Day one of the 47th orbit around the Sun

As I mentioned earlier, the first day of my 47th orbit around the Sun began with a kiss and a smile from my beloved wife, who drove me into the kitchen decorated with balloons reading “46” and “Happy Birthday.” She was hurrying me because the sign, attached with tape, was trying to peel off and fall down.

The first surprise was waiting for me in an insulated bag—three 50-gram jars of different types of black caviar. I adore this delicacy, although I rarely indulge in it—I haven’t earned that much yet. I was overjoyed by the gift.

We immediately opened one jar and spread the caviar on sandwiches. For the first time in her life, Masha appreciated the taste of caviar and finally admitted that she really did like it. Operation Pygmalion has begun to bear fruit :)

For the first time in a long while, Sonya got up in the morning, apologized for her behavior the day before, and gave me a beautiful unusual drawing with mountains, roads, and everything upside down. On the way to work I dropped Leah off at daycare; she congratulated me very reluctantly—she was shy.

The workday passed in the usual bustle: lots of calls, messages, congratulations—pleasant. In the evening I picked Leah up from daycare, took her home to the nanny, and we headed off by taxi to celebrate. Masha handed me a backpack stuffed tightly with something and called the cab. We got to Paveletskaya and got out of the car, thinking the driver’s navigation had glitched, but it turned out my own internal navigation system had overheated—I had mixed up the embankments.

We arrived at the meeting point a little late, where a young guy greeted us. He led us into an entranceway, instructively asked us to keep quiet, took us up to the attic, and then—through pigeon nests—to an exit onto the roof. On the roof he asked us to step on the seams of the tiles so there would be less noise. The roof was sloped. Masha was clearly uneasy, and I still did not understand what kind of event this was. It turned out the guys illegally sell roof tours and organize rooftop picnics. The young man asked us not to approach the edge and hid from my phone camera when I filmed the panorama. Then, at my request, he took a few photos of us together and disappeared.

Once we were alone on the roof, Masha admitted she was scared. Still, over time she was able to relax. We ate “future billionaire” cake, I blew out the candles, we drank nonalcoholic sparkling wine, and enjoyed the sunset and the life of this beautiful city. After sunset we climbed down from the roof and finally exhaled at street level.

Afterward we went to a nearby restaurant called Rakovaya. I tried crayfish for the first time. Like lobster, but lobster tastes better. The birthday was a success!