A Pink Surprise!

Whew! The last few weeks have passed with blistering speed! There's so much to tell you about. But first, I want to thank all of you who helped with and attended the "surprise!" party that was thrown for me in my sister Jennifer's backyard. (And yes, for those of you who are wondering, Jen is indeed the same sister who swore Old Red looked good on me during my first battle with breast cancer. So this ploy is just another example not to trust her.)

On the evening in question, Jennifer invited me over for dinner (or maybe I invited myself, I'm not sure). She said they were having happy hour at her house, which is nothing unusual. Her house is located in a good spot for the locals to descend on for such soirees.

To play-up her ruse, she called me wanting to know when I was going to show up. I was running late as is customary. She sounded annoyed, as is customary, and claimed she was going to start dinner without me because they were starving. Okay, no problem. Not wanting to arrive empty handed, I decided to make a quick stop at a nearby 7-11, which turned out to be a NOT-so-quick stop because a street that used to be 2-way was turned into a 1-way and I was detoured through a maze of other streets to get back to my original heading. So I finally arrived, unsuspectingly but even more late, to my destination and the waiting guests.

Jennifer was outside sitting on the front stoop. I assumed the kids were out back and she was sneaking a smoke. She watched me pull up and made fun of my parallel parking. Nothing unusual there. I was completely unaware of any mischief going on. I followed Jen in through the front door where I was greeted by my sister Joan, who was her perky self and all dolled-up in pink. Still nothing out of the ordinary to me. I thought it was a pleasant surprise to see her in town. I figured she had a day off from work and decided to visit. So I remained clueless about the monkey business taking place. I came into the kitchen and saw my friends Deidre and Kelly through the window. They aren't from around town. In a bewildered state I thought, "what are they doing here?" My brain couldn't process it so I walked out the back door in a zombie-like state. And "wow," there it was - a gathering of people boozing it up and hooting "surprise" and "congratulations!" I was stunned. The party-goers were all dressed in pink, there were pink ribbons everywhere, bouquets of pink flowers, and champagne. Lots of champagne! And I made it my mission to circulate among the guests and raise glass-after-glass until it was all gone. Needless to say, I had a fabulous time.

So "THANK YOU," thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who made it to the party and for all of your gifts and well wishes, and especially to my sisters who put it all together. It was such a wonderful "welcome back" to my layperson's life.