So You Say It's My Birthday...

I'm not real big on celebrating birthdays. Especially those that occur in years ending in "2" (that makes my age some multiple of 10). This usually runs headlong into my co-workers tradition of trashing the workspace of anyone celebrating a significant birthday (along with hanging large numbers over the workspace indicating which significant birthday one is celebrating).

Given everything that's currently going on in my life, I decided not to participate this year. I asked my supervisor to not allow anyone access to my office on my birthday. I also took the day off as a vacation day.

Not that I had much of a vacation planned. Polonia and I were supposed to meet at the motor vehicle registration office and change the titles on the automobiles. Since that would put me in the general neighborhood of the condo, I decided that this would be a good day to rent a cargo van and move my stuff from the Eagan storage locker to my new storage locker. In addition, laurafish had made a dinner reservation for us that evening.

Things went as much according to plan as they ever do. I did rent a cargo van, and I got most of my stuff loaded into the van. Polonia had left a chest in the storage locker; subsequent conversations had led to the arrangement that Polonia would get the chest. My plan was to load the chest into the van, go to the condo, get Polonia to help move the chest from the van to the condo, get the table from the garage, and haul everything off to the other storage locker. First (and biggest problem) - Polonia did not want the chest brought to the condo. Urk. So I loaded most everything up, went over to the condo and got the table from the garage, spoke (briefly) to Polonia, and drove back and unloaded the stuff. This took until about 4:00 pm.

We then went to Roseville, where I picked up my mail from the Post Office and bought stamps for the PR2 mailing. Then it was off to Anchor Paper Express, where I bought paper for PR2 (I may have created a future problem - laurafish appeared to be entirely too interested in the number of rubber stamps that were available for purchase at Anchor Paper Express). And then it was back to the house, where we cleaned up and got ready to go to dinner.

I thought it was a little odd how aggressive Laura was about moving stuff from downstairs to upstairs. And the tablecloth she chose to put on the table (the one from the garage) seemed a little nicer than necessary. But what the heck.

So we went to dinner. Laura had halibut, I had pasta, we shared a bottle of Toad Hollow wine. And it's time for dessert, and Laura is adamant that we don't want any. I order coffee, instead. Several refills later, I'm persuaded to leave the restaurant.

So I'm driving home, and she informs me that there's a special dessert waiting at the house. Which is a little surprising - I didn't remember seeing anything lurking in the refrigerator or cabinets. But hey - dessert - I'm all for that. And she directs me to drive to the back of the house and park.

At this point, I really should have smelled a rat. My claim is that the wine effectively lulled me into a false sense of complacency.

So we go in the back door, into the dark empty house.

Which is suddenly neither dark, nor empty. And not particularly silent, what with our friends yelling "Surprise!" at me.

And I was surprised. By Scott and Irene Raun, and Sharon Kahn, and Rachael Lininger, and Larry Sanderson, and Andrew Bertke and Joe Agee, and Susan B Levy Haskell, and Gavi Haskell, and Bill Christ, and Dean Gahlon and Laura Krentz, and Shaun Kelly. And there was cake (from Wuollet's - it was delicious), and wonderful decorations and napkins, and various other things to eat and drink. David Dyer-Bennett dropped by later, as did Elizabeth Bendtsen.

I ate too much. I drank too much. I stayed up too late. And I had a wonderful time.

And on Monday, I came in to work, and found (in addition to ninety some odd pieces of spam) that my co-workers had settled for decorating the door of my office. With black balloons, and pieces of paper bearing appropriate quotes. Such as:

"For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday." - John Glenn

"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down." - T. S. Eliot

"Inside every older person is a younger person - wondering what the !x#@? happened." - Cora Harvey Armstrong

"Age is a high price to pay for maturity." - Tom Stoppard

"I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up." - David Schroth

Thanks, one and all.