Nothing Says Birthday Like Bacon

Last Saturday was the bf's birthday. I knew I'd found the perfect gift when I saw this board game, Mr. Bacon's Big Adventure, on Fred Flare. A knock-off of Candy Land, the game features a board illustrated with -- what else -- bacon and other pork products. Think a little log cabin made of Vienna sausages with a pepperoni roof and Slim Jim chimney. A corndog forest. Trees sprouting meatballs. A strip of bacon bathing in a mustard sea. You get the idea. To make things even more interesting, the instructions suggested playing with real processed meats. As in, land on a space with a meatball on a pimento loaf background and -- you guessed it -- eat a meatball wrapped in everyone's favorite eyeball-studded luncheon meat. There were other even more disturbing combinations, but I'll spare you. Needless to say, the bf found the whole thing hysterical. We played immediately (sans the meat), and he won. As was only fitting.

A rare shot of the bf in his natural habitat.

And yet another shot of me. If you look very closely, you can just about make out the Tote Trove creation hanging around my neck, not to mention the one dangling on my arm . . .

Earlier events of the big day included a visit to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, right here in Brigantine. The Center rehabilitates wounded seals and other sea life and then releases them back into the ocean. It's the only center of its kind in New Jersey. (The bf relayed this nugget to me. Of the pair of us, he is the socially and environmentally responsible one who is in the know about such things.) Although we didn't get to see any seals, we did see several male lady crabs (nature's joke, I suppose), pursuing several female lady crabs in hopes of mating. The females were having none of it.

That night we enjoyed dinner at Bobby Flay Steak at the Borgata, followed by a night's stay. We each wolfed down large slabs of steak and a sumptuous dessert, pina colada sorbet for him and passion fruit cheesecake for me. I suggested that we return some time just to order the entire dessert menu. Somehow I think they would frown upon that.