last year stephen decided to throw me a Surprise Party for my birthday; his rationale was that my birthday had become a total nightmare the year before and he wanted to help make up for it. he had moved out of Queens on my actual birthday and was homeless for a week till he could move into the house on Staten Island; we wound up spending the weekend with Jenn and Brian who are 2 of the best hosts anyone could ever hope to stay with and my mom threw a fit because i wasn't with "the family"; she refused to call me till i apologized, words were had, it wasn't pretty.
ANYHOO...in the wake of 2004's debacle, stephen planned a party for 2005. for the same reasons, i wanted to have all my friends together in 2005 and started making plans weeks in advance for dinner out. the day of the party/dinner stephen told me that i was having a surprise party at 6 and that he couldn't believe that i thought it necessary to plan something myself. fast forward to this year:
a few weeks ago, my mom called when/where i wanted to have the "family dinner". i thought sunday the 30th would be ideal as we were meeting friends on Saturday night and Mondays are just too tough. in the meantime, my niece's softball team has made it to the NYC championships and the game that was scheduled for saturday in Queens was moved to Sunday. plans were made for her to go swimming in her friend's pool afterward, my had worked till 5am that morning, and my sister-in-law is pregnant, swollen and cranky. dinner was not going to be an option. i didn't find out till sunday morning that nobody had planned to get together on sunday evening. i threw a total and complete hissy fit. afterward, stephen told me that my parents had planned on surprising me on monday night. once again i fucked up a perfectly planned surprise. they were there when i got home and i'll admit it: i was too tired to even feign surprise. **shrug**
i can honestly say that i regret being that guy that can't be surprised; i know it stems from my fear that nobody cares enough to "celebrate me". does that make me a total jerk? that i expect people to want to get together for my birthday, etc?
*side note:Dinner went very well; the chicken picata was impeccable, and he made a Black Olive and Caremelized Onion Foccaccia that made my eyes roll back. then the power went out. again. it only lasted about half and hour and i'll admit it was quite rustic, eating by candle light. later on, my niece and his parents dropped by for cake and coffee. the cake was absolutely divine! yellow cake with canoli cream and vanilla butter cream frosting. the whole thing: from scratch. this was truly monmental, since his baking mantra is usually "bad things happen with cake". everyone stayed till about 11, and i'll admit it was very nice having our parents hang out together. i'm not sure but i think this is the longest they've ever spent together. i totally dug the gift situation: stephen got me a fabulously comfy chair to hang out and take the sun on, my parents got me a GC to Best Buy, his parents got me an Amex GC and my neice got me a Starbucks GC. good haul, no? :)
"A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens"~ Bayden Powell
No comments:
Post a Comment