Movies
As soon as we first saw Shrek in 2001, it became a family favorite – the kids gave the DVD to me for Christmas that year, under particularly heart-tugging and memorable circumstances. Naturally we had to see the follow-ups each year they came out – in fact, Alex treated Chelsea and me to the third Shrek movie in theaters shortly before we left on our 2007 leg of our bike trip.
In late May this year, Shrek Forever After came out in theaters, so true to tradition, Alex took us to see it. We’d been very housebound up to that point, so just getting out was great fun. Not only did we really enjoy the film, we loved spending time with Alex (and we loved the coke and popcorn!).
Then when Despicable Me (3D) was released in early July, Alex took us to see it (he’d had his eye on it for many months). We loved it, just loved it. We hadn’t seen a 3D movie yet, so that alone was worth the price of admission – Alex got a big kick out of seeing me flatten myself against the theater seat as the lances came out of the screen at us. As a movie, it perfectly fit our shared love of the absurd. We talked about it for days; we’d quickly memorized many of the lines and still use them as part of our daily jargon.
Chelsea’s birthday
It was no surprise then, what the answer would be when Alex asked Chelsea a few weeks later what movie she’d like to see for her birthday. Despicable Me, of course! But Chelsea’s birthday wasn’t just about seeing the movie – she had a dessert-making afternoon with Alex and Amanda the day before her birthday; Alex treated us to lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant (Chaiyo) before the movie; and treated us to a smoothie at Jamba Juice afterwards.
And if that wasn’t enough, we had a joint party with Denise and Chandler and Paul at the Ale House that night, to celebrate Chelsea’s twenty-sixth birthday and Paul and Denise’s tenth wedding anniversary. We ate till we couldn’t eat any more, played pool, laughed and talked, and finally dragged home after midnight.
Then, as if there hadn’t been enough fun so far, Amanda and her roommate Kaleena took Chelsea out for lunch and a manicure on Sunday. Chelsea’s nails looked beautiful for over a week, and best of all for me, she shared her leftovers with me…
What a birthday to remember!
Rosemary’s and Paul’s birthdays
Paul’s birthday is only a month after Chelsea’s and a week before mine. He didn’t want a big celebration – I think it was the trauma of turning forty, so he settled for a block party in his neighborhood (a neighbor was moving so he co-celebrated his birthday with their good-bye party). Chelsea and I were invited (Alex had to work) so we spent that Sunday evening down in Fort Lauderdale meeting Paul’s neighbors, eating our fill of barbecue and salads. It was a special treat to spend more time with Paul and Denise and Chandler, and to finally meet Chandler’s half brother, Adan.
After Chelsea’s amazing and fun-filled birthday, I didn’t see any way that mine could match, especially when I found out that Alex had scheduled a personal trip out of town over the entire Labor Day weekend. I was heart-broken that he’d forgotten my birthday and that he’d be gone.
There was no point in staying upset, so I decided to let things be, and see if Chelsea and I could rustle up some fun by ourselves. We made tentative plans to borrow our neighbor’s car and go kayaking on the Loxahatchee River, which is hands-down one of the top favorite things in our lives. Our neighbor said yes, so we pooled our resources for gas money and food for our kayaking trip.
Meanwhile a buddy from Gueydan, Jaimie Snoddy, called us to see how we’re doing. We had a wonderful long talk, catching up on everything from the last year. I mentioned that my birthday was coming soon, which prompted Jaimie to tell me that she would send us a “care package” from Gueydan. Sure enough, only three days later a package arrived. Talk about a treat! Jaimie had packed a Styrofoam cooler with her home-grown and homemade beef jerky, crawfish jerky, homemade grape jelly, and homemade wine. Chelsea and I ripped open the jerky immediately – it took tremendous will-power not to eat it all at once.
Wednesday morning Alex texted me and invited us to dinner at the Ale House that night – he’d be working his last shift before taking off to St. Augustine on Thursday. We happily agreed after Tyler loaned us his car for the trip down there. It was much quieter than other dinners have been there, but the food was better than ever. Amazingly enough we had some food left over for snacks the next day. The best part, as always, was getting to see Alex. Even though he was quite busy, he managed to spend as much time with us as he could. We sure love him! And true to form for Alex, he brought out a huge special birthday dessert (incredibly delicious, too).
We were so whupped the next morning that we got a late start, but we were determined to go kayaking. We finally made it up to Canoe Outfitters by ten, and after chatting with Eric and Mike a bit, we headed out to the river, armed with our roast beef sandwiches and Jaimie’s beef and crawfish jerky.
The river was high from so much recent rain, and was as gorgeous as it’s been in years. The current was strong, and with the river so high it meant we could go over both dams without having to get out and drag the kayaks over. We made it all the way to Governor’s Dock in near-record time. We sat peacefully on the dock for nearly two hours, just chatting quietly off and on, enjoying the silence of the forest and river. We hated having to leave.
