Surprise!

Officially 20 days old, this story could easily have ended up in my mental archives of "things I meant to blog about."  But I came across this picture, and just had to share.

You know in "Scene It" where they zoom in on a picture, and slowly pan out, and you have to guess what it's from?  Well, here's the zoomed in shot, and I'll just have to describe what you can't see in this picture.

The brown blob in the bottom right is me in a brown hoodie.  I've just flopped my upper body down onto the counter trying to recover from serious shock.  The orange blob and set of hands belongs to Perry, the cause of my intense distress.  The soda bottles... well, I didn't notice them until after the "moment."

Now back up to 5:00 on the evening of October 8th.  I'd been in Draper at a rehearsal for the youth review and was exhausted.  But we'd been working hard on our basement, and the mudding and taping had just been finished, so I'd planned to spend the evening priming.  Not wanting to do it alone, I'd enlisted the help of friends Perry and Skyler to come over, paint, and watch The Sing Off.  I texted Kirk to see if there would be enough dinner for Perry and Skyler, to which he strangely replied, "Yeah, I guess.  But meet me at the park at the top of the neighborhood for dinner."

Weird on so many levels:

1. Kirk doesn't do picnics without serious begging from me.

2. We have a park 2 doors down... why would he be at the top of the neighborhood.

I texted back with an ok, but told him I'd be stopping off at home first to change my clothes.  "No," came back a somewhat whiny reply, "I just really miss you."

Weird again.  Kirk and I aren't really like that.  But whatever.

I hurried home, hurried to the park, and enjoyed a picnic dinner with the family.  While there, however, I got a text from Skyler saying he'd just come over after dinner.  And one from Perry wondering where the park was - to which I replied - but he never showed up.

We walked home.  I gathered all the half-full soda cans, entered the house, and started to set them on the counter.  All of the sudden, a tall flash of orange popped up from behind my counter. 

There are several versions to the next part of the story.

1. Skyler says I screamed.  Shrieked really.  I doubt that.  I'm not much a screamer.

2. Perry says I did make noise, but more of a loud gasp.

3. I know for positive that I jumped, nearly spilling the assorted soda cans.

The orange was too close for me to clearly see whose head might be at it's top.  When I finally processed that it was Perry, I was just all sorts of confused.  I turned around and saw my friend Arlee in the living room.  What?!  Finally, it dawned on me: a surprise birthday party.  Two weeks late because, as Kirk pointed out, I am too busy and there was no earlier night when he could plan one for me.

It literally took minutes for me to calm down from the shock, but as I did, I was grateful for the friends whom Kirk and Skyler had invited over.  We played some games, checked out the new projector (which Kirk had just installed) and ate cake. 

Just days after Kirk and Skyler had set the plan into motion, I told Skyler all about how much fun it would be to have a surprise party, but that Kirk would never do something like that.  Well, I sure was surprised!