Surprise

Yesterday started like pretty much all the other days this week. Woke up, breakfast, set up the basement for my work-mode and got to it, and the bird on the roof continued on with his "construction" activities. Before my first break of the day my watch went nuts letting me know I was getting a call on my cell. It was not a name I recognized it so I easily ignored it, besides I was on a call. And then the same number called again. Still on a call so again, dismiss. The person left a voicemail so, fine, I made note to check it once I was on break. But then my doorbell rang over and over again. At this point I got really nervous because it reminded me much to vividly of how Weird Kid tried to wake me up on the day that dad passed away. I started thinking worrisome thoughts but I was still on a call so I couldn't answer the door. After I got off my call I set my status to away and ran to my phone to see what in the world was going on. The person at the door was the same person on the phone and she also sent me a text message. Turns out I had a delivery on my porch that had to be refrigerated. Thank goodness there were no porch pirates around because it turned out to be a gorgeous Black Forest Cake from Saskatoon (and later I learned it was also from Daisy) from Glamorgan Bakery! when I finished my day I went out to go get the mail. When I got outside, even though I stepped outside almost every day for at least a minute, the warmth of the sun felt incredibly awesome that I felt like finding more reasons to get outside. So I took my poinsettias from my kitchen counter and evicted them to the outdoor shelf. The poinsettias this year just did not do as well as last year's couple -- those things kept on blooming well into September even though I kicked them out of the house before the summer started. These two are just sickly and not blooming at all. I'll still water them when I think about it but they were just taking up way too much space in my kitchen without adding any aesthetic to it so I gave up. It was so warm and lovely I even gathered all the stinky garbage and took it out. :P I also sterilized some of my gear since Butch was still away so I could do girl-stuff without him seeing xP and then it was pretty much time to log-in to help Daisy practice using Zoom. Initially I was going to text her to say I'd be a few minutes late because I was just finishing all the sterilizing but I figured, enh, it was not so involved that I couldn't do it one-handed while I start chatting with her. But it was very odd because as I started logging in I could swear I saw Posie pop up on my screen...but then I saw Daisy pop up so I figured I had just imagined seeing Posie's face. Then all of a sudden many voices were wishing me a happy birthday...*confused* Turns out I had not mistaken Posie's face...her, Daisy, M, and so many other friends had collaborated and planned a surprise Zoom birthday chat for me! Typical me, I started to cry...I had no idea how much I missed them all until I saw all their faces. Rainbow Girl was live from Seattle, Sunny, Smiley, Latina, M, N (sorry, it's been so long since I created some of these pseudonyms I have no idea how I referred to some of these girls back then) Some of them didn't know the others so it was incredible how they all came together. It was fantastic! We reset our Zoom session I think 4 times we just kept talking and talking...and we lost some friends who had to go to bed or put their kids to bed or their iPad died...and a lot of our convo revolved around how much COVID-19 was affecting us both in the States and here. But it never got sad about our "predicament" and it was a great conversation anyway. And before we ran out of time on our last go-round they all decided to share one of their fave memories with me. At first I was embarrassed because it seemed a tad eulogy-like and awkward having everyone talk about me but they all brought up great memories. After we got disconnected I texted everyone who fell off-line to thank them for the surprise. Posie and I discussed how her and her family were all dealing with self-isolating together in their home. DJ Monkey also texted me to wish me a belated happy birthday and we had a few messages back and forth talking about how him and his girls were doing and we also delved into how the world seemed to be timing everything "just right" even when those events were unfortunate. Again I shared that I was glad, if that's even the right word, that my dad passed away when he did because if we had to go through those early days of grieving now it would be so much worse and unbearably difficult. And I do stress "unbearably." This week I had also mentioned to mom that if dad was around right now and he had to experience this whole self-isolating along with the rest of us I'm not sure how he would be able to deal with not getting to visit and feed my grandma every day. It's truly merciful timing, to be honest. And DJ Monkey talked about how he was actually going to start training for another position but then changed his mind...once again it was serendipitous because staying with his current role he was able to take the time to take care of his daughters and his wife while the little one had to go through medical attention up in Edmonton. Obviously none of us wanted dad to leave us here, and nobody wishes illness or discomfort to a little infant girl...but life gave us these burdens at a time when we would be better able to handle these trials. And the fabulous evening did not end there...Butch came home! I'm guessing they drove like the wind at times to get here when they did but it was so wonderful to finally be able to snuggle with him again. He's had a crazy long week of crazy long work days. I am so happy he's finally home and can rest. Plus his company sent out an email before they got home saying that the entire company will be working from their respective homes until the 13th. So I have an office mate for the next couple of weeks! I'm excited that I won't be living like I'm the lone survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. :P