My Happy Birthday

The short version: My husband surprised me with a long weekend in NY to see my friends.

The long version:

Last Thursday, May 3, 2007, we were having a very nice dinner on our back patio--it was warm, we'd all been swiming, Andrew played a CD he made me of birthday music he thought I'd like and he'd just swept me away to dance. When the song was over we started cleaning up and I hear, "Hellooooooo!"

My Mom's head appeared over the fence and the boys went nuts. We had her walk around to the back gate where she was overwhelmed by kid-love from my sons.

I looked at Andrew and half-whispered, "So...weird...I mean it's nice and all but why is she here?"

"We have to go to dinner," and that little twitching smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"But we're going to dinner tomorrow, Friday night."

"Yeah, but we have to get there." Then he handed me a card with my itinerary.

Early Friday: Fly to NYC
Friday night: Dinner at One if by Land, Two if by Sea, drinks and singing at Marie's Crisis.



Satuday morning: Breakfast in Bed via Roomservice
Saturday day: open (we went to the Met and walked through Central Park)




Saturday night: dinner with Jackie, Liisa, and Pam.

Sunday day: laze around Croton and the Black Cow.
Sunday night: home.

So for my fortieth...the real surprise (on my actual birthday) was a surprise party at my friend Pam's house. People I hadn't seen in years showed up. It was one of those "this is your life" moment and...I wept all the way back to the airport.

In my adult life, I've never had to move because I should, only because I was sick of somewhere or really wanted to move. I loved Croton-on-Hudson. I love all my friends there. I love New York (though the humidity is for the birds). And it was very very hard to leave.

We were both sad, actually, and I wept most of the way to JFK--and not just because of the traffic.