Mak and Jack: The 200 year old man

My husband loves breakfast at any time of the day, so when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner the answer came as no surprise. I tried to think of various places that serve breakfast all day -- Denny's came to mind -- but I decided that Nate 'n Al's, a deli in Beverly Hills, would be more fun and would offer those who didn't care to have eggs for dinner a greater range of choices. I spoke to the (young) assistant of one of our guests to give him the directions and details for the soiree and he was speechless. He was stunned that I would host a dinner at a deli and not follow it up with a round of drinks at a bar or some dancing. Yeah, well that's happens when you suddenly have 2 kids and the big "45" is in your rear-view mirror and you don't want to cook and scrape pancake batter off the kitchen counter, let alone your hair. The small group who attended were amused and thought the whole thing was cool and original.

The evening was a hoot and the bonus: A celebrity sighting of Larry King eating his dinner. I told everyone who would listen that "this was a birthday fit for a king." I had the waitress put the number "200" on the apple pie (my better half does not like cake) -- thinking I was being clever ala "Mel Brooks, the 200 year old man." Except, in typical Isabelle malapropism fashion, I was off by a couple of thousand years, 'cause it's the Two Thousand Year Old Man and hubby wasn't as amused by my cleverness, as I was.

Mak and Jack were in attendance and carried themselves extremely well, or so I thought. I gave Jack the camera to let him take pictures (and to keep him from complaining that he was the only kid there) and I was shocked to see the framing on some of his shots after we got home.