The birthday week festivities wrapped up Wednesday afternoon, with one last surprise meal and a short shopping expedition.
Tuesday night Malaya cooked dinner, but she clearly had something else in the works for the next day, since there was a big Trader Joe's bag on the counter and two more in the fridge that I was forbidden to look inside. I resisted the temptation since I knew the surprise would be more fun (I never hunt for my Xmas presents in advance or try to guess what's in the wrapped ones either, for that reason.) and when I got up and showered Wednesday, and it was lunchtime and Malaya said we were going out, I was a bit grumpy. I'd been up very late working, I hadn't slept that long, and I was tired of going out, after doing it two days in a row.
Fortunately for me, my love knows me pretty well, and rather than leading me to a restaurant or some other shopping experience where I would have been annoyed, she'd prepared a ginormous picnic lunch. Meeting her at the door, I was confronted by a heavy cooler and a large picnic basket, neither of which divulged their contents to my curious gaze. Considerably happier to be heading for a picnic than someplace that I would have to tolerate other people, I hefted the tonnage that was cooled liquids, followed Malaya who had the basket in hand, and off we went. She drove, and soon enough we were parking at the local reservoir, and walking up into a grove of pine trees, and sitting down at a nicely-shaded picnic table. Once there we pitched a tablecloth, set the cooler and basket on the table, and Malaya started unpacking. And unpacking. And unpacking. She unearthed a truly impressive spread.
Seriously, look at all of that. We had a sliced baguette, four kinds of spreadable cheese, cut veggies, spicy hummus, watermelon, three types of grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, Ritz crackers, cream cheese, bottled water, a bottle of sparkling Martinelli's apple cider, and a box of yogurt-covered raisins for dessert snacking. She'd even brought along the books we have lying open, for some after meal lounging and reading. It was unquestionably the best picnic breakfast/lunch I've ever had, it was even light and healthy, or at least it would have been if I'd taken it easier on the spreadable cheese.
After eating and lying around talking for a while, we left the reservoir and headed off for some errands. The birthday fun wasn't over yet either, since on the way to CostCo we stopped at Fry's, where she turned me loose in the DVD section with instructions to pick out a couple of movies or a game or whatever I wanted. I'd love some new computer games, but we just never have time to play them; hell, the
Warcraft III Battlechest is still sitting under her desk, never yet installed on either computer more than a year after it was purchased.
So movies it was. I picked
Enter the Dragon,
Kiki's Delivery Service, and
Castle in the Sky. The first one is a classic Bruce Lee movie we've always meant to get on DVD, and the last two are older masterpieces by Miyazaki, best known for his Academy Award winning film,
Spirited Away. My reason for picking them is mentioned in the Things of the Day post, below.
As always at Fry's, with their enormous selection and iffy organization, the titles were virtually impossible to find, and when an employee couldn't find either one on the shelf, they had to check on the computer to see that they existed, and go look again. The first girl I asked couldn't find either, but she was apparently just going on break and enlisted the guy working to look. He found
Kiki's, but neither of us could see
Castle, so we headed back over to the computer to run it again and see if they really had it in stock. While he was typing in the name, a lady who had been doing some serious browsing (she was taking notes) in the Anime section since my arrival walked over, a DVD in hand, and yes, it was Castle. God knows where they had it stocked; we certainly didn't see it despite looking through the entire "C" section.
We even watched Castle in the Sky Wednesday night, forgetting all about our supposed trip over to the dance class for about the 4th Wednesday in a row. No review yet; perhaps tomorrow, but it was interesting. Much more slapstick and wacky than Spirited Away, but similar in the "amazing secret world" aspect of Miyazaki's imagination. It had an odd ending too; despite the good guys making it out happy and successful, it was actually very melancholy, with a strong "The only way to preserve paradise is to keep humans away from it, since they'll just destroy it." message. I'll see how I feel when I write up the full review, and it's definitely a good movie, among the best anime you'll ever see, but it's certainly not anything you're used to seeing from mainstream Hollywood films.
Overall, I hardly know what to say about the three days of birthday fun. Malaya did an amazing job planning and executing them, and just for that she deserves credit. It's not easy to find stuff I want to do three days in a row, being as I'm happiest just sitting home and working on my computer or interacting with her on an one to one basis. If you've read my blog for more than the past couple of years, you'll probably remember that this attitude was precisely why I didn't make any effort to date or find a girlfriend before Malaya. I didn't imagine I'd ever meet a woman I liked (much less loved, being as I didn't entirely believe in that concept back then) who could put up with my hermit tendencies -- and I didn't want a girlfriend enough to put up with doing all the things I didn't want to do just to make her happy.
My best case scenario was a hot, intelligent, self-confident woman who had her own life and interests, enough of which overlapped mine that we could spend 2 or 3 days or nights together, per week. I figured I could put up with doing stuff I didn't really enjoy that often, that those things (going out to clubs, shopping, hanging with her friends, etc) wouldn't be that horrible with a woman I liked, that we'd do some stuff together I enjoyed, and that I'd still have 4 or 5 days a week to do my own hermity thing. And no, I didn't seriously think I'd meet a woman who would be cool with that, which is why I hadn't made any effort to do so.
Miraculously, as detailed extensively on this blog about 2.5 years ago, I met Malaya, we shared a ridiculous amount of overlapping interests, she was also hermity by nature, and was quite willing to spend most of her time at home, working on her computer beside me. I did not anticipate that I'd fall in love, and had no idea how much that would improve everything, and how much more fun doing things would be with someone I loved. Nor did I envision all of the new things I'd come to enjoy once Malaya introduced me to them, or how things I didn't like to do would become tolerable, or even fun, once I had her to do them with.
That all said, she knows me very well, and was able to pick activities she knew I would enjoy, she made food she knew I would like, and she left me enough free time that I could do some blogging and get some work done, without feeling like birthday stuff was consuming every bit of my time. In short, it was just about a perfect birthday, and if I could just switch off my unavoidable thoughts about how "she's spending too much money on me/doing too much for me" there wouldn't have been a worry in my head over the past three days. I'm even doing pretty well at not thinking about what I want to give her on her birthday in November, since that would just put pressure on me and take away from my happy funtime glow.
Thanks for the best birthday ever, Honey. Love you.