Though we had a two-hour paddle upstream against the current, it went easily. We stopped for a short break at Masten Dam, about halfway back, but we wanted to get back to Canoe Outfitters in time to chat with Mike and Eric a bit more. We did have a great time catching up with them again, but they had a busy weekend coming up so by four-thirty we were on our way home, praying that rush hour traffic would be easy. (It was.)
When I realized that Alex was truly going to be gone for my birthday, I sent him a few texts over the course of a week or two, teasing him by suggesting what he could get me for my birthday to make up for being gone (yes, I’m shameless). High on my list was season six of the House MD television show – a family favorite since its first season.
My next suggestion was that he make me my own big serving of his incredible pesto sauce.
He just laughed at both of my suggestions, but I held out hope until the last minute. I was so sure that he’d invited us to Ale House for dinner so he could give me the House DVDs, but no luck. No pesto sauce and no DVDs.
We finally dragged into the house early evening Thursday, really tired after a late night at the Ale House the night before, and after a full day of kayaking. I hadn’t remembered closing our bedroom door, but I didn’t give it any real thought as I opened it to drop off our kayaking equipment in the bedroom. To my astonishment, something was all over the bed and all over the floor! I certainly hadn’t left things that way!
I stood a moment in utter puzzlement until it dawned on me. Alex had come to the house, gone in my bedroom, had taken a bag of miniature Snickers (Snickers are a family tradition dating back to our time in the Czech Republic), and had laid a careful trail of the Snickers around the king-size bed in two directions. One trail led out of sight around my desk; the other led out of sight around the bed towards the dresser, on my side of the bed.
Which to trail to follow first? I chose the long trail around my bed and followed it till the trail ended next to my nightstand – at the season six House DVDs, lying on the floor, heaped with more miniature Snickers. I was already overwhelmed, but I still had another trail to follow. That one led to a footstool under my desk, artistically stacked with four dishes of Alex’s pesto sauce, heaped with yet more miniature Snickers.
As I stood in shock, near tears, I looked at the bed and realized it wasn’t just a pile of Snickers – he’d carefully spelled out, in big letters, “Love You!”, with the Snickers bars. I hollered for Chelsea to come look, and then I did cry. It was such an incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and creative thing to do…I felt so loved!
Earlier in the week, knowing how sad I was that Alex wouldn’t be around for my birthday, Tyler asked if we’d like to go snorkeling with him in Key Largo on my birthday. That was an easy “yes” answer! I was so dumbfounded that he asked us to go that I kept checking in with him all week, making sure he still wanted to go. I’m sure I made him nuts by asking so often, but his answer was consistently yes.
We settled on Friday, my actual birthday, when Tyler already had a day off; we were on the road well before eight, with all our snorkeling gear, a picnic lunch, and lots of water. We’d been having tropical weather disturbances, so there was some doubt about whether the water would be calm enough to go out, and the charter company wasn’t sure there’d be enough people to meet their minimum.
We headed off anyway on the two-hour drive, after checking the weather report, and ended by having a long and wonderful day. Chelsea and I have been on the Reef Roamer, a big catamaran, at least three other times. The crews are always nice, and the boat is great – very clean and open, with its design making it easy to get in and out of the water.
On this trip we had only seven people, four others besides ourselves; the trip was a lot more fun without a crowd. We had two hour-long stops in different locations, seeing barracudas, French angel fish, sergeant majors, an eel, blue parrotfish, stoplight parrotfish, redband parrotfish, Spanish hogfish, and trunkfish, as well as any number of fish we couldn’t identify (truth is, we couldn’t remember them long enough to get back and look them up on our chart).
We saw tube coral, fan coral, sea fans, and what is said to be the biggest brain coral in the world. The swells were noticeable, and the water was not as clear as other times we’ve been snorkeling, but we still managed to see an amazing number of fish.
Back on shore, after about four hours out, we changed out of our wet clothes, pulled out our picnic lunches, and ate while we headed back up to Delray.
But my amazing birthday hadn’t ended yet. Arriving home we had a note that a delivery had been made for me; since we weren’t home, it was left at our neighbor’s across the street. When they finally got home, Chelsea ran across to get whatever it was – we discovered that Amanda had arranged for a gorgeous fruit arrangement to be sent to me.
The fruit was set in what looked like a flower vase, with all the fruit designed to look like flowers in a floral arrangement. Melon balls, grapes, strawberries, melon slices, and chocolate dipped pineapple slices…. Guess what we had for dinner?
Saturday we finished the remaining fruit from Amanda’s gift, then got creative and had Snickers pancakes and added Snickers to our coffee protein shakes in the afternoon. We still had Mocha Almond Fudge and Mocha Madness Blue Bell ice cream we’d bought a week earlier, so the weekend was totally decadent.
In only four days I’d gone from sadness tinged with discouragement to an over-the-top record-breaking birthday. And we still have some of Jaimie’s wine and beef jerky left, with a bag full of miniature Snickers bars in the freezer.
A final note – Chelsea and I spent the entire rest of the Labor Day weekend on the couch, watching the entire season of House. It was heaven.