Superhero Living for the Everyday Person: Devious (but not nefarious) Plans Come to Pass

Hello Beautiful Readers!!

Thank you for your continued interest in my life, you are wonderful.

Something you may or may not know about me is that I’m a perfect gift giver. I am a gift-giving perfectionist. Consequently, unfortunately, if you are a loved one in my life, you will rarely receive a gift from me. I will simply never give you a gift if it is not perfect. And that is exactly what happened this weekend.

The idea occurred to me shortly after my first paycheck, when I realized I could do something fun somewhat spontaneously after years of living in bitter poverty. I called my brother and we started our plans. His end was simple: make sure Mum didn’t have work the day of May 23.

My end was enjoyably complicated. First I bought my ticket. Several lessons learned about “cheapo” flights from this part of the country:

8pm to 8 am with two layovers is unacceptable. Forever.
Charlotte has really intense air conditioning and I am temperature sensitive when it comes to sleeping. There went 2 precious hours of sleep.
Dallas has a surprisingly good train system to get passengers around. Absolutely no complaints about that airport.
No matter how you slice it, in order to get to a 5:26 am departing plane, you will ALWAYS have to wake up at 3 am. I have an amazing friend, that’s all I can say.

Next step was calling all of my mom’s friends. Fortunately (?) this woman befriends some dang conspiratorial people so they were happy to keep the secret. This included calling one of my aunts, which actually wound up being such a wonderful blessing to spend time with her. I feel that growing up has offered such opportunities to meet people who raised me in such a different way. Talked Brother (that’s what I’m calling him now. Maybe?) into making restaurant reservation. Perfection.

I then made the at-the-time-sane decision to spend a “me” day where I got to see my friends. I might have forgotten that I have a million friends. I might also have forgotten that I haven’t been back east in a year and therefore had STUFF to catch up on.

When I got in, I saw my adopted dad which was really really great. He commented something that sums me up succinctly. He says I am always in motion. My specific plans to obtain a goal may not be in place, I just go for it. This personality trait makes it difficult for me to understand others who don’t find peace through motion. Then he made up a bed with fresh sheets while I showered and it was great.

The rest of the day was spent with friends, catching up on life and potential PhD program opportunities. If I believed more in soul mates, I might deceive myself into thinking I’ve found my PhD advisor equivalent of one. At any rate, the dude is an excellent resource and an encouragement for me to think long-term about staying in research and/or academia.

The other highlight of the day was one of my dearest friends walking into our rendezvous restaurant with a folk group’s cd and a pair of my shorts. How he got them, I’m still a little fuzzy on the details.

Next morning was The Big Day. I took the train up to meet with my Middle Aunt. She brought me to the teeny-tiny-est farmer’s market I’ve ever seen. She bought a Japanese Maple for a reasonable price and I got a mint plant. She’s three years sober now (I think?) and I got to meet one of her friends from AA. It was such a fucking relief to me that there are women in the world who curse as much as I do. I feel like TLoTH is so damn prim and proper sometimes, it’s oppressive. It was very empowering and encouraging to spend time with them. We briefly stopped off at her home and picked up her husband. Then it was SHOWTIME!

We arrived at the restaurant perfectly on time. As the guests showed up, there were many hugs and kisses. I surprised my niece because it was also her birthday. But she’s 14 so she acted cool like people pop across the country every year for her birthday. Gotta love teenagers. I gave her a book I’ve wanted her to read and we’ll talk about later, hopefully.

Brother texted me that they left the house and I hid in the bathroom. Three eternity minutes later, I heard the guests yell “Happy Birthday!” Middle Aunt came and retrieved me. As she came around the corner, I walked up to my mom’s shoulders and said “Happy Birthday!” softly. She turned around and she was crying. Because there’s always that very small, remote, impossible possibility that your daughter will randomly come halfway across the country for your birthday. But it’s easy to put that possibility out of your head. She was in shock for a good ten minutes it was AWESOME!

After the party (with much ado and more hugs) we parted ways with everyone and I asked my brother if he wanted to go for a hike. We spent the whole afternoon together, hanging out and talking candidly in a manner we haven’t done in close to ten years. It was one of the best things that’s happened so far this year. I also learned that he likes to back-paddle on paddleboats just to watch the bubbles. :P

The rest of the trip was a bit blurry due to the lack of sleep but I know at some point I saw more adopted family. Then I convinced my mom to see Pitch Perfect 2 with me followed by dinner at a diner we used to go to as kids.

It was basically a perfect 4 day weekend.

In case your weekend wasn't quite as awesome, here is some mainstream awesome: