TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006 BIRFDAYS BIRFDAYS BIRFDAYS Slid right through Martin Luther King's actual birfday on Sunday and the MLK holiday yesterday, but what really wiped me out was the surprise birfday party my wife threw for me on Saturday. She and my daughter and her friends and my wife's friends rented a big room at the Vets Club in Eugene, decorated it, ordered up the grub and the wine and beer, got my son Eli's band, Lost Creek, to play, invited a hundred friends and relatives and pulled the whole thing off without me having a clue.
She further outfoxed me by saying in the afternoon that she was thinking about having a big party but decided it was too much work so why didn't we just go out for dinner instead. I was already planning to do that I told her. Be damned if I was going to cook on my birfday.
So when we stopped at the Vet's Club I thought we were going in the bar for a drink but when we got to the door of the side room and she headed that way I said, Whoa, what's going on, and aimed for the front door to get out of there. I was too slow. She herded me through the door and I faced a battery of cameras and flashbulbs and a huge throng singing For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.
Once the stars went out of my eyes and I could see everyone's faces I said hello and thanks to each and every one.
Phil did the honors on flute and drum. Freddy Hahne, AKA Are We REally? was the M.C. and kicked things off, including me, off the stage.
The fathead was in the frying pan. They roasted and toasted me good but I chimed in whenever I felt like it and we had a great grand time and now my head is stuffed, my nose is runny and my tummy is growling.
