SURPRISE !!

It all started out several months ago back in 2008. I was so bummed that my niece Nicole was going to have her wedding in October right on the weekend that I was hoping to celebrate my 50^th birthday in Italy. I wanted to go to Rome and Pisa and put a cork in Mount Vesuvius or at least uncork a bottle in the shadow of Vesuvius in honor of myself. Jeanette was so excited and dying to go to Rome. Actually, I never really had an interest of going to Rome but my long time friend George made a side trip one year when he came to visit me here in Copenhagen. He said it was fantastic. Hummmmf ! – was my response. The following year my mother was in Rome and she told me over the phone – Rome is fantastic. This time is was – hummmmmm? Then I saw something really interesting on the Discovery Channel; one of those cooking and travel shows. The host of the show tells about the history and the best place in Pisa to get a Pizza. So it’s final. I’ve made my decision; I’m gonna celebrate my birthday in Pisa – nothing special – just Pizza and salad – just like the way Mom wanted to celebrate her 70^th.

When I tell Jens where I want to celebrate my 50^th, he just waves at me as says, “Have fun, bye-bye”. He tells me that he won’t go to Italy because of the horrible language – ha! - this coming from a Dane. Unless you have studied Danish for years, you can’t even hear where a word starts or ends. “And besides”, he says, “Italy is the only country in the world where the telephone boxes are twice the size of a normal phone box.” “Why is that?”; I was afraid to ask. Jens answers, “Because the Italians need all the extra space just to hold a simple conversation with all that hand movement.”

Of course, it was really important for me to have Jens by my side when I officially turned "Old Fart" – oh wait….. that was 10 years ago. Well nevertheless, it was still important for me to have him there and the only way I could figure out to get Jens to agree to go on holiday for my 50^th celebration was to make my destination of travel a place that he would find attractive. So since Jens had been talking about Greece for quite some time, I figured I would just have to have another pizza from the local pizzeria and put Assens on the travel list under ‘ipod’ - Interesting Points Of Destination.

Now what is funny about this is that the Danes as well as most Europeans, (minus the Spanish), cannot pronounce the ‘th’ sound. Therefore, Athens becomes Assens. The funny part is that there really is a city in Denmark called Assens. ((remind me to tell you a story about Sree Sums or Three Thumbs – but it’s X-rated, so be prepared))

Ok so Assens, Greece has now replaced Rome for the senior citizen b-day destination. When I told this to Jeanette, she was a bit bummed. We had been there before back in 1980 on a church tour and all she can remember were the endless statues of naked men – why don’t I remember that?

Unfortunately, Jens’s Parkinson’s disease had gotten so bad that just a walk from the television to the bed was journey for him. And then the announcement of Nicole’s wedding on the same weekend of my birthday put a total spin on my south European travel plans. I had no idea what I was going to do and again, I was bummed. But I figured it out in time. Greece was the plan if Jens was going and Rome was the plan if Jens was not going. Jeanette was flexible and said that she just wanted to be wherever I was at – what a sweet heart.

Jeanette was aware of the situation and I called her late in the summer of 2008 after the wedding invitations were sent out and I said, “ You know Mom’s 70^th b-day is coming up and we should make some party plans now because I don’t want to be planning the party when we see each other in Connecticut at the wedding and I don’t want to be making party plans in Italy for Mom when we should be celebrating my birthday. In addition, shortly after my birthday it will be Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Years. That doesn’t leave a whole lotta time left to make birthday plans. We went back and forth between an actual party to sending Mom to Europe or to New York to see André Bocelli.

It turns out that we never did get an actual plan before the wedding but we did have a starting point and it just needed a lot of tuning. When a family party turned out to be the plan, we then fine-tuned it and on it’s own it became a surprise party. It was never meant to be a surprise party from the start but the fine-tuning pointed us in that direction. Next was the guest list. At one point, it was up to 70 to 80 guests. Then all the way down to just a hand full of people. However, we got it just right in the end and it was the closest of family and dearest of friends, which made for a very intimate surprise.

Jeanette is an amazing woman when it comes to pulling things together. She found the right place, found the right cake, and found the right guest list with the help of Christine. It wasn’t really possible for me to help from the other side of the planet other than to give and listen to ideas, but in the end, it all came together.

