Robin's Birthday

Last night was Robin's birthday. Given that it was a Wednesday, I don't think he expected anyone to do much of anything. Little did he know that Hannah and I had been scheming behind the scenes. The contribution from "the Americans" was a beer cake. It looks like a stepped wedding cake but made of beer cans. The bottom level was Beck's, the middle layer, Carlsberg, and the top was Heineken. The topper of the cake was one glass bottle of Club, a Ghanaian local beer. I wrapped ribbons around each layer that said "Happy Birthday Robin" and tied a big bow on the Club on top.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a late lunch break and went over to assemble the beer cake and blow up balloons. Hannah was in the process of baking some more legitimate (but no less important) cakes. I did what I could in the hour I had available before coming home to finish up some work and attend some meetings. None of us were there when Robin came home from work, but according to Hannah, he was pretty elated by the beer cake.

Around 4pm or so I get a frantic text message from Hannah stating that their generator had just broken so they had no electricity and she was trying to finish the cakes and make dinner. Luckily, they have a gas oven so she was able to complete the most important parts. We went over around 6:15 or so and they were still without power. Thankfully, there was one genius among us as Jen (another Jen, I'm not speaking in third person haha) arrived with a bag cooler of cold beers and a bag of ice. We opened the cold brews and quickly began the destruction of the beer cake to put some of them on ice.

We sat outside on the porch with candles until, miraculously, the generator repairmen got things back up and running. The rest of the evening was filled with lots of food and beverage consumption. All in all I think Robin had a good birthday, despite the generator issues (I suspect that was Ghana's well-wishes). I got a text message from him thanking us for coming and that it was a great surprise.