Iris eyes are smiling
Monday April 21st 2008, 11:32 am
Filed under: Family

I spent 24 hours, after he came home from the grocery store with those, trying to figure out how on earth I was going to sweet-talk him out of the house at the very time he would be expecting to be cooking up his filet mignons in celebration.

We went to church, and Jo ended up right behind us. When the main meeting was over, I turned to her and told her, “Richard’s an old man today!”

She perked right up and asked if it was his birthday. It was? “How old is he?”

“Fifty!”

She guffawed loudly and waved us away while Richard grinned. Good old Jo.

But how do you…I’d thought I had a halfway decent idea, but… In the end, getting antsy, looking at the clock, I came in the room where he was talking on the phone to one of the kids, “Cell or home?”

“Cell.”

Oh, good, I thought, I don’t have to cut off the conversation, then. “COME. NOW.”

There was a look of utter confusion on his face (and he got off the phone)–I’d already given him his birthday presents. But the tone of my voice conveyed the right amount of Do Not Argue. Come where? Kitchen? Huh?

I asked him, “Your car or mine?”

He drove. I didn’t tell him it was because I could never remember which long cul-de-sac it was without actually driving down them to see the houses at the end; all three of them look identical to me. “At least tell me where I’m going. Am I turning left or right there? What is going on?”

There was only one problem while all this was going on–I’d been told through the grapevine when to show, the time had been changed, and the grapevine had shrivelled before the harvest rather than gotten back to me. Oops.

Which is why we pulled into the (right) cul-de-sac and nobody answered the door, and just after we got back in the car with me having to explain, the first would-be-surpriser showed up. We gave the guy this huge sheepish oh-well grin, waving, and pulled away, all of us laughing. Richard, who can hear on the cell phone whereas I most often can’t, called the host just to make sure we did have the right host and that that too hadn’t been changed. We did; come back in a half hour.

Silly people. About ten minutes later they called again, saying, come now, and so we did.

Iris eyes are smiling (thank you Nina and Rod!)“SURPRISE!”

And I think that way was maybe the best of all. Because now he gets to laugh and tease about it for the next 50 years. And dinner was far better than anything we could have conjured up alone, both in food and friends. Happy birthday, sweetie. And Nina and Johnna and everybody who came–you guys totally rock. Thank you.


11 Comments so far
Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Richard!
John’s birthday is today too. He took the day off and we did errands together. We went and had ice cream together at Greater’s

Comment by Sonya 04.21.08 @ 11:48 am

What a fun time! Many happy returns…

Comment by Channon 04.21.08 @ 12:23 pm

That sounds like something I would do (go to the wrong door that is)…

Happy B-day Richard!

Comment by Amanda 04.21.08 @ 4:35 pm

A non-surprise, surprise party! Excellent!

BTW, I have found that the Samsung m500 cellphone interfaces quite well with my hearing aids in “phone coil” setting. Don’t know if it’s still available, but you can look up hearing aid compatibiloity and RIF numbers online nowadays. That’s how I found my m500…

Comment by Carol 04.21.08 @ 5:03 pm

Aaaaaaaaawwwwwwww! Happy birthday, Richard!!! 🙂

Comment by Romi 04.21.08 @ 7:24 pm

Happy birthday, Richard! I’d sing you the Danish birthday song, but it doesn’t translate well in a comment box.

And I love that it wasn’t perfect. That just makes it perfect, y’know?

Comment by Lene 04.21.08 @ 9:01 pm

Happy Birthday Richard!! Non Surprises are usually the best Surprises!!

Comment by Danielle from SW MO 04.22.08 @ 6:20 am

Happy Birthday, Mr Alison Hyde! 🙂
You’re a very lucky man. My husband has yet to get a sweater from me. Well, let’s see, he’s 46, I might make it my his 50th!

Comment by Karin 04.22.08 @ 6:24 am

Happiest of Birthday wishes to Richard! He’s a wonderful and lucky man..but he knows that! Fifty is a great year…I know from experience. I hope that every day brings excellent surprises.
Thanks for sharing the first surprise with us 😉

Comment by Sheila E 04.22.08 @ 7:17 am

Happy Birthday, Richard! It’s a big year for that, both my husband and I are reaching that milestone in the next few months as well. Our days won’t be as surprise filled, I’m sure, but hopefully just as filled with blessings as yours.

Comment by Deb in CT 04.22.08 @ 10:06 am

Happy Birthday Richard!!! Isn’t it great to have another fun reason to remember 50 😉

Comment by rho 04.22.08 @ 1:33 pm



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)