My big job was just to get there. It’s always an ordeal when I fly to the states because I always fly stand-by since I work for SAS airlines. It’s the overseas flight that is always a problem. However, when flying stand-by from state to state on United or Alaska Air, that’s always the easy part. What a surprise when looking into the SAS booking system to see that the flights were wide open. That was a first for me. I was so excited. For once in 10 years, it was going to be easy to get on a flight and not worry about space. It’s because of the financial crises. Good for me flying stand-by but bad for the airline company. And of course, the crises in the states are worse than they are here in Europe. Wrong!

The plan was to land in Seattle, stay overnight at the Radisson, which is literally a 4-minute walk from the last luggage carousel, and then fly to OC the following day on Alaska. I figured if the lousy economy in the states will get me on a SAS flight with no problem then it would be a cinch to get on Alaska Air between SEA and OC. What I didn’t realize is that it was a long weekend and the entire state of Washington was flying south to get away from the ugly winter weather. This meant that the chance of getting on board as a stand-by passenger was slim. I talked to an airline rep and he assured me that they will do all that they can to get us on board. I think that eventually we could have gotten on a flight to southern CA if not directly to OC. But we were a bit nervous about it. We couldn’t sleep and we thought – hey! Just get a rental car and drive. If we can’t get on board, we will have to drive anyway. Besides, after a totally long and boring business flight, the thought of getting on yet another flight almost made us gag.

At 2:30 am, we checked out and started driving south. Jens finally fell asleep and slept most of the way through Washington. It was somewhere after Portland, Organ that the sun was begging to come up. Then, when it got light, we were surprised to be greeted by a beautiful landscape. My family thought we were totally crazy for driving. And we are, but still we actually enjoyed the drive. Just tonight, Jens

brought it up again, about what a beautiful drive it was through Oregon. He liked it so much, he wants to do it again. But next time it will be over several days and not several hours.

At the hotel in Washington, I called Jeanette to tell her that we were about to drive to OC and I promised to call her before we got to Sacramento. 16 hours later she was pissed because I didn’t call her “in a few hours” as promised. However, what I said was - that I would call her before we got to Sacramento and that is actually what I did: from our hotel just after we checked-in. “What the hell is going on there! You said you would call in a few hours! I got a flight all set for you! Yada yada yada!”

Just before coming to Sacramento we got off the freeway and checked into a sleaze bag motel for just a few hours. We hadn’t slept since departing Copenhagen. But now our bodies were craving the Z’s of dreamland. “I should call Jeanette”, I said to Jens. “Why?”, asked Jens. “Oh you know how Jeanette is – she thinks she can do something for us all the way out here in the middle of nowhere” We check-in at Motel Fungus, drag our bags from the car to the room, Jens takes a dump, takes his good-night medicine, pulls back the blankets and gets into bed. As he pulls back the sheets, I carefully ready myself to jump out of harms way expecting giant size fleas to jump out at me and eat me. I pick up the phone and dial 9. The dial tone is clear and I punch in Jeanette’s toll free 800 number.

After all the yelling and screaming she says, “get your ass out of that hotel NOW! You have a flight out of Sacramento airport at 6pm!”. “We’ll never make it”, I said while cringing from her tone. “Yeah, well you would have if you had called me earlier like you said you would! Now get to the airport and I’ll have the captain wait until you get there but you gotta get there by 7 at the latest! Got that!” “Yeah but what about the rental car?”, I questioned with disbelief. “No –yeah butts- I’ll take care of the car – you just get your ass to the airport now!”

I didn’t dare correct her over the phone and say that I promised to call before getting to Sacramento. I never promised to call her in a few hours. And besides, what’s a few hours when you have to drive 30 hours? But I can say anything about her here because her life is too busy to read my blog. And if she does read it, she’ll never get this far. She would just be pissed that I didn’t describe 10 vacation days into a 3-second sound bite. Actually I’m a bit surprised you made it this far in the blog yourself. But hang on dah-link, there’s lots more. Hope you can find the strength to make it to the end of my story. A couple of toothpicks might be of help.

So as I said - I was afraid to say anything to her. Also, I was afraid that she was going to reach her hand through the phone line and choke the living daylights out of me. I hung up the phone and told Jens to get up and get dressed. “But I just took my night time medicine”, he said. “Get up and get dressed or my sister is going to kill us and it’ll be the last night-time medicine you ever have a chance to take”, I warned Jens.

