This is Friday as I type. Well, sort of. By extension. I’m too wired to sleep (although, the time stamp’s an hour ahead of me.) Anyway, my husband suddenly said to me tonight, Tomorrow’s your birthday and we have that thing at church going on then; would you like to go to Flea Street Cafe tonight?
Asking someone who eats if they’d like to go to Flea Street for dinner is like asking someone who knits if they’d like some qiviut.
Even when I saw the side door unlocked and thought in puzzlement, when did I do that? and locked it on our way out, it didn’t dawn on me. Richard said later that he’d unlocked various doors three times and I had locked them all. 
He managed to walk out just behind me so he got that last one after all, and quietly texted “going!” He also got permission from Phyllis and Nina in case he needed it to persuade me–I did want to go to Kepler’s after dinner, but I really wasn’t up to it and he easily talked me out of it.
“SURPRISE!!!” The house was full of people.
Okay, I should have seen that one coming. And I did wonder if someone would do something Saturday night. I most certainly didn’t expect them to do it Friday night. I now understand why my husband kept trying to tell me all the way home that I was actually already 50, by any reasonable argument, while I was telling him he was just jealous that he was an old man while I was a youthful 40-something-er. He even had the audacity to tell me that by Chinese counting I was 51. Nuh UH!
I had no idea. And they could tell, given what my kitchen looked like. Not a clue.
A great time was had by all, and it is now Saturday, so I guess it’s true: I’ve tumbled over the hill and joined my sweetie into fiftytudinousness. Thank you for the amaryllis bulb, Richard. (Ed: Oh, wait, that one was from Alyson, I’ve been corrected. Thank you, Alyson!) Thank you for the flowers, Nina and Phyl. Thank you everybody for coming and for the cake and the veggies and the mulled cider and the chocolate and the apricot flan and the fruit pastries and the…
And you know? Richard passed on the dessert menu, but Jesse at Flea Street, after coming out to say hi to this pair of longtime customers, sent out four dark chocolate truffles anyway. (Jesse! Those were the BEST EVER–THANK you!) …yes I ate my two, I couldn’t miss that, that’s part of why I skipped out on Kepler’s just in case, Crohn’s blahblahblah–SO worth it…
But my Richard said no to ordering dessert at Flea Street Cafe. THAT is when I should have been tipped off. Totally.