Blog of Bermanism

As was noted in my prior post, Rachel turned 30 last week. What I didn’t say in that post, but eluded to in my next most recent post, was that the absolutely wonderful party that we had here in Sausalito was only the decoy party. For the last several months, I’ve been in constant preparation for what I was sure would the greatest surprise birthday party of all time; a surprise trip back home to Austin, TX to have a huge birthday bash for her 30th birthday. The enormity of the party was made necessary by the immense success of my surprise 30th birthday, in which Rachel surprised me with trip to Las Vegas where many of my closest friends and family were lying in wait to jump out and cause me to lose sphincter control. That surprise was difficult to outdo, but the feat had to be attempted. With that in mind, here’s how this last weekend went down:

Thursday, August 2: We came back from rowing practice and I took my time getting ready and hung out until Rachel had left for work. I then proceeded to run around the house frantically trying to pack her bags for the weekend in a manner that wouldn’t label me that poor, soulless, fashionless, husband that his wife dresses and now she can’t wear anything that I packed, kind of guy. I think I had half of her wardrobe out on our bed at one point trying to mix and match outfits that I’d noticed her wearing a lot while simultaneously trying to make them all fit in a carryon. By the way, all the different kind of bras, totally confusing! Once I had packed all of her things, minus her toiletries that she’d obviously miss that night and the next morning, I packed myself (considerably easier), made a list of the things that I’d have to grab as we were running out the door the next morning, put all of the luggage and backpacks into my car and took off for work. I spent the day and night being really antsy and excited, hence my last post.

Friday, August 3: I woke up at 6:15am, without an alarm (it was set for 6:20) after not having slept very much that night. I got showered and dressed and then I woke Rachel up. I could tell that she wasn’t happy that I was waking her up 2 hours before her alarm went off, but I continued anyway. I asked her to get up and get dressed because I had a surprise birthday present to give to her and I needed her to get ready. She was a little confused for a while, but she reluctantly and gingerly got out of bed and got showered and dressed. In a futile attempt to get me to divulge the nature of her surprise, she asked me what she needed to wear, how long we were going to be gone for and whether she’d need her toiletries or not. In response, I told her to dress like me (I was in a nicer t-shirt and jeans), that we’d just be gone for the day (yeah right), and that she didn’t need toiletries. Only while she was getting dressed did she notice that her swim suits were gone. She said she was suspicious, I played dumb. Finally, I asked her to take Izzy out and I ran around the house frantically grabbing her toiletries and chargers for her phone and camera, shoved them into my backpack and put it into my car. We got into the car and headed south, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and through San Francisco. The road I took could have lead to many places, including the airport, which she guessed at one point. When she realized I wasn’t going to tell her anything, she started calling everyone she knew asking them if they knew anything. Luckily, those that answered played along and didn’t give anything away. Finally, I pulled into the airport and opened the trunk to reveal already packed bags for a trip. Now, she was really curious, but I told her she wouldn’t find out where we were going until we were in the security line. Once there, I handed her her tickets and told her that we were going to Austin. She started crying and said, “We get to go home?” It was so cute, like I had read her mind. I told her that I thought we could use a quiet weekend in Austin and that we could go around and see the people we hadn’t seen in a long time. She was excited. Little did she know that she was in for quite a different weekend than she thought.
We flew into Austin exactly on time, which was both lucky and strange, and we went to the Thrifty counter where I had reserved a Chrysler Crossfire. I had originally planned on renting a Lotus Elise, but they became unavailable two weeks before we arrived, sadly. But, the Crossfire was fun. You’d think that at that point, Rachel would think that there was more going on than she thought, but she kept on believing me. I wouldn’t tell her where we were staying, but she immediately guessed the Four Seasons, because that would be the place that she’d most want to stay in Austin. Well, she was right, but she didn’t know that I had reserved an Executive Suite at the Four Seasons and that each of our families were also staying there. So, we checked in and I told her that we had to hurry because we were going to meet her best friend Abby at 7pm for dinner at a BBQ place in Austin called Pok-E-Jo’s. The plan was that everyone would arrive at Pok-E-Jo’s at 6:30pm to get ready for the surprise. I had figured out that, if our flight was on time, Rachel and I would arrive sometime between 7 and 7:15. Amazingly, we arrived at 7:08, half way between the time points that predicted. I had texted Abby to let her know that we were almost there (I had to pre-type the message into my phone so that all I had to do was press send so that Rachel wouldn’t notice that I was typing an extensive message to someone). So, when we got there, Abby was standing outside waiting for us. Rachel ran up and hugged her tightly and we walked inside toward the back room, where Abby said her parents were sitting. So, we walked through the restaurant to a closed curtain. Abby and I opened it, walked in, and 42 people from all parts of Rachel’s life looked back at her and yelled, “Surprise!!” The look on her face was priceless. She was SO shocked, she was shaking and continued shaking for about 20 minutes after that. She said later that the first person she saw was our friend Garrett, but that all she thought was that Garrett looked familiar. Anyway, Pok-E-Jo’s put together a fantastic trio of meats in a buffet for us all to feast on. I ordered enough food for 40 people, but I think there was actually enough for 60. Anyway, we mingled, ate, enjoyed the wonderful company, then headed back to our hotel to hang out in the posh lounge that is the main lobby of the Four Season hotel with some close friends. We went to bed early because we were exhausted from traveling all day, and Rach had experienced a good deal of stress from the string of surprises that day.

