Celebrating

You know, my mother always told me my own birthday was like a Polish wedding... it went on and on for days and days and days (since my dad is Polish, she was allowed to say that). I think this year it is Beloved's turn to enjoy the festival-birthday.

So Tuesday night we had dinner, and the subject of the dinner was "our story" (by request of the other friends). We told it... I was surprised how shy Beloved was about it. Of course, it involves me being very raw and confused at the breakup of my marriage. But then... this revelation, this person I had known a long time but who I really only began to know... this knowing of myself in a new way... I think of our story and I'm filled with joy.

At some point I was able to introduce my garden into the conversation. The other folks eagerly "bit," and so......

EEEEK! A hummingbird.... the first I've seen..... rght outside my dining room window!!!!

[And now we return to our regularly scheduled blogpost]

We left the restaurant in two cars. As Beloved and I drove to my house I asked her, Why so shy about our story? Doesn't it make you happy? And it came out that she has been worried from the beginning that I was too inexperienced (well, I was), that I was on the rebound (true that), and that I only hooked up with her because she was the first girl I met.

This last floored me. I reminded her of something she said to me when we first started seeing each other, something I have said to her as well.

I've waited my whole life for you.

We arrived at my house, and the colored lights lit up the porch so beautifully. I jumped out of the car and ran inside for the cake (kj, you are right... there is no "over-the-top" where chocolate cake is concerned. There is only better and better and better...) and the champagne. We used PowerPuff girls napkins left over from a birthday party of yore. We sat on my porch and enjoyed the cool of the evening and laughed (not too uproariously). Beloved, who claims to hate surprises, had that glowing look of someone who is enjoying being appreciated.

End, day 1 Birthday.

Day 2:

I have been telling Beloved for weeks that I was taking her somewhere for her birthday, someplace very special. Due to her weird phobia of all things spa-like (don't ask... I haven't a clue) I have taken to teasing her about kelp wraps and sea salt rubs, just for the fun of watching her eyes get all wide and spooked. She became so paranoid that she finally said, You have to tell me as soon as I get in the car where we're going so I can jump out if I need to. I said, fine.

Yesterday at 3 I picked her up. In the car was a cooler filled with Sri Wasano's Infamous Indonesian Rice Salad (from here), Chicken Salad with Grapes and Pecans and Minty Pea Salad (from here), and a bottle of Ménage a Trois White wine; also a bag filled with a few small gifts (a book, and a movie that had been recommended to me on this blog, a poster of Josephine Baker), and in the visor over the passenger seat, tickets to a concert. No details of the concert; it would give my location away (though we had to drive several hours to get there). Let me just say, it was a woman singer/ songwriter, a blues and rock singer extraordinaire, and an absolute favorite of Beloved's. She looked at me with that Christmas-morning-I-got-a-pony look, and we were off... for several hours of driving through gorgeous countryside, on a beautiful day, for a fabulous concert and picnic.

Of course I want to celebrate this woman. I've waited my whole life for her.