Surprise!

Sam's birthday was last week. Specifically Thursday. I gave him a pair of desert boots. He's been dreaming of those boots for awhile now and I feel pretty great about making a dream happen. I'm like Sam's personal Make-a-Wish-Foundation. Without the cancer element. Sam has given me shoes (you may remember the Christmas Tom's booties), and I'm pleased that we're a couple that gives each other shoes. I mean, I never say no to shoes.

He had to work on Tuesday night so I began Stage 1 of an elaborate plot. There is really nothing better than an elaborate plot. It started on Tuesday. After accordion class I went home and started making icecream pie (my mom used to make this all the time, and it is always a hit). Liz came over to watch me make pie and more importantly,  so that we could talk about our lives, Ayn Rand, Janeane Garofalo, and old people. I realized, once I had cookie crumbs flying all over the place, that Sam had left a note saying the plumber had finally fixed our sink and we couldn't use it. So I had to figure out a way to clean up the evidence without using water. That wasn't really possible, so I had to improvise using the bathroom sink and a lot of paper towels. There were dark chocolate cookie crumbs everywhere and random dismantled pieces of the food processor shedding evidence everywhere. Eventually we got it under control, Liz spirited the pie away and Stage 1 was complete.

Stage 2 commenced on Thursday. Sam had to work at Mulligans on Hawthorne. We gathered at a bar down the street (with the aforementioned icecream pie) and then proceeded to Mulligans in a small parade lead by me and the icecream pie. It was kind of melty and the candles were leaning, but when we busted into Mulligans singing Happy Birthday in our shrillest voices, the overall presentation could not have been better. Sam's regulars were impressed, the pie was delicious, and I think, for a workday, that Sam had a pretty decent birthday. I love orchestrating surprises. Any excuse for an icecream pie.