Birthday Weekend Recap in These Foolish Things

The birthday was Thursday. Here’s what happened the rest of the weekend:

Friday: Half-ass worked all day. I honestly can’t remember much of what I did, if I did anything at my new job. Isn’t that weird? I mean, I know I did stuff, including writing a bio for my boss to send out as part of my “big announcement”, but since I didn’t have an actual email at the time, I was emailing stuff from my personal email, and then…whatever I did. Hm. Kinda scary that I have no clue except for trying to understand the company. Oh well. Friday night was the Launch Party for the company where I did my consulting project. That was interesting! First of all, it was interesting because the project was for outdoor furniture and it was pouring rain all day and the party was (obviously) outside so they could display all of the new styles. But it was fine by the time I got to the party and the weather held out! I said hello to the founders and there was an open bar and a food truck and all of the good stuff! People were super friendly and I enjoyed myself completely. The only bummer was that the furniture samples were really disappointing. I don’t know, man. The marketing is amazing and they have gone well above and beyond their Kickstarter campaign, but…they clearly didn’t have a first-class product developer or they would have had much more substantial styles. And for my small consulting part of it, they actually made a big deal of my recommendations, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that the rest of the design is mediocre. I want to say something! I want them to succeed! I just don’t quite know how to approach them about it. The rest of the night was fun talking with a bunch of young, recent MBA graduates about work and commutes and travel and other stuff. I would love to have more nights like Friday night…but it would be so nice to have them with a partner.

Saturday: Woke late, cuddled the dog, and clicked around the socials for a bit. Then got up and took the dog for a long, long, loooong walk on the city trails downtown. Long enough to feel good about the day. Sometimes you just have to walk things off! Then home to get ready for an early dinner with…dun…dun…dun…guess who?? The blast from my past was none other than The Bulldog. You guys remember him? The guy I dated after SexyPants? The guy who was essentially my boyfriend but refused to actually be my boyfriend? Yeah, well, he’s always had some kind of soft spot for me around my birthday, and he really loves the city where I live. And there are some restaurants he loves around here. So he asked me if I wanted to go to one of them for my bday. And I thought about it for a day or two or five and finally said okay. I said okay not knowing what his intentions were. In fact, I thought for sure he was going to want to stay here at The Place with me (I would have insisted he stay in the guest bedroom, of course). But no! The guy actually got a freaking hotel room at one of the funky boutique hotels in town. So weird, right?! But we had a lovely, friendly dinner together and took a nice walk afterward, and then we went our separate ways - just like friends who go to dinner together do. It was absolutely nice. Did it scratch an itch? No. But did I want him to? Also no. So I don’t know what that was other than a nice dinner together and that’s all. So. Hm.

Sunday: Was super warm and rainy in the morning, but it quickly turned to a cold, cold, ice-cold day and I was going to play pickleball with my neighbors like we did the Sunday before. But because of the weather, the pickleball appointment got moved two hours later than was originally scheduled and our little group was hemming and hawing about going, but I desperately needed to move and walk off the extravagant dinner from the night before and the lack of movement in the morning. So, the nabes (a lesbian couple named Lee and Vee) picked me up and we drove the 20 minutes out to the courts only to find that the courts were freaking closed! Boo! So we hemmed and hawed ourselves and in the end, drove back home. Bummer. So I was home and sad and alone and decided to go to freaking Target because I haven’t been there in a while and I wanted to see what was going on and pick up some good Target-y stuff! Turns out, it was a brilliant plan because it was kinda crowded but not too bad, and there was a TON of new stuff out and I was having the absolute time of my life cruising the new clothes and accessories and early holiday merch. Oh, what fun!! Until. I somehow lost my freaking phone!! Oh, the panic. The panic! I retraced my steps (which were essentially the whole store), and finally found an employee who called my phone and helped me search for it on the floors and through mounds and racks of stuff. No avail! Finally, finally, I gave up the search and decided to go ask customer service just knowing that they wouldn’t have my phone. But guess what? Not only did they have it, but they’d called Best Bud!! And it seems she’d sent out the search and rescue from 3 hours away! She called her son who goes to school in my city and she’d called Bob, our psychiatrist friend who lives here and she got everyone ready to figure out what freaking Target was close to me so they could find whomever had kidnapped me and dropped my phone! Haha! Seriously, she’d made up a whole story in her head of what could have possibly happened to me! But I talked her off the ledge when I finally got my phone back and talked with her. What a crazy evening it ended up being. I was exhausted so I went home and just turned on the Real Housewives of New York because why the fuck not after a strange weekend like that?

And that was it, my friends! That was my Birthday Weekend.

Next year? I need to plan to be out of town or something.
GS