I don’t know what it is about the beds at the Four Season, but they are so comfortable that you inevitably sleep like a baby (not to mention the luxurious sheets and the fact that the staff puts out towels on the floor next to your bed with slippers on them so that you don’t have to touch the floor, snap!). Needless to say, we slept well.

Saturday, August, 4: At this point, all secrets were out because I just couldn’t deal with keeping them from her any longer. So, she knew entirely what was to come that day. We woke up and went rowing with our old teams on Town Lake (now horribly named, Ladybird Lake after the late Ladybird Johnson, but I’ll never call it that because it sounds stupid). Our old coach, George, was holding the Town Lake Ladder that morning, which is basically a 3,000m race in a 1x down and back on the eastern end of Town Lake. The race is as much about strength and technique as it is about steering a good course. You can add as much as a minute to your time if you don’t choose the best course. So, both Rach and I did it. I was not entirely pleased with my time because I lost a good 20-30 seconds almost hitting, and having to stop for, a buoy that I didn’t see. But, for not rowing in singles much in the last six months, it wasn’t too bad. Rachel, who didn’t kill herself at it and just rowed it for fun, did quite well herself. It was fun!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, got cleaned up and into our swim suits and headed up to Lake Travis for her lake party. I was really excited about this one, since around 70 people had RSVP’d and I had rented 4 wave runners and a ski boat. When we arrived, we realized that the park we had chosen wasn’t going to work for us since it was largely a scuba park and they didn’t allow motorized watercraft in the area. So, we had to scramble at the last minute and find another location for the party. We ended up finding a park right next door that worked wonderfully. While a few of us went off to pick up the jet skis, Rachel’s dad had the foresight to rent the pavillion that was at Bob Wentz park and moved the party into there. It was perfect. Once we had picked up the jet skis, and Rachel was driving one of them, I knew the party would be awesome even though it got off to a rocky start. I knew this because Rachel had a huge smile plastered on her face, and so did the others that came with us to pick them up. We got back to the park, docked, ate, mingled, and everyone started switching out on the jet skis and ski boat for three hours until we had to take them back. Once we got back, we did cake and ice cream. Thanks to the marvelous assistance of Vince, Darla, and especially Melissa, we got all of the food ordered, paid for, and set up at the party. This included getting a full sheet cake (vanilla with butter cream icing, of course) and specially made ice cream from Marble Slab, Amaretto flavored with M&M’s mixed in. We sang, we ate, Rachel was happy and so was everyone else. The cake was good, but the ice cream was a huge hit. It was gone. Once we finished with the cake and ice cream, we headed back to Austin to get cleaned up and meet for a late and light dinner before all the young’ns went out on the town for the evening. Rachel and I wanted to be able to spend some time with just the family for a while, so we went to the Austin Java Co restaurant and talked and ate a little for about two hours. It was really nice to be with the family. Afterwards, we met our friends at Cedar Street on 4th St. in downtown Austin. We always loved this place because they had a great bar and great music, all the time. Some of our favorite people showed up and we had a really good time while listening to an 80’s cover band that was also pretty good. Darla was disappointed that the music wasn’t really dance music, but it was fun anyhow. We got back to the hotel at around 2am and hit the sack pretty hard.

Sunday, August 5: We woke up on our own and went rowing, just Rachel and I, in a double. It was nice being able to row 5000m without turning around. After rowing, we showered, checked out of our fantastic room, and met up with the remaining family members for brunch at Hickory Street downtown. Unfortunately, my brother Ben had to leave for the airport early, so we didn’t get to see them again, but we at least got to hang out with the rest of the family on both sides. Vince and Don even showed up at the end of our meal and it was really nice to talk to them again. Afterwards, we said our goodbyes to the family and headed over to see our friend Lee’s house (which is currently bright pink!). After that, we went to Rachel’s best friend Abby’s new house and hung out there for a few hours catching up and watching her, her sister, and her parents unpack from the recent move to the new digs. It was so nice to see everyone and Rachel was feeling right at home again. Sadly, it was then time to come home to the bay area. We left Abby to her new house, jumped in our speed mobile and raced off to the airport. Rachel’s brother and his fiance were on our flight, so it was nice to see them for the long flight back to LA. Our flight from LA to San Francisco was delayed a total of three hours due to weather and fog at SFO, but we did, eventually get back (at 1:30am). Izzy was of course thrilled to see us and Edgar could have cared less. We were home from a great weekend and the surprise was a great success.

So, here’s a final thanks to all who were involved in getting the parties and trips set up, and a huge thank you to all those who came and enjoyed the time with Rachel. As I learned recently, it is the people that make the party good or bad. Without you, this party would have sucked, big time. This officially ends my elaborate surprise party planning for about another decade or more. Kudos to you if you made it this far in this post. It is freakin’ long!

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