dazed and confused

January 9th blog entry:
   "Not too long ago I hit the big 4-0 and it went exactly as planned:: quietly and without fanfare. I shut down my facebook wall and hoped for the best."



Five days later I was the unwitting mark of a well-conceived 40th birthday surprise party. Only. being surprised was not the immediate feeling.  More specifically, the 3 progressive stages achieved within the first 10 minutes were, confusion, surprise, and disbelief.

I thought I was going to my youngest niece's 10th birthday party which would be followed by some glorious highly anticipated football playoff games, including the Bears-Seahawks game the next day. I reasoned that a lil girl party couldn't go on that long nor should it interfere too excessively with the football broadcast.  If the singing or noise gets out of hand you could always turn the volume up or banish them to the cold basement.
 
So, I walk through the front door and before I took my third step I noticed a bunch of people making a lot of noise in unison.  What's is this?, Did they yell surpise?, I thought to myself quickly scanning the room for recognizable faces.  A couple thoughts raced through my mind as I absorbed the confusing situation.  I thought they were surprising Amber and had been waiting for us to get there first.  But how odd though that it had to be so sudden.  At least let us shake off the cold or possibly get some food and drink.

Or was this some joke?  On the drive over I realized that we were running late as both Andrea and Steve had called asking if we were almost there. The first football game started at 3:30 and I wondered if I was holding up the game. It wouldn't shock me that my bro-in-law who abhors tardiness would organize a humiliation posse for the late arrivals.

Thankfully, my irrational thoughts wrought by uncertainty dissipated and with big helium balloons in grasp, I was now realizing that this was indeed my surprise birthday party.  Surprised I was!
You can only stay surprised for a very short time and soon I found myself in disbelief.  I had been had; Mislead and bamboozled!  Heck,  I had wrote in my blog that I took precautions to allow my birthday to fly under the radar.  Setting up my facebook holiday vacation, I  revealed no birthday announcements and the Wall was left:: unapproachable- not even James Bond could get through or even a Maxwell Smart.
 However, 2 weeks ago on my birthday, Ann/Steve n kids surprised me with a Chicago Bears themed cake while we were in Indiana enjoying a deep fried turkey **best damn turkey ever**.   
That was a nice surprise albeit slightly awkward due to not knowing most of the people.  I made it though! I was in the clear!  Now I could set my sights on the New Year and the upcoming Bear football games.

Normally, people who are approaching milestone birthdays, know to have their guard up..They carefully ask questions and dissect all incoming information to see if it syncs-up with their conspiracy theories.  "Oh you want me to show up where and at this time?"  My surprise party was a full 2 weeks after my birthday.  My guard had been shed.  I had no expectations of a party nor was there even the faintest notion that this was a possibility. 

Although initially I felt awkward I eventually relaxed and had fun.  The cake was awesome.  The picture on the cake dates back to when I was 13 years old.  It was nice to see a good sized crowd coming out for me.  An unexpected but pleasant surprise at the party was J who I hadn't seen in almost 4 months. Figuring that I would have to wait another decade before the next milestone to get a party like this, I decided to live it up and get goofy.  Plenty of drinks were had.  I had a blast!  It was fun and surprisingly, it was ok to have the football games as merely background entertainment.  The next day the Bears won their first playoff game against the Seahawks in very convincing fashion.  What a great weekend! Bring it on Green Bay!

"What happened to this little kid?"