That Time I Turned Thirty-Eight

Life doesn’t always go as planned — but if you try sometimes, you still get the donut. Stones reference and midlife crisis aside — my plan for the weekend was simple: do absolutely nothing productive, inhale a giant Big Mama’s & Papa’s pizza, and marathon horror movies all day Saturday. Since I worked on my birthday, I figured that was a fair trade. But like most “simple” plans, it completely fell apart. Not gonna rant about it, though.

Enter Chris — longtime friend, fellow foodie, certified donuteer, and clutch human being. I’d canceled our usual weekend run to commit fully to my pizza-and-horror mission, but when that imploded, he hit me up and said, “If you’ve got no plans, let’s go celebrate your birthday.” The man even offered to get fat on his couch with me, in full solidarity.

We ended up at Lovi’s Delicatessen in Calabasas for brunch, which was phenomenal. I ordered a breakfast sandwich with fried potatoes; he got something suspiciously healthy-looking — vegetarian eggs Benedict. No comment — mostly because I'm not sure what it was.

Afterward, we drove to Camarillo and hit up Rolling Pin Donuts. FINALLY — we’d tried this run before (it’s an hour drive) and they were closed. This time, though, I got my giant donut — the one I’d been saving for my birthday. It might not have dethroned Sidecar as the reigning champ, but it was everything I wanted it to be: big, sweet, stupidly over-the-top, and worth every inch.

Tonight’s plan? Tacos at La Fogata. If this weekend taught me anything, it’s that failed plans taste a hell of a lot better with donuts and a salsa chaser.