Thursday, September 15, 2005

colette's birthday celebration

this evening was all about colette. why would she deserve such devoted attention from her best friends? because its her birthday tomorrow! the big two-oh. (aka, too old...haha)

since her parents and mark are stealing her all day tomorrow (for dinner and some sort of dedication something rather of the music school), anna, megan, and i treated her to a night of random surprises...all of which, of course, were spoiled by her innate instinctiveness. but oh well.

we started off the evening trying to throw off a blindfolded (see picture below) colette's self-proclaimed title "goddess of direction" (unquote, quote) to pick up food. perhaps 1/8 successful at thwarting her inner compass (being almost positive she was only pretending to be confused), we arrived at jimmy johns where we hesitantly allowed her to remove her makeshift blindfold because we weren't sure what she wanted to order. we placed our orders and made our way back to the car.


"can i not wear the blindfold now, since i know where we're going?" she asks. foiled again! this surprise just isn't working out for us. and she did know. we were going for a picnic in the botanical gardens. maybe it wouldn't have been so obvious if we weren't echoing what we had done only four months earlier (and since she saw both megan and i bring blankets).

we arrived, ate some delicious subs next to a bubbling brook on our blankets, and sat around and pondered the meaning of life (not really...just how much we detested our advisor and job situations). then we announced that we were heading back to my dorm to watch the oc. ha. i bet she didn't see that one coming...or maybe she just didn't let us know that she knew.

some oc drama filled the eight o'clock hour...we laughed, we cried, our heartstrings played to the tune of some great bach masterpiece.

then we take a walk and start heading toward downtown. "whats going on, guys?" she says, barely pulling off the pretense of a questional tone before confidently concluding, "are we going to coldstone?" again, simply tacking on the question mark solely for tactfulness.

crumbalas. this girl is good. but she never expected the two buy-one-get-one-free coupons! oh wait, that didn't really apply to her since we were treating anyway. expensive ice cream is almost more enjoyable when its half the price.

since there was no room at the inn...i mean, coldstone...we carefully crossed the road (being sure to look both ways. on a one way street, too!) to north campus to eat at herty field. theres a fountain there. near that fountain is a bench, which is where we were intending to sit. its very romantic. i guess thats why, no more than thirty feet from our destination, a couple swiped the bench and we were left gazing at the lighted fountain from a distance.

anna was quite mischievous tonight. soon after sitting down, she was trying to convince us all that it would be extremely funny to go over to the couple's bench and (all four of us) sit at the other end. mind you, these benches can seat four at most. just picture it. it would be hilarious. spoiling that romantic moment that the two lovebirds were sharing...oh priceless. you can see where this is going. you're wrong. but this story would take a different turn, ultimately resulting with the same effect.

after the idea of sitting next to the couple was firmly rejected by silence from the three of us, the conversation turned to the next most interesting thing...the fountain.

"how tall do you think that fountain is?" anna asks, which was definitely a question. i guessed 20 feet. colette said 25. megan had no idea. for reference , i volunteered to run over and stand by it as a reference. next thing i know, anna is in her charge run toward me...

i threatened her. i gave her a fair share of don't-you-dares. the megan and colette ran over. it was a full-on assault. i could outrun all of them...so i ran in circles around herty field before going back to our previously occupied bench, thinking the chase was up. i was wrong. anna and colette grabbed me and pulled me toward the fountain...my feet vainly plowing through the tiny gravel rocks as i tried to stop my forward momentum.

it was chaotic after that...we got to the fountain. i shoved anna in, who pulled me down with her. and there i was, sitting shoulder deep in herty field water. no sooner did i plop into the water did my old navy flip flops pop off (because they're so stinking buoyant) and float away in the fountain's ripples. megan and colette whipped out the cameras. everytime i stood up, i fell right back down. the bottom was slippery, like a tub.

having taken our first swim in herty fountain, anna and i rang the victory bell (aka, chapel bell). i rocked out like quazzi.

i'm sure that spoiled the bench-stealers' romantic moment, but it provided entertainment for everyone else around, as well as the birthday girl.

but then, of course, parking services has to spoil the evening by writing colette a $40 ticket. agh!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i wish i was there!