My Year of Meaningful (2011)

So there's no doubt about this one -
Probably one of the most meaningful birthdays of my life last week. Partially since I was so deathly mournful about turning -gulp- the big "mid-30-number", and then it turned out to be so fantastico. I remember when some of my older friends turned "that number" and how back in the day I used to think to myself "wow, that's old! That's like... so adulty!!" Well, now it's my turn and I'm thinking... uhhhhhh.... am I really that old? No! It doesn't feel old at all! I keep forgetting I'm not 25!!! Until I realize all my employees are like, 25 or thereabouts and I feel like they're just babies. It's a freakin mental roller coaster, age is. I know it doesn't matter and you're only as old as the woman that you feel and all that, but still. You can't change your birth year... it's still glaring at you on your passport, driver's license, CV, residence permit, etc.... and it just starts looking outdated every time these new young whippersnappers keep dropping in their cover letters & CVs that say "DOB: 1980-something.... or even 19NINETY-something!!!!"

Anyhoo, so the long and short of it is that I was dreading the day, and of course it started out as most of my Maun days do (or as Brandon calls it my days in "AssCrack-istan") with a 5am wakeup, schlep into the airport, schlep into Maun on a bumpy-ass flight, and then a full day of full-blown Kalahari sun, asphalt, workboots, long pants, knee-deep sand, and shadeless, waterless, sweat-filled hard and frustrating work. This particular day was one of our monthly project meetings and I had started a lot of shit on the site over the past month so I had a lot of yelling and followup to do (otherwise I may have opted out and sent my apologies and just not gone since it is such an anti-birthday way to spend a whole day). Then as usual, I end up not getting home until after 7pm, tired, airsick, sweaty, covered in sand, and uncomfortably full of MSG (the Chinese contractor on site always feeds us for lunch there and it's always backdoor on-site cooked Chinese food).

So the majority of what I just described came to pass, only lightened up a little by the number of messages and phone calls and emails from people who care. My expectations were that I would fly home as per usual, and then The Mr. would meet me/surprise me at the airport (sans LJJ) and we would go out for a fancy-pants dinner, at which point he would tell me that we were going away to such-and-such a place for the next couple of days (he had told me before that I had to keep the rest of the week "free", but with no indication of what that meant). I had all sorts of expectations of where that destination could be, but nothing concrete to go on.

As it was time to get back to the airport and fly home, Tendayi, my lovely and gorgeous Zimbabwean colleague/friend on the Maun job pulls up next to me and demands to take me for one quick birthday drink before I go back. So I gather my stuff, get in his truck and was handling a work issue on the cell phone, when all of a sudden Tendayi starts cranking up the radio outrageously LOUD and I start getting pissed because I can't hear my phone call. And he is acting sketchy and weird because he is normally not the kind of guy who would be BLASTING the stereo while you're on the phone right next to him. We pull up in front of the bar by the airport and run inside (as it's lashing down with rain, cats & dogs like) and as I do, a 4x4 pulls around the corner and parks RIGHT in front of us. Thought nothing, just trying to get out of the rain. Once inside, I see a white girl with dreads getting out of said car, and my thoughts were "hm. Looks like Petra". Still nothing. Then a second later I realize, it *IS* Petra! (For the record, I'm talking about our BFF from NL who used to live here when we first moved here but then moved back to NL a couple years ago and who is currently in BW on a 3-week holiday, but was SUPPOSED to be in G-city, not Maun!) What the hell is she doing in Maun? Oh... what? That 4x4 she's getting out of..... is MY OWN VEHICLE!? Oh, and who's that in the driver's seat? It's The Mr.!!! WTF!?!? And so then I realize they're wrestling to get something out of the back seat while the rain is dumping buckets on them (LJJ), and then they run inside and it's all "surprise, surprise!s and WTF are you two doing here?s" and so on. So apparently Tendayi was in on it all and the whole blasting-the-music thing was because Petra had been on the phone with him telling him he needed to stall me because they were running a little late and knew if I showed up at the airport to check in and realized THERE WAS NO TICKET HOME IN MY NAME available "she's gonna go ape shit!" (which is 150% TRUE). This was because The Mr. had cancelled my return flight, in consideration of what he was planning (to drive up and kidnap me). And it would've set me on FIRE and the (not) kind ladies at the Air BW check in counter would've received the verbal lashing of their lifetime as I could absolutely NOT tolerate such nonsense ON MY BIRTHDAY.

