Jeremy's birthday party

After reading a couple of months ago about an excellent sushi restaurant right near the college where I teach, I decided to go there, the next special dinner we had planned. Tonight we finally met there with a party of 9 to celebrate my son's 18th birthday and my friend's 65th birthday. We have been making a kind of tradition out of celebrating their birthdays jointly the past few years, so this was a reunion of sorts, though it was a smaller party than usual since my son was not able to make it on a weekend, since he works on weekend nights, and almost no one else could get away tonight.
It was a lot of fun, though it is always kind of difficult being out in public with my mom, who can barely hear and has relatively advanced dementia. If I want to communicate anything to her, I have to yell, which mortifies my son, and he tells me to be quiet. Then she almost always mis-hears me anyway. And she didn't know what anything on the menu was since she had eaten very little Japanese food before. She was ready to drink the dipping sauces and dip food into the miso soup. But she tried everything and didn't complain, once I got her a spoon and a fork. She tried a little of everyone's food and seemed to enjoy herself. My dad always enjoys himself if he likes what he is eating. He gets that single-minded expression of a gourmand, engrossed in tasting every bit of what he is eating to its full potential. He liked his salmon teriyaki, miso soup, and salad, and of course the piece of chocolate mint ice cream cake he got (despite his diabetes--just this once!). I meant to take a picture of the cake, but I forgot to, partly because Jeremy really hated me rushing around taking pictures and asked that I put the camera away, so I did.
Tomorrow I'll take the camera out of the car and see if I can find some kind of picture to put up here.