A Crowning Achievement.

I am having breakfast. With the girls. At a homey little cafe nestled on a creek by a liquor store. It is my birthday breakfast. My girls are ordering pancakes and hash browns and eggs of all types; scrambled, over-easy and even poached.

Note: I made poached eggs. Once. I did not eat them. The process reminded me too much of a water birth I saw once on TLC.

I am ordering a bowl of oatmeal. With raisins and cinnamon. The oatmeal comes with a little teeny pot of milk and a couple of pats of butter. I do not understand the pats of butter. On oatmeal? Really? Butter?

Note: My older brother ate a cube of butter once. Just to be that way. Well, actually it was imperial margarine. The kind that had commercials back in the day where you ate the butter and a crown magically appeared on your head. I don't know why.

Note: A crown did not magically appear on my brother's head, although his prank caused another of my brothers to gag and hang his head over the kitchen sink. Which is just as good as a crown anyway.

At the precise moment of my ordering the oatmeal, hot cocoa is delivered to one of my girls. It is crowned--yes, crowned-- with the most delightful tower of whipped cream.

I must have some for my oatmeal, I am thinking. I love whipped cream on almost anything. Especially oatmeal. I will order some whipped cream on the side. For my oatmeal.

Heck, yes!

May I have some whipped cream in a little bowl? I ask the waitress, a smiling girl in her mid-twenties with her hair pulled back in a headband the way I wish I could wear mine and look to be in my mid-twenties. Or mid-thirties. Or ...

Yes, she says. And then comes the crowning moment of the morning.

Would you like that with your meal or would you like me to bring it out now?

Whipped cream? In a bowl? Right now? Are you kidding me?

Happy birthday to me!