Greetings from Paris

All summer I've felt like I've had nothing to write about because everything was either too boring or too personal or a secret. This is because the focus of the summer has been on my wife's impending 50th birthday. I guess that no person, and especially no woman, is thrilled to turn 50. I can understand that, and there's already been too much written about this country's obsession with youth at a time the population is steadily aging. A coincidence? I think not.

There's no escaping the effects of a major milestone on a person and their significant other. I said to Ronnie last year that I didn't want this to be a surprise and that I did not want sole responsibility for planning the birthday. It was too emotionally loaded. Somehow we never discussed what she wanted to do. This is my fault, even if it really isn't.

So somehow we got a single digit weeks before the big day and the time for collaboration had passed, even if it really hadn't. (I know the last two sentences sound kind of cryptic. Welcome to Marriageland).

It wasn't incredibly hard to plan something. I had a good idea that was possible to actually execute. This still meant that I had to do all the planning and make it all work, and to it kind of in secret, which is why I didn't write about it.

So here's the plan:

1. Rent the nearby movie theater and screen Ronnie's favorite movie- Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, for a bunch of our friends the Saturday before her birthday.
2. Have said friends over to the house afterward for brunch.
3. Shoo the friends out, pack a bag and fly off to Paris for the birthday itself.

Simple, eh? I even knew how to do all of these things. The problem is that I'm not very organized and there were several details that made it harder than it should have been. I also have what you might call a completion phobia. I'm afraid to finish things. I presume this is some kind of deep-seated psychological thing that had something to do with my mother, who maybe was too good at finishing things. It can be annoying to the people around me when I almost but not quite finish things, but I'm generally pretty functional in spite of this and it's mostly annoying an frustrating to me. It's probably the thing that I'm most dissatisfied with about myself.

So as the day draws closer, I find I haven't tied up all the loose ends, so I'm tense, plus because it somehow ended up being an actual surprise I have no idea if Ronnie was even going to like it. Plus I want to have the brunch outside, which offers me the opportunity to stress out over an uncontrollable variable, the weather. It had been viciously hot outside and the garden was fried. I'll pause now because I like the necessary talent to describe the feelings of anxiety this kind of thing provokes.

Fast forward and it's morning of and everything is still a surprise. I have no idea how this happened- it was never my intent. I trust that everything will work out and miraculously it all does. The weather is spectacular, Ronnie comes downstairs looking beautiful, the caterers not only stop on their way to buy coffee because I forgot to but they get coffee cups which I forgot I forgot. My daughter runs to the store to get aluminum foil. Almost everyone who says they were coming actually shows up and it makes Ronnie very happy. The movie is fantastic and everyone loves it.

We head back to the house and it's a perfect party. The garden has recovered and it stunningly pretty. The food it good. The indoor-outdoor thing works well. Our various groups of friends mesh well. And most importantly, Ronnie has a great time. There's a song by Talking Heads (btw, not the Talking Heads) called "Heaven". In describing heaven, David Byrne sings "There's a party. Everyone is there. Everybody leaves at exactly the same time." It was kind of like that.

We pack and get in the car and I finally tell Ronnie where we're going. No more surprises. Everyone is happy and we're on our way. I feel like my summer vacation has finally begun.