Birthday Dinner

March 9, 2007

I was to meet Liz tonight for dinner at her place. Though I’m having my birtday party on Sunday the 11th – my actual birthday is today. There wasn’t anything official done at work, as we’ve grown to a point where we do multiple birthdays once a month (but for Rey, we make an exception).

Tonight, to help me ring in another year… Liz offered to cook me dinner. I asked for her tuna fish casserole (which I love), along with some cornbread. While we were planning the dinner a few days ago, the topic of silly drinks (with little umbrellas in them) came up. So that’s on the menu as well.

I showed up around 7:00 PM, and her apartment was empty. I saw that she had already set the table… but she was nowhere to be found.

This got me a little nevous. I’m a worrywort, so I naturally assumed the worst. I went around the kitchen and tried to figure out when she might have left (the pots on the stove were filled with water, but cold to the touch).

I tried not to be too nervous, and sat on the couch with her laptop. Every five minutes or so I’d try her cell (voicemail) and walk over to the window.

I saw that her scooter was gone. So far this winter, it had been covered and chained up – but looking down, I saw it was missing.

Outside, it was raining fairly steadily. I began to imagine all sorts of bad things – scooter accident, cars not paying attention, the roads being too slick.

Then, I look out the window and I see her pull up to the intersection. And as I run to grab my camera, I end up recording the absolute best moment of my birthday – and document just how fucking lucky I am to have her as a girlfriend.

And the reason she ran out to go grab new balloons? The ones she purchased yesterday had already gone bad. She borrowed my car yesterday to run some “errands,” and got a big bunch of balloons from a nearby party store. What they didn’t tell her was that these were latex balloons, and only lasted about 8-10 hours.

When she got home earlier in the evening, she saw the balloons were all flat. So she hid them in Lisa’s room, hopped on her scooter, and drove through the pouring rain to get me some new ones.

I am one very, very lucky man.

Table setup, complete with custom-made froo-froo umbrellas courtesy of Liz.