Oct 22 2009

For those that asked me how my birthday was

So Friday (October 16th) was my birthday. (If you aren’t me, this story may not be interesting but I feel like telling it so there. )

For a while leading up to the day I was feeling rather sitcom character everyone forgot my birthday because we had this huge b-day/Halloween party planned which ended up falling apart which I was, at first, bummed about. However, that turned out to be a good thing because instead of a ton of work for a big party, we changed it to a sleepover with just a couple of my very best buddies which I am actually way more excited about than I was about the big party so that turned out rather well.

But before I knew the friend thing was going to work out, I called my mother and tried to whine her into having my birthday party at her house. Background: The day before my birthday is my grandfather’s birthday so we always have the party for both of us at my grandparents house. However, if we have the party at their house, my mom’s side of the family can’t come so I wanted my mom to host the part so everyone could be there. My mom was dodgy about it like she really didn’t want to host and gave me one of those Mom-patented, “We’ll see.” s

So the party with my friends was shaping up like it was going to work and I was thinking positive about the family party. About a week before my b-day, I asked my mom if the family was going to come up and got nothing but maybes and “I asked them and they said they’d see” type answers. I was bummed about this but not totally down because my cousin usually has to work and my grandma doesn’t really like long car rides so it was one of those things where I wanted to see everyone but would totally understand if they couldn’t come. The most I got from her was that, if nothing else my aunt (who lives like 2 seconds away) would come over and then we’d just go to my grandparents’ house like always.

I sound like a needy three year old, don’t I? I normally aren’t this co-dependent about birthdays but I was weird about this one because it was a landmark one and I really wanted to be with as many people as possible. It is a weird thing that I am not sure I can explain. Besides, as everyone in the family gets older, I want as many excuses as possible to see them because you never know how much time we all have together.

So on the Tuesday before my b-day, my mom calls and asks if we want to come over for dinner on Wednesday because she bought too much at the store and had to defrost some stuff. (This is a frequent occurrence.) Sure, we say and on Wednesday night we arrive after work.

The phone rings and it’s my brother (who lives in Florida and that I very rarely get to see anymore) calling after work. My mother tells him, “Talk to your sister while I cook” and tosses me the phone while she goes to stir something that was boiling over.

I start to chat with my brother and then, as always happens at least once a phone call because Florida has the worst cell phone reception ever, I start to lose him.

“Sorry, Hill, I’m losing you,” he says, “Can you hear me better now?” I indicate that I can hear him find and he says, “Ugh! I still can’t hear you! Sorry, one sec, let me try to move to a different area.”

I sit there saying, “I can hear you fine on this end” while he moves and then I hear “Can you hear me now?” from BEHIND ME. Yeah, he flew up from Florida for the weekend to surprise me and apparently all this had been kept secret from me since JULY which just goes to prove either that I am totally oblivious or that my family is well very versed in duplicity and lying. One or the other. The most impressive part is that my mom didn’t blow it because she is usually the weakest link but she was at her most treacherous and didn’t make a peep.

So then, to add to the randomness of it all, after much hugging and tales of their deceit, my mom informs us that, since Sam won’t be able to come home again for other holidays we were having Thanksgiving. That day. So out comes a turkey and Mom’s famous (to me) stuffing and all the veggies and all the insane food that you expect at Thanksgiving. So we gorge ourselves in celebration of Sam being home and they all inform me that I am not allowed to breath a word of this to anyone because they want my grandparents and cousins to also be surprised that Sam is up.

So I have to not tell anyone about this, in real life or on Facebook (since the whole family is on it) for 3 whole days. You have no idea how hard this was for me, I am not good at stealth at all!

So I have buckets and buckets of work to do but I pretty much had to drop everything for the fun filled week of family madness. I won’t go into everything but I got a lot of quality time in with brother, husband and family, all the while unable to tell anyone in the family the truth about what I was doing all week which was so hard OMG. There were several near misses where people almost told and covered and people seemed to know what was going on when they really didn’t but, in the end, everyone who was supposed to be surprised was successfully surprised and no one slipped. (Expect when my brother spastically posted something to Facebook about being home by mistake and there was a mad flurry to delete it before anyone saw it. Sigh. We are all such dorks.)

So, as you likely guessed, all my Mom’s BS about people coming up was a total lie and she made sure the whole family was coming and we had a glorious family party to celebrate my birthday and my grandfather’s and it was definitely one of my better birthday weeks on record.

In the end, I am a year older but not without much pomp and circumstance from the people I love.

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