While Jens was trying to keep his eyes open and squirm out of bed, I went to the front desk and told the guy that the airline company is waiting for us and since we just checked-in to this dump less than 5 minutes ago, could we please have our money back? It was just a kid who checked us in so I knew it would be no problem to get the money back. The kid was just completing a telephone call as I walked in, “……bye and thank-you for calling Flea Bag Motel”. I started to tell my airport story to the kid and in the middle of my schpeel, the hotel manager walks in. Oh no! Now I know there is no way I am going to get the money back. The kid steps back and lets the hotel manager handle it. “Well when did you check-in?” the manager asks. “Just 5 minutes ago”, I reply. “And you haven’t used anything in the room?”, he asked me sounding very athoritative. I don’t dare tell him that Jens took a dump which will require a repainting of the bathroom nor do I tell him that Jens is snoozing away in the bed. “Sure ok – no problem”, the manager says to me and deletes the credit card charge. I run back to the room and make the bed. Jens is in the car waiting for me. He had managed to quickly pack all the bags and throw them in the auto rental. I hop in the car, turn the key and punch the pedal to the metal. In 10 minutes, we are at the airport and I set off Jens with the bags and tell him I will be back in 5 minutes. I drive to the auto-rental return-lane and return the car without a hitch. The airport bus drops me off on the sidewalk right in front of a sign that reads: this line only for passengers without a ticket. How stupid is that? Who goes to the airport without a ticket? Naturally, Jens and I were the only people in that line. It was so funny because there was a Disneyland style line of people on the inside of the airport waiting to check in. Next we get in the security-check line. I go through the X-ray machine and Jens gets a full body massage because he cannot walk through the X-ray machine or his pacemaker will shut off. We grab a coffee as we walk to the gate, and at 7pm we are on our way to OC.

How could I have so under estimated my sister. If she can have her passport delivered from CA to NY in just 18 hours on a holiday weekend (you’ll have to ask her about the story yourself), and if she can get me on Business Class on SAS going home from Rome (even I couldn’t do that – read my birthday blog), why would I doubt she could get me over the snow-bound grapevine on highway 5 ? Gotta problem? Call Jeanette. She can fix anything.

OK - Let’s back up to the drive (or should I say The Drive?).

The first 5 hours were in total darkness. So really, we didn’t see anything except red lights going our way and white lights of traffic moving towards us – no doubt, people were in a rush to get to the Sea-Tac airport. Jens slept most of the way. There were several rest stops where we did get out of the car to stretch our legs and have a puff. The air was cold, crisp and fresh. I wanted to stop and take pictures of Portland from the heavy-duty steal highway 5 bridge that we crossed. The city is built on gentle sloping hills and the twinkling of the city lights caused my eyes to move in a rapid back and forth motions to try to take in as much of the view as possible while moving at 75 mph on a narrow metal bridge. It was pine trees and hills the rest of the way with a dash of rain here and snow there. It really made for a beautiful car ride and though we were tired and behind schedule and wanted to be in bed in Orange County, we really were glad to be where we were and not in a cramped, fully booked, recycled-air-tight, tin can in the sky.

OK - Now jump forward to landing at OC. Jeanette picks us up from the John Wayne International Airport. (The guys at work go to pieces when I tell them that I always fly into the John Wayne International Airport.) Mom has no idea that Jens and I are in town and have been in the states now for over 24 hours. Likewise, she has no idea that in just a few hours my other sister Christine is driving to LAX at midnight to pick up Nicole who is arriving from Connecticut. The poor girl sat in the New York airport all day trying to get on an earlier flight.

The following day, Jeanette and Christine are running around doing last minute things for the party. Later that evening the whole gang came by to make chocolate/pretzel party favors. Everyone was so excited to see Jens so soon after his operation. He points at his scars and eyes squint to try to see what he is pointing at. Even after staring at his head, you can barely see anything. Jens tells the others not to touch both the right and left scar at the same time because if you do, you will get a shock and then he waits for the reaction. Some laugh and some quickly draw back their hands to their sides, always guaranteeing a good laugh – at least for Jens. The next day was the surprise party and we were all so excited about it. Would it be a success?

