Some months back, there was a discussion about birthday parties and he said he doesn't want one this time around. I threw a big surprise party for both his 30th and 40th. Our daughter, who will be celebrating her golden year next week agreed. We got her good on her 16th and that is enough to last her for a long while. NO parties this year, they said.
We reasoned that we have reached midlife, so we mutually decided birthday celebrations should now be celebrated with the next generation -our children, (and eventually our grandchildren). See, when the kids were little they weren't very good at things like keeping secrets and paying for party food and hanging streamers, so siblings and friends helped me pull off the surprise. But once you have married children, the gift you want most of all is all your children together under one roof. Simply spending time together becomes a gift. The original plan was that our children are supposed to save the money they would spend on a gift and/or party and use it to go on vacation with us. Their time is their gift. A cabin in the Smokies sounded like a grand plan for a 50th birthday party.
BUT... somehow that didn't quite go as planned. Life has a way of interfering, and married children have their own schedules, ideas, and budget. It was a difficult struggle for me to give up having everyone give the gift. I knew in my head that this is just another inevitable step of severing the apron strings... that we ceased to go on vacation with our parents after we were married... but it still felt like chopping one's arm off to celebrate with one missing. I threw around many ideas of where to go and how long, in an attempt to settle on something that fits every one's interests and be an offer none could refuse. But as happens so often in life, it's impossible to suit everyone. Anniversary trips and grand baby's due date have a way of upsetting the apple cart, too. So I felt a lot less stressed when I gave up insisting everyone I birthed absolutely must participate in "dad's" party/trip.
The plan to return to the west coast (specifically San Francisco & the Oregon dunes, which we absolutely loved on our western trip) evolved into flying to Texas to visit the Magnolia empire in Waco and NASA in Houston. In my typical fashion, I got excited about the trip. Yet somehow every time I thought we had carved out a slot in the schedule that it would suit to take this birthday trip, something always popped up that interfered. It was a smidgen frustrating- I like to plan things, get it neatly laid out ahead of time. My theory is that half of the fun is looking forward to it. Of course, what we now know is that God was saving us from wasting money on tickets. Hurricane Harvey has recently made Houston a less-than-desirable tourist destination for this fall. We'll take a raincheck (no pun intended). On to plan C... which is still on the drawing board at this point.
So, anyway, the big day arrived without any fanfare. R asked me the night before his birthday "now, I'm not going to get pulled out of bed in the morning, am I?" Absolutely not, it would annoy me [the non-morning-person] a lot more than it would him to have his friends come drag him out of bed on his birthday! I would be the last person on earth to ever plan a surprise like that.
R was scheduled to pick up a trailer in the state north of us, but -as he put it- it's so easy it's not like work. And I went along for the ride. Remember time = gift, in our book.
We stopped for a late lunch enroute. We had picked a steakhouse to stop at (when one travels in a semi, one cannot stop just anywhere to eat), but were surprised to discover said steakhouse doesn't open it's doors till 4pm. So we chose an unknown [to us] steakhouse across the street, which ended up being a great choice. We had superb service, being the only guests in the middle of the afternoon, and the food was excellent. The birthday man had steak & ribs.
In the spirit of do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-them-do-to-you, I did not have any surprises up my sleeve. However, R's siblings decided they would not let the occasion pass without a party. Last evening they all gathered at an Italian restaurant to help him over-the-hill.
I decided not to stress about how to get him on location -we like 'never' go there so it would be a highly unusual suggestion. Yet it all fell into place better than I could have possibly schemed. While we're not happy the brakes failed on our son's pickup over the weekend, giving them the ride of their lives, it did create a reason for R to take the day off and conveniently be around home. I suggested in the morning that maybe we should go out to eat in honor of Truck Driver's Appreciation Week. He took the bait without any prodding. Later in the day he asked where I want to go and I suggested a town, using the excuse that I needed to return a pair of shoes for A. (Honest, it really is National Truckers Appreciation Week, and I really did have the return.) We discussed options of which restaurant to choose, and I played along with his ideas although I knew there really was only 1 choice. I suggested my favorite, Olive Garden, to plant the idea of this Italian place and was surprised when he actually took the bait again and named this place. Think about it- we were allegedly going out to eat for Truckers Appreciation, so normally I would be all about asking him where he wants to eat. He cooperated so well! It wasn't until we pulled in the parking lot and he saw his sister & brother-in-law arriving that he started getting suspicious.
So now R is successfully pushed over the hill. The only celebration that remains is the birthday trip, whenever we can manage to get that nailed down...
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