cjsmith | Party

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Party

Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 06:30 pm

The surprise party was wonderful. :-)

I got a slow start, because I had no idea it would take nearly half an hour to print out a thirty-page birthday card. But I arrived at Lake Elizabeth in time, just before the 12:30 deadline, pulling up right behind

rampling. We both decided our cars were too conspicuous, so we parked wrong way 'round, since the cars' noses don't have identifying bumper stickers.

I wrestled a lot of schtuff out of the car, assembled the scooter, and rode it towards the path. I was pretty loaded down: I had an underseat basket containing a couple photos and an invoice and the cupholder and my purse, a front basket with a catalog and registration card and video on how to fold the thing, my hiking boots AND the extra battery on my lap, and my backpack between my ankles. Of course at this point my cell phone rang. It was

joedecker; by the time I answered I could see him waving.

We hid the scooter behind a barbecue grill, with a blanket to shield it from the sun so that

mactavish's *ss wouldn't get any hotter. People took noisemakers and acted silly with them. I met a great many folks I had never met before. I wished we'd all had nametags, with our LJ names on them! The only LJ nametag was

dewhitton, represented by a toy stuffed bat. It had to be tied down so as to stay put in the wind. I hope that was fun for the bat.

The party organizers had gotten me a pretty flower - a lily, still in its pot - to thank me for the

scooting idea. It took a bit of a beating in the wind, but it smelled lovely and I was touched.

The person standing next to me (WHO ARE YOU? You were fun to talk to!) spotted Casey and Mary arriving. Good eyes! The timing was perfect: 1PM, as planned. I wandered through the group saying "be ready". Many folks turned their back on the entrance so as not to be recognized too quickly. Mary took off in some random direction. Darn, had she spotted us? But Casey got her to come back.

Mary said later that she truly had no idea what was up until we all started shouting. It was terrific. She kept shaking her head and putting her hand up to her face.

There was a long line of hugs, and then

jdecker led her over to where we'd put the scooter. She'd had an inkling of this, as it turns out, but she had noticed the scooter under its blanket and "thought it was somebody's stroller". :-)

Lots of cameras were around, and even one or two video cameras. I hope some of that stuff gets posted.

Somebody said the magic word "cake". Of course I hadn't remembered that the candles I was bringing had a purpose. I headed over, gave the candles to

amywithani, and got in her way taking a picture. The cake said "Scooting says Happy Birthday Mary!".

It was windy enough that lighting the candles was a real challenge. Who had the great idea of representing Mary's age in binary, using white and blue candles? And then lighting only the ones? Finally, with a large number of people forming a human shield, the candles all stayed lit long enough for the fastest rendition of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard. Then Mary blew them out. I think she didn't have to work too hard.

There was much fun dogness (I finally met

bestestdog!), lots of talking, some lovely flirting, and a bit of walking around (especially by the folks with dogs). Several people got to try the scooter. "After all,"

zyxwvut said, "we bought it." True enough!

People started to trickle away around three, and by five there were maybe a dozen folks left. Most of those adjourned to

mactavish and

deyo's place, where I bet they're still having a wonderful time.

I made the entries in

scooting public so Mary can read them if she wants to. I figure it's fun to share the excitement of all the plotting with the intended recipient.

A good day. Yay. :-)

Current Mood: happy

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