Rob #9 - Don't Stop Believin'

[Rob1231]

Well, yesterday was quite the ol' emotional roller coaster (not the M in Trouble kind, just the Life is Crazy kind).

Starting off with the tough part: At the end of the evening, W and I went with D16 to her school for a candle-light vigil for the two kids who died. The principle talked, and then several local preachers talked - got through all of that OK. Then, D16 and the rest of the top-level choir got up and sang a song that they use to close every school concert - a soft, beautiful requiem called "Sing Me To Heaven." Wow, that was such a heart-breaker.

Earlier, over dinner, D16 was telling us about school - you can imagine how terrible it was for all the kids, who started the day not knowing how their friends were doing, and learned in mid-morning that both were gone. After that, D16 turned to me and said, can we do something happy to cheer up a little? And asked me to give W her gift. So, of course we did.

Now, unlike fig, my W is NOT a big fan of surprises, not even good ones. (Have I mentioned W has just a teensie bit of a control freak personality?) So even this really excellent surprise was a stretch of her comfort zone. I knew that would be the case, but I also knew this was A Darned Good Idea - so darn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

W knew the gift was really expensive, because I had asked some of our relatives to give us money towards it. Turns out her best guess was a new dining room set (note to self: good future gift idea!) She was a bit perplexed when I had her close her eyes and hold out her hands, and I placed a nicely wrapped CD case in them.

So then we went to watch the DVD. W sat on the couch and just got totally tense. It loaded with a plain menu that said "Happy Birthday". Then I pressed PLAY. It starts out slow, giving hints about packing, and airplanes, but doesn't reveal where we are going until Springsteen hits the chorus of "Viva Las Vegas". Poor W, I thought she was going to go into shock. Just sat there unable to move or react until the song/slide show was over. Then turns to me with this panicked look on her face. And D16 and I just sat and grinned back at her.

Then the questions started. "But I have this big meeting at work that day..." (I had worked out with her boss to block out the time with a bogus 2-day client meeting.) "But I don't have enough vacation time built up..." (Again, her boss promised no problemo.) "But what about D16..." (Covered.) "But what about the cats..." (Check and double-check.)

I think the important thing was, I never faltered in my confidence that the trip was a great idea, we were going to have a great time, and The Plan was a good one. After I let W work through some of her initial concerns, we watched the DVD again. And again. And again. Until she had gotten more details out of it each time, and asked lots of questions, and was finally "coming around." Eventually, I got out the travel books I had bought, and we started digging through them, and she went from "OK with it" to "excited". This morning, I noticed that she had taken the DVD to work with her (where her boss is going to get an earful about what a consummate liar she is!)

Tonight, we go out to dinner with one of W's woman friends, and then all three of us go to dance class. I am looking forward to listening to W tell her about it - I'm guessing she will have worked herself all the way around to "very excited" by now.