Surprise revealed

So Satruday night’s surprise was stupendous. The best kind-of surprise one can hope for. It was neither embarrassing nor overwhelming, nor did it require any on-the-spot acting by the time it happened, because I was actually let in on the secret a little early.

It wasn’t that I was dying to find out, I just had my suspicions, which I voiced out loud (to my co-blogger Jacquie), which were overheard by my four-year-old daughter, who let out a disgusted, “Mommy, how did you know?!” comment, which, of course, confirmed it for me.

No one was happy with my discovery (except me, of course). My husband felt he’d wasted his time and energy working on planning it, my youngest daughter was dismayed, as I just mentioned, and my oldest daughter, after finding out I knew, voiced angrily, “Why does everything always get ruined? I don’t even want her to come anymore!!”

So now you know too. The surprise involved a person, a female person. A very beloved female person -- my old, great, true blue friend Mary Ann.

Mary Ann was that friend in college you couldn’t do without; the friend who you shared everything with, and who you were with so much that people always sometimes confused your names.

It’s true that over the (many) years since college we’ve seen each other less and less, our lives playing out in different locations, our life choices not always on a parallel path, but our friendship is one of those that doesn’t really need constant tending. I mean, we should, and hopefully will, get together more, but I feel I know her in a way that cannot be undone, or diminished by the passage of time. We were tight during a time in our lives when we were growing, and playing, and learning, and coming into our own.

Your college years, and those immediately following, can be some of your best, and lucky for me, mine were. Mary Ann was right there with me for most of them. We spent countless hours driving up and down the coast of California to see live music, spent a summer in Gudalajara together, traveled together during the European Dead tour the autumn after our college graduation, and both eneded up in San Francisco for a time after that.

We shared countless good times. Seeing her Saturday night, and reminiscing about some of these times, was so much fun, and something you can’t do with just anybody.

What made this visit even more terrific was the fact that Mary Ann came to visit me here, in my new home, the one I now share with my new husband, who Mary Ann also knows, because he was kicking around with us back in those golden years too.

In fact we met him during the summer we spent Guadalajara, and became fast friends. He was also on Dead tour in the fall of 1990, and ended up in SF for a (very) short stint as well. And when I drove back down the coast in the late summer of 1992, leaving Marin County and Mary Ann north of me, it was at his house I crashed while waiting for my new San Diego apartment to be move-in ready.

So the reunion was joyful, and my husband hit it off with her husband, and before we knew it the plates were empty, the kitchen a mess, the beers all drank drunk drinked consumed and the night drawing to a close.

So thanks to all of you for one of the best surprises ever! To Mary Ann and Rich for all that So Cal hell highway driving, to T for all his scheming and planning, and to my girls for keeping the secret and not complaining when we neglected to feed you dinner until half past eight.

I love you all!

(I know, can you belive we didn't take one photo to document the night and post here for your enjoyment?!?)