The Birthday

I celebrated my birthday this past week. A friend suggested we get a group of lady friends together and have a girls' night out at a restaurant. My husband M would be out of town on business. There were a few glitches however.

Four days before the party, the friend who suggested the gathering had to cancel because she forgot that it was her son's graduation that night!

On the day of the party, a half hour before I was due to leave, there was a powerful thunderstorm. It had been a hot, humid day. The trees outside were bent over half way in the fierce wind, I swear. A window in our house started to leak. So I grabbed some beach towels and it solved the problem in the short term.

Then the phone rang around 6 pm just as I was about to leave for the restaurant (we had a 6.30 pm reservation). The girl said my 5 pm reservation had been cancelled as I hadn't shown up! I had a moment of panic and said I did need a table for 5 people as we were all arriving in the next 15 minutes! The girl put me on hold and went to check. She found a table in the bar lounge where we could be seated and I said it would be fine. It turned out to be a comfortable area and we enjoyed our food and conversation.  One of my friends had gotten a bit soaked in the thunderstorm but it had stopped by the time we left the restaurant.  The skies had a pinkish hue and were beautiful at sunset and the temperature had dropped by a comfortable 20 degrees.

This is what probably happened: the restaurant had called earlier in the day to confirm our reservation. I had quickly said it would now be 5 people instead of 6. Somehow that translated to a 5 pm reservation instead of the original 6.30 pm time. I just hope I'm not getting that old that I'm now messing up simple restaurant reservations!  The answer must just be to slow down.

Our leaky window still is under investigation.