A's birthday

A is my labmate. So are Q,C,M,Al,L,Y and M. As it was A's birthday yesterday, Y made plans for a surprise lunch. this also involved an ice cream cake, which, as i found out is not cake after all, but just an ice cream shaped like a cake. oh well, new things. so around noonish, we made our way downtown to a little italian place. (which turned out to be closed). A had been hijacked by her friend D, who was supposed to bring her to the restaurant without her knowing that the whole lab was waiting to yell "surprise". anyway, she got there, the place was closed and so we went to the Mongolian barbeque. i expected to see hairy little men on horses carrying spears and trying to destroy everything of that side of the Hind Kush. but, to my surprise there were regular american people sitting around and regular american people serving them and regular american people cooking stuff. so this is how it worked: we each grabbed a bowl, filled it up with veggies, and meats from aself service line. we then filled up a tiny little cup with random sauces. then we waited in line to get to a huge tawa. there, the cooks standing around took our bowls and cooked them on the tawa with the sauces we had chosen. comes together really well. after the plates were cleared away, the icecream cake was brought out. apparently the lab tradition requires one to cut the cake with the handle of the knife and scream while doing so. don't ask me, i just work here. well, this cake turned out to be more than mildly recalcitrant. as in refused to be cut. like Jarasandha, in fact. but, we finally got it done, or well, she did. and everyone lived happily ever after.