SURPRISE!

Okay...so let me sum up the last coupla days for you. Friday started off with me taking some down time from work because I felt a little punk. Lots of new stuff going on at headquarters which had taken a toll on my eyes...giving way to headaches. Time for some R&R.

So the day rolls on, I slept in for a bit and then I got my bones out of bed to pick up a gift and card for my buddy Keith. He and his lovely lady were coming over to celebrate our births (his on March 1, mine on Feb 28). I wasn't too sure I was up for going out, but thought I could play it cool by laying low (i.e., don't "celebrate" too much).

So Keith and Becca get to the house and get ready. In the meantime, I offered a beer to my guests whilst they got freshened up and waited for my wife to get home. Eventually, K got home and the "big wait" began. I had been ready for two hours, so I was primed to get this over with (still a little tired). Crazy enough, K and Bec took forever to get ready and Keith was begging for another beer. I told Keith to hold off until we got to dinner and he agreed which doesn't happen - the "not wanting a second beer"part, not the agreeing part [remember this part for later].

Still waiting for the girls, Keith and I are shooting the breeze about how we might be set up for a surprise, then his phone rang. It was Munro, which Keith said to me, "If we were being surprised then he wouldn't be calling from home". The surprise factor really had come and gone a few weeks back, so hearing this affirmed no such action.

Finally, the girls were ready to roll out and we headed to North Star. I asked if everyone minded if I played a little Matisyahu and everyone was perfectly agreeable [remember this too]. We get to the restaurant, which has our favorite section, the patio, under construction. We all were hoping that the patio was open, but oh well. After nearly forcing Becca and Keith in the door, remaining the gentleman my momma raised me to be, we got to the hostess desk. I was just taking in the sights, I've never been in the restaurant part. Keith handled the reservation and then the owner came out and we talked for a minute or so. We were waiting for a table to clear. Then we walked into the wing of the restaurant that our table was in. The hostess opened the door and there was Hoppe...HUH? That's cool, why didn't he tell me he was going to North Star? Wait, there's the post-college crew, and the Lobley's....shit.....SURPRISE!!!! I turn around to tell Keith that we had been taken, but Keith wasn't there...wait...what a [very expletive]. He was in on it too.

Everything now made sense...kinda [remember all of these asides above, yeah those make sense now]. Well, now it's a party. And it easily goes into the top five memories of my life, which is a pretty tough category to crack. After doing some gesturing/posing to the crowd, which I normally would never do, I turned to see the biggest smile on my wife's face and after hearing stories of her gargantuan planning efforts...it may have been from shear relief.

I got to see family and friends that spanned my three decades. It answered the age old question of if you could have dinner with three people, who would it be. It would be, I would throw a party and these people would be there. I had a feeling rush over me that is impossible to describe, but I wish it upon everyone. I got to look around the room after I said hello to everyone and thought to myself, there are a million good memories I've shared with these people, there are a lot of hard times I've shared with these peoples, there are a lot of bars that got independently wealthy from these people...it was like a living scrapbook and I was the glue. Damn, I'm still getting goosebumps. A lot of things became clearer that night, about friends and family and such, it sounds silly, but it was an honor to be in that room with my "circle".

Okay...then I got really wasted, wore a cowboy hat, introduced my mom to a new vocab word based on my wife's uncle's gift of edible undies, took about a million pictures and "drifted" to sleep in my party clothes.

What? Did you think I was going to end this on a dramatic note?

Okay...I will. K, hope you read this...Thank you from the bottom of my heart, that was one of the coolest things anyone has ever done for me, and people have done tons of cool things for me. I love you tons...now give me back my credit card :) Just kidding, I already got it!