Gifting

I am thinking that there are several types of people when it comes to gifting for birthdays.

1. Those who do not want anyone to make a fuss and who only want time (at any time during the year) with those they love. (This is me.)
2. Those for who have everything and pretty much accept they will not get anything they need but remain gracious anyway.
3. Those who are clear about what they would like for their birthday. (Some are kind enough to give a range of items to cover financial boundaries.)
4. Those who want the same thing every year. (My hubby wants either an outdoors hike or a fishing trip.)
5. Those who would just like you to "fuhgeddaboutit."
6. Those who make an evaluation on what you gave them either in cost, time spent, or accurate targeting and therefore you have to give the gifting some thought.

My son-in-law is number 6, not in a cruel or mean and judgemental way. But if you hit the target he is effusive and if you do not he is mildly polite. He is also a blend with number 2 in that he can afford almost ANYTHING he wants and usually goes out and buys it the minute he tells you he wants it. In other words, he is hard to gift.

He and I have the love of theater and cinema in common, and this year the Smithsonian had a lecture (2 weeks before his birthday) with Ann Hornaday, the cinema critic for the Washington Post.  He was happy and loved the fact that I did not tell him what it was, and he loved the puzzle of spending an hour on his phone trying to find "happenings" in D.C. on that night while he was waiting for us to join him for dinner downtown.  (The night before he and my daughter attended the Bono concert in Virginia, so you can see the standards I was up against.)

He did not find the "event" via phone search because the Smithsonian lectures are not really geared to the Millenial demographic, so I told him what we were going to do at dinner.

The lecture was fun and she name-dropped everywhere, let us in on behind the scenes gossip and promoted her book which my son-in-law bought.

The additional cool part was that venue was in the Navy Memorial building.  I did not know it existed, had never been there, and now would like to return and explore the area another time.

This lecture ended while the night was still young, 

so we went out for $12.00 a plate desserts!

As you can see, the plates are MUCH larger than the desserts.  Not sure what the reasoning behind that was, but this town has people who make lots of money!

Hit a homerun this year.