Tryptophan Began the Stand
Nik threw me a surprise party a few years ago. Now granted, I knew something was fishy. I’m not stupid, although I am a bit spacey at times so when she got all insistent that I not look at her computer for a few months and she got very upset with me the night before my birthday when I dragged my feet about helping her clean the house (and I mean clean in a way that she never bothers with) I thought “huh, that’s weird.” She also went well out of her way to run the show for the whole evening, “We’re going to dinner here at this time and the movies there at that time and then…” Not that mind since I like to be a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. But the odd phone call to a friend on the way home from the movies struck me as exceptionally odd. And it got my radar up. By the time we reached our apartment, I was on the lookout for oddities so when I noticed her mom’s car in the parking lot I knew as I walked up the stairs.
And this is what I mean by surprise parties being weird is that they take all this extra effort and trouble for the planners which is bound to make the guest of honor suspicious and if it gets ruined by one little thing (especially at the last minute) the whole thing feels like a letdown. And I did feel badly for not playing off my surprise better. I was excited by the time I walked in the door, but the big grin on my face gave away that I knew what to expect. The point I’m making here is that I’m not sure who surprise parties really benefit. I understand their appeal in a theoretical sense, but their actual execution is so difficult and the payoff for the target is so fleeting, I wonder if it can ever be said to be worth all the effort.
Anyway, we all had a lot of fun and the whole weekend passed by far too quickly. It wasn’t until the middle of the night last night as I woke to get a drink of water that I realized how lucky I really am. Being thankful for things is sometimes a very abstract state: You realize you are grateful that you have family and friends who care about you, you feel fortunate to have enough of the things you need and there is a sense of relief that you don’t have to try and come up with stuff to feel blessed with. But when you get to a point where you can’t be certain what is going to happen in the next two hours you have to be focused on the things that are stable and are worthy of gratitude. I sipped the water and stared out the window at the early morning darkness.
The cat wandered up, bleary-eyed and mewing softly. My hand absently stroked her head and after a moment I put the water away and walked back down the hall and into bed. I pulled the warm covers up to my chin and shivered for a moment as the chill from the night air fled my skin. With a sleepy sigh, I gently kissed Nikki on her cheek as she slept. Thank you, I whispered in my mind.
Who Wants Some Links?
These are leftovers from Wednesday. What can I say, it’s leftovers all week.
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