A Birthday Surprise!

Jason surprised me on Friday with tickets to Les Miserables at the Fox. This is one of my favorite musicals and I know all of the songs by heart. Once we got downtown and in our seats, we had a lovely night followed by dinner and dessert at what Jason and I would consider 'our' restaurant, Cafe Intermezzo. For those who have never been there, they have the best (and we've tried many!) spinach and artichoke dip, and some of the most delectable desserts. They have two display cases full of cakes, pies and cheesecakes and there are two people whose sole job is to explain to customers what each piece of yummy goodness is made from. Hmmm... maybe I should consider a career change!!

Let me tell you about the day leading up to the show and why Jason may possibly never surprise me with anything again. Jason had gone to a lot of trouble of setting up something for my birthday which is a few weeks away and he knows how much I love going to the Fox. I give him tons of credit for getting the tickets, setting up a baby-sitter, making dinner reservations all without me having a hint of what was going on. I put a complete wrench in his plans when I had to print on Friday at the store since my graphic designer was out. I was stressing out trying to get everything done and had planned to stay a little late at work to complete it all. Around 4 o'clock, I got a call from Open Arms saying that Ava had gotten sick at school and they couldn't get a hold of Jason and I needed to come pick her up. I was stressing out trying to complete the stack of customers proofs and was frantically calling Jason. Why wasn't he answering I kept thinking?? On top of this, Carol, who was in on the surprise, kept walking into my office telling me that I needed to go and why hadn't I left yet? I called Jason one last time before I walked out and score! he answered his phone... hmmm... why do I hear Ava in the background? Jason said he had gotten the school's message and had already picked up Ava, but he said, I needed to come home immediately. What? Why, I asked? I have to finish these proofs and then I'll head home. Just come home right now said Jason, I'll explain when you get here. My mind immediately started thinking who was sick, had somebody died? Why can't he tell me over the phone. Something must be terribly wrong...

I finished my work and flew home. When I got there, I found Jason, Ava and Alina (the world's best babysitter and sister in law) playing. Ava wasn't sick at all- that was Jason's evil plan to get me to leave work early. Jason told me that he had a surprise for me as an early birthday present, but we had to leave in 10 minutes to make it on time! Aaaagh... more stress! I could have killed him. I ran upstairs and stood in my closet for the whole 10 minutes trying to figure out what to wear. Jason finally gave in and told me that we had reservations at 7, but we were just going to skip those and go to something else at 8. I showered and got dressed and we still left 15 minutes late! We flew downtown and had to fight all of the traffic and had to bob and weave around all of the construction and just barely made it into our seats before the curtain went up.

Even though the night ended well, I don't think I'll ever be getting that kind of a surprise again!