So anyway, there we all are at the bar, Tendayi, Petra, GG, Keith, etc. and enjoy a couple beverages laughing about all the people who were in on the surprise (apparently several guys on the consulting team in Maun, even). And eventually The Mr. lets me in on the rest of the gig, which is that Petra just rode up with him to keep him company and she's going to hang out in Maun and fly back tomorrow, and meanwhile he, me, and LJJ are going to this lovely posh tree lodge that we went to & thoroughly enjoyed a couple years ago outside of Maun, for 2 nights of R&R, before moving onto a second destination (which I only found out was this elegant old-fashioned tented safari camp as we drove up to it a couple days later) in the Makgadikgadi Pans for another 2 nights before returning home on Saturday.

So anyway, I would have to say that hands-down, this was a true no-brainer on the Meaningful front. I mean, how much planning had to go into this!? Loads!! I am so freakin lucky. The amount of love and organization that went into making my birthday a true surprise and truly special is mind-boggling. If you think about it, it wasn't an easy task. He had to book the venues, cancel my work flight, *PACK MY BAGS* for me (well, now that's another story all together.... one that ended up with me having to wash my hair without conditioner, not be able to comb said hair due to lack of comb/brush/etc., and wear pretty poorly-matched outfits, but who cares!), drive 8 hours with the foot down to beat me to the airport, manage LJJ all the way up, ensure that I didn't find out with anything out or worse yet, potentially ruin the surprise by scheduling some work-meeting or other conflict during the week (which he had to be VERY clued into what I was doing at the office to avoid this). Even right down to sorting out all my management issues at work to ensure that the things I was in charge of doing during that week were handled by someone else etc. And at the same time, not tell certain people who would've botched the surprise. He packed a red wine, a white wine, and a champagne so that we could have our choice of beverage to enjoy out on the veranda each night, and had written a very sweet card and insisted on doing every thing for me for the whole remainder of the weekend. Everything. Like, from feeding LJJ breakfast every day while I laid in bed, to walking back and forth between the main lodge and our chalet/tent each time I wanted something like a bottle of water or snack, etc. "It's YOUR birthday trip, let me do it"... was the mantra for the next 4 - 5 days. Honestly, this could possibly be the highest bar ever set by any husband in the world. I'm still in awe, as I think back about it a week later.

Then the presents were glorious too. My long-sought-after iPhone 4 was the big dog of them all of course, and then the 2nd most awesome component was that he had gone and PERSONALLY sorted out all the logistics for me to get my motorcycle license (FINALLY), which has been one of those nasty "hanging" things that has been loitering around on my To-Do list for like, years, but I've just been too lazy to get moving on. The credit "note" he gave me included a certain amount of credit hours training that you have to do (which is kind of unnecessary since I know how to ride a bike, but you still have to do it, and is the main thing that has been keeping me from getting through all this crap already) - all organized & ready to go, all I had to do was show up, as well as all paperwork filled out and submitted for both theory and road test exams, so I have to do NOTHING. Just show up on the dates and walk away with the license (which I've already aced all the training already this week, loving every moment of it, so will go for the theory test on Wednesday & then have the learners' license in my pocket, woo hoo!).

So anyway, regardless of what the chalet/lodges were like, and how awesome the presents were, and how sweet the thought was, I feel like the amount of sensitive planning and scheming that went into this whole thing was just like the biggest "I REALLY DO LOVE YOU" I could've ever got, and absolutely by all accounts, was one of the most meaningful presents I've ever received in my life, and will go down in history as possibly the best birthday ever, without a doubt.

Labels: Meaningful, The Mr.