Despite a life full of hardship and trials, however, Tyler Douglas Earley, III has managed to pull through a true hero. He still walks, he still breaths, and he still finds joy in the simple things -- just yesterday he discovered he loves cleaning the house. I nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
But enough about his past. Let's talk about his present (as in the time, and not the gift), because to celebrate 25 long and fruitful years, we ventured into a land unknown for food which would prove to not only sustain us for the long winter as we hibernated in our little cave in Lebanon, but would lead us to stake a claim in the ever-growing obesity epidemic in America.
Yesterday, after I got done working, I arrived home to find my Nobel laureate sweeping the floor. I couldn't help but sweep him up and tell him that this was the best gift he could ever give me on his birthday. I then stepped back and officially declared the winter holiday season open. We were on vacation, baby! We loaded up our many, many suitcases into the little Acura, dropped off the plate of cookies someone had given to us the day before (but that we didn't have time to eat) to our downstairs neighbors (Happy Holidays) and headed up to Portland to seek out a highly recommended Italian gem.
An hour and a half later we arrived in the ghetto of Hillsboro. We hoped the food would be worth us risking our lives (and our trunk full of presents for all our fabulous readers). Nevertheless, we entered Nonna Emilia. The place was packed, and there were dancing babies on the padded booth benches. I'm not exaggerating. There was a creepy, bearded man in a Santa hat playing his accordion to these children's delight, and he must've delighted them for 25 minutes as we waited for our table. We looked at one another and read each other's thoughts: We hoped he would not come bring that delight to our table.
Luckily, we were soon whisked away to our table and given our menus. It was a gold star sticker day and there on the menu was Tyler's most favorite food an ingenious Italian had ever created -- the mozzarella stick! So we ordered that, as well as our entrees. Tyler got the chicken parmesan and I got the whole wheat spaghetti with a side of two meatballs. We were starving. Soon our appetizer arrived with 12 beautiful golden mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce. I quickly ate four. Tyler ate eight. Then our salads and garlic bread and antipasto made an appearance. By this time, I was already feeling just a little less hungry. Nevertheless, we ate our salads and our bread and our meats and cheeses (and yes, even sliced pickles and a baby carrot). Forty-five minutes later, we were feeling pretty loaded up. The only problem was that we kept on seeing people around us get their food, and the plates looked poised to feed a football team full of growth-spurtting middle school boys. We waited in fear.
Meanwhile, the creepy accordion man had made his way up to the area where our table was located. He approached the tables one by one, blasting his annoying instrument into the ears of people trying to peacefully down their prehistoric sized meatballs. Conveniently located on top of his accordion was a clip with money on it. So that was his motive...riches and fame. We were so not going to contribute to this charade. Tyler scooted really close to me, and told me that if we looked like we were having an intense conversation, or a really romantic moment, maybe he wouldn't come bother us. I told him to just stay still and to not make eye contact. We could feel the bearded man's eyeballs burning into the backs of our heads. Yet we stayed strong. And we emerged victorious.
When the waitress brought our food, Tyler's chicken arrived on a plate the size of of my femur bone (with a side of ravioli) and my plate arrived as a mountain of noodles and sauce to the height of Mt. Kilimanjaro My meatballs were as big as my head. We looked at each other in sheer amazement. To make a long story short, I think I ate three bites and could no longer move. Tyler might have eaten a couple more bites than that, even if he did eat twice as many mozzarella sticks as me. We had the waitress box up our barely dented pasta, paid the bill, and waddled out of there into the ghetto-fabulous night sky. It was a horrible feeling to be so full, but at the same time, it brought great peace and joy to our hearts, knowing we would not have to feed ourselves for the next five days. We imagined all the things we could do with that extra time and money -- go on a cruise, see the pyramids of Egypt, or sleep.
It was a good day, all and all. Tyler completed his 25th year trying to evade the sounds of a creepy Santa, and we enjoyed some good quality time together eating our next year's worth of fruitful harvest.
May his 25th year be full of fewer wars, less famine, less sickness, fewer heart attacks and dead bodies, and more full of cleaning the house.
Tyler Douglas Earley, III.....Happy Birthday. I love you.
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