My friends, and that would be all of you, are the most wonderful bunch of misfits I have ever met and would miss horrendously if I hadn’t. You got me good this time – while I was slaving away in California this week there was some major scheming going on, started by the amazingly cunning Renee Johnson, who invited my friends to a surprise birthday dinner. The Setup: Renee and I would be joined by Hannah for a dinner and then, as a birthday gift, I was treated to a performance by the Boston Ballet. When I arrived at the Tantric Bar and Grill (http://www.tantricgrill.com/home.html) in Boston’s theater district, Renee was waiting outside the door. She suggested waiting for Hannah until we go in, despite the fact that I was cold. Then followed a series of distraction techniques that were pretty ingenious, and included a visit to the ATM (with a cockamamie story about two checking accounts), and a quick stop at the Ballet to pick up the tickets at will-call. To show you how naive I was about the whole thing – when Hannah arrived and we were led to our table in the back room, I saw Hillary and Diane from the running group, and thought “What a funny coincidence, that they are in the same restaurant!” I thought something was fishy when I looked across and saw Holly sitting at the same table. I looked back and forth between them, thinking “How do they know each other?” when the rest of the group slowly came into focus, and it dawned on me that this may be a surprise dinner!! Duh!! I was so blown away – this was my first birthday surprise party ever!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Renee for orchestrating this, thank you to all of those who send lovely emails with birthday wishes!!! And thank you Hannah, Hillary, Diane, Ram, Holly, Sriram and Maureen for being there last night!
The dinner was scrumptious and so were the stories told at the table, little did I know about the outrageous nature of the posse in attendance – I was not too surprised about Hannah’s admission to being a pretty vicious bar dancer, or Holly flying by her parents house in a hot air balloon and them thinking nothing of it, as if she just casually strolled by. Even Renee being an absinthe connoisseur I thought made a lot of sense. Now Hillary hitting a German bicyclist in his sleep with pillows in the youth hostel and Diane during her metal head and hair days smoking six cigarettes at once definitely impressed the crowd. Sriram’s admission to have eaten six dozen oysters like Daniel Webster at Ye Olde Union Oyster House deserved a few nods, and so did Ram’s story of disappointing the entire Indian community by dating a German woman (in India!!). Sriram (who hails from Madras) and Ram (originally from Bangalore) both made a half-baked attempt at convincing the group they were born in Stockholm, in light of their blue-eyed, blond-haired looks, but even I did not have enough wine for that.
The evening was topped off with a stellar performance by the Boston Ballet (http://www.bostonballet.com/ ) – La Sylphide, a mystery set in the Scottish Highlands. The BB seems to have a fondness for ballet performances that involve someone meeting an unfortunate fate in the woods, and this one was no exception. A young Scotsman, James, about to be married to a very nice lass, gets enchanted by a sylph and loses his head. He runs off into the forest and abandons Effie, the bride. A witch, who was previously kicked out of the Scotsman’s house after reading Effie her fortune, and telling her that James loves someone more than her, gives James a poisoned diaphanous scarf that she promises will bind the elusive sylph to him forever. We all now what happens now, right? The sylph’s wings fall off, she becomes blind and then dies. James loses on both ends, as Effie meanwhile has married his best friend. You snooze (or run off with sylphs) you lose!!
The festivities for my birthday have been going on all week – thanks to my friends Claire Weber for a lovely Thai dinner at Pearl of Siam in Oakland; to the lovely Suzanne Sun for a delish meal at Canton Seafood and Dim Sum in San Francisco (http://www.cantonsf.com/); and not to forget the most wonderful Pat Martinez, her lively sister Anna (hey Miss Lucci!) and Miss Gorgeous, Tammy Lazere, who made me eat so much food at Kincaid’s (http://www.kincaids.com/ ) in Oakland’s Jack London Square that I was moaning all night! The evenings were a much needed break from the hectic pace and very early morning meetings during the cancer therapeutics conference I attended at the Moscone Center in SF. I did not get too much sleep, which led to one of my not-so-fine moments, where distracted by an argument on a street corner, I decided to give Harold Lloyd a run for his money, fell off the curb and dinged myself up nicely. Still sore from that.
I had left for San Francisco on late Monday after spending a final nice weekend with my family, which included a lovely visit to my new favorite destination, Plum Island (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Plum+Island&gbv=2) on Saturday. We hiked the Hellcat Interpretive Tail through marshlands and dunes, and then spend a substantial portion of the afternoon at the beach. It was a most magnificent day, the sun was out, and we walked for miles along the beach, collecting shells and letting the sun shine in our pale faces. Sunday was spent leisurely, but did include a visit to the Head of the Charles Regatta (http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=en&q=Head+of+the+Charles). We met up with my friend Ken, had some Mexican food and had a magnificent time. According to Wikipedia, the Head of the Charles, “… is the largest 2-day regatta in the world with more than 8000 athletes rowing in around 1750 boats in 56 events.” In the three-and-a-half years I have lived here, the weather had always been crappy, so it was quite a delight to have a spectacularly warm and sunny day and watch the row boats go by.
Today I am enjoying a most leisurely day, relaxing at home with Oscar and Marge (Wild Kingdom at 10 6th Street in Cambridge!!!) and tomorrow, on my actual birthday, I will be off on a short hike in the Blue Hills (the weather promises to be lovely) followed by a birthday dinner.
Talk to you soon. In the meantime, Go Sox!!!
Pet:)
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