cheese frosting; sooo delicious. I invited some friends over to help me eat it. It wasn't a huge celebration, but I didn't need a big party. I got to go on multiple birthday dates, and had a great time at each one. Even though I'm older now, at least I'm still well-fed and happy; I must never take those two things for granted.
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