On the Fifty

The wife's fiftieth birthday has swooped down upon us. I can't say she is very thrilled with this; in fact, she is downright not pleased about this event. She's been muttering things like, "I'm past middle age now" and "in twenty years, I'll be 70. We won't even live here by then." Geez, talk about a Debbie Downer. I find 50 to be the new 40. Who has time to calculate ages when there is fun to be had right here, right now?

Thankfully, Master Pastor Reiki (MPR) and Blue Eyes (BE) had the right idea to help the wife start her fifth decade a bit more palatable manner. They gave her the most distracting surprise of her life.

MPR and Blue Eyes asked us months ago (actually, on my birthday in June) to "save" the weekend before the wife's birthday. They said they had a gift for the two of us but we wouldn't get it until the Fall. We did as told and left the details to them. We didn't know what we were doing, if we were going somewhere, what to expect, as very few details--okay, none--were shared. While I didn't think about this twice, the poor wife fretted about it. How was she to prepare if she didn't know what we were doing or where we were going? She had all sorts of questions and worries and distractions going on in that brain of hers. They reassured her that it was nothing big, just "putzy" stuff around town. We'd start with breakfast and go from there. They almost seemed disappointed in whatever was planned, as if they had originally planned something "big" and now it had been watered down. We started to feel bad and assured them that we didn't have to do anything special. It would be fine to putz around town. They reiterated numerous times that the events were "putzy" in nature. They were agreeable to figuring out a way for the wife to watch the Packer Game, as this seemed to be the wife's biggest concern. When asked, they said they didn't think we'd need a dog sitter.

Sunday morning, MPR and BE show up at our door, 15 minutes early, as always--they are always early. The are wearing casual clothing (good), windbreakers zipped up, blue jeans and gym shoes rounding out the outfits.

MPR: walks in, a very serious look on her face. BE is somewhere behind her.

Me: Confused, thinking, "oh no, something's come up, something's wrong."

MPR: grabs my hand. "Now, come here. We have something to tell you."

Me: Uh-oh. My brows furl. 

The wife and eye glance at each other. She is thinking something is wrong, too.

The four of us are standing in some weird circle, holding hands.

MPR/BE: unzip jackets.

MPR/BE (together): "WE'RE GOING TO THE PACKERS GAME!"

MPR/BE: Screaming and jumping up and down. They are wearing their Packer Gear under their coats.

Me: Deer in headlights. Huh? 

MPR/BE: waving four Packer tickets in our faces, spinning in circles, still screaming.

Me: Still frozen.

The Wife: "SHUT UP!" 

MPR and BE: STILL jumping up and down, screaming in delight.

Me/The wife: Our brains have stopped working. We are stunned into stupor by the events unfolding before us. 

BE: "You need to pack some clothes and get ready to go to the game. We've got snacks and sodas and waters in the car. We'll go to breakfast, and then we'll go shopping and then we'll get some ice cream and then we'll go to the game!"

More hopping up and down.

Me/The wife: Begin running around like idiots. 

For the record, it's tough to pack for a Packers Game without warning. You have to take into consideration the actual weather, the game time weather, in the sun or in the shade weather. It takes the wife a week to plan an outfit for a Packer Game, so asking her to do it within minutes was a pretty big stretch.

MPR: Grab whatever you want and we'll put it in the car.

BE: You can decide when we get there! Just bring a lot of clothes.

Since I've never been to a "warm" Packer game, I envisioned being cold--I made a pile which included my flannel jeans, long underwear and boots. I grabbed my winter fleece and put that on the pile, too. When I looked at the wife, she was fretting over which of four Packer coats to wear. Neither of us could put a coherent sentence together. For some reason, we were yelling at each other during much of the time, but it wasn't in sentences.  (Yelling is always oh-so-helpful, don't you think?)

The Wife: (points at my feet as I'm standing in front of the closet) You have your shoes on! Why do you have your shoes on in the house?

Me: Who cares? Why are you worried about my shoes? Just figure out what to wear!

I put on my orange sweatshirt. I pick it because (1) it is hunter orange; and, (2) it is the warmest sweatshirt I own.

The Wife:  YOU CAN'T WEAR THAT!

Me: It's hunter orange! There are tons of hunters at the game.

The Wife: Why don't you wear this green-and-gold sweatshirt?

Me: Because it's not warm.

The Wife: You can't wear that!

Me: Well, I'm gonna!

I think about changing sweatshirts but I hate being cold, so orange wins out. I decide to wear my green-and-gold gym shoes, kind of an effort to negate my orange sweatshirt.

The pile of clothing is ridiculous. I don't even bring this many clothes when I go somewhere for a week. MPR and BE encourage us to not worry about it, just put it in the car. All my clothes, the wife's clothes and the four coats (five, if you count my winter fleece) are piled into the vehicle.

As we are getting ready--trying to figure out who can let the dogs out and what else we need to bring--it occurs to me that there is no way possible to squeeze in all the thing they have listed. I check the map app for directions and time of route. It will take us between 3.5 and four hours to get there.

Me: We don't have time to do all those things. I don't even know if we have time for breakfast!

I point out that it will take four hours and that the wife will want to be there by 2:30 at the absolute latest. We'd have to leave town by 10:30 to do that and it's already 9:30 AM. I do some final calculations in my head and announce we can do breakfast as long as we're on the road by 10:30 AM. I point out that the restaurant is right by the tollway, so that will save us about ten minutes--which, at this point, is a very needed thing. It's a really busy restaurant, so I am a bit skeptical. I pray to the Gods of the Grid Iron that the restaurant won't be so busy that it makes us late for the determined schedule.

I shouldn't have worried. Once they learned we were on our way to the Packers Game (BE tells everyone everything), the restaurant people ensured we were seated quickly, served super-fast and that the bill was on the table before we were even done with half our breakfast. We were on the road with time to spare.

The rest of the day, as you can imagine, was sheer delight. The ride was uneventful, the sancks were ridiculous (who includes "Pixies" as a snack for the car?), the weather was perfect (around 60 degrees, a bit cooler in the shade), a free parking spot was secured, brats were consumed and the Packers were victorious. We even got out of town without getting lost (a feat in itself). As is always the case, time zipped by way too quickly.


It's tough (if not impossible) to truly convey  the depth of gratitude we feel for this most wonderful surprise; thus, I wrote this blog. I figure publicly stating my thanks has to be a good start. Everyone should experience a surprise like this at least once in a lifetime.

The wife, who HATES surprises, didn't seem to mind this one too much! I think she might be over her hatred for surprises.I hope this amazing event will help convince her that fifty isn't so bad. I find 50 to be fabulous. This year, I'm as fabulous a certain long-haired defense man--my age is his number and I'm all good with that. Come to think of it, the wife's age is another defense guy's number...how can this not be a great year?

Feel free to refer to us as Hawk and Matthews this year. I'm the one with the long flowing locks.
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Thank you, MPR and BE!