The week before Mom’s birthday, I sent her a birthday card. I mailed it on Monday and crossed my fingers that it would arrive on Friday. Oh no!, Not only did it arrive a day early but it arrived a whole week early. What a fool! I was looking at the wrong week on the calendar. Did I give away the secret? I called Mom just to “say hello”. I made a big song and dance why the card was early.

She didn’t catch on and just thanked me for the card.

Fjew – that was a close one. But then I started telling her about how the flights to Chicago, Seattle and New York are wide open. I was telling her about how easy it will be to get on a flight. Oh my goodness I almost blew it. I had to quickly steer the conversation in another direction. “It’s because of the economy that the flights are so open”, I explained. She never caught on.

Jeanette had to make up a story about not being able to do anything special because it was a mad house at work. “But some how we’ll get together to celebrate”, she explained to Mom. “Don’t make a big fuss about it”, said Mom, “let’s just have pizza and salad at your place.” Then lunch was to be at a shopping mall and then it went back to pizza and salad and Mom was getting huffy about it, “It’s my birthday and if I want pizza and salad then I should be able to decide have it!”

So then, we had to have Jacob call Grandma and say that there was a really delicious joint at the mall that he had been to and promised Grandma the he would get dressed up if we could take her out to eat at the mall. She fell for it and Dad promised to get Mom to the party hall on time. She never picked up on the keenness of Jacob’s cunning invitation.

In the weeks leading up to the party, Jeanette and my dad had to sneak a bunch of photos out of the house. Dad was worried about how he would find the pictures and then pass them onto Jeanette without Mom noticing. From the pictures, she put a wonderful lifeline story together. Then she gave it to one of her colleagues at work who made it into a 9-minute short video movie with music. She promised everyone a copy. So if I ever get a copy, I will try to add it to this blog so that everyone can view it. (Not sure if it is possible) The video was a big hit and brought lots of laughs and smiles plus a tear or two. Great job, Jeanette!

On the phone, Mom mentioned that she wanted to send something to Nicole and Nicole was just about to say, "Save the postage, I can take it with me when I come out." I also heard that one couple did not go to church the Sunday morning of the party for fear of saying something they were not supposed to say. I was actually wondering and said to my sister, “What if someone after church says ‘see you this afternoon Cil’” It was close and I know there are many more stories like these. Share your story with me and I’ll add it to this blog.

So the day of the party, we kids – Jeanette, Michael, Christine and myself arrive early to set up a few things. Guest showed up on time and we welcomed everyone up to the party room with a welcome drink and banquet style hors d'oeuvres. It wasn’t easy to get all of the guest to their seats. Then when they finally got there, Jeanette announced that at the right moment she wants everyone to get up and hide on one side of the room. I suggested that everyone stay at their seats because it will be a job to get everyone up and over and then after the yelling it will be hard to put all the guest back into the right place.

What actually happened I don’t know because Jens, Nicole and I hid behind a partition and came out much later. I do know that Michael kept the curtains close as I suggested because he is still holding them shut even after Mom entered the room. Check out all of the other pictures and see for yourself by clicking here.

It was a good thing that Michael held the curtains closed because the host of the restaurant was supposed to signal the beeper to let us know that Dad and Mom were on their way up the stairs. The beeper didn’t work. And suddenly..... there was Mom.

SURPRISE !!!!

Mom was in shock. She couldn’t believe. How could this happen?! How can all these people be here?! What happened to just pizza and salad?! After a few minutes of trying to understand what was going on and greeting some of the guests, Nicole steps out from behind the partition. It was another shock for Mother. Mom was a huge question sign. Then Mom continues to greet more guests and then I stepped out from behind the partition. Her back is to me and I approached her very slowly and from behind I ask, “May I take your coat Ma’am?” She turned and looked and actually started to grab at her coat before realizing it was me and nearly had a heart attack. It was all too funny. And then again another surprise when Jens stepped out. Jens had brain surgery just 3 months ago and suddenly there he was at the party. We all laughed with joy. I know it was fun and fantastic for Mom and at the same time it was also too overwhelming. I know from experience from my 40^th surprise party. If you have ever had some one throw you a surprise party then you know what a shock it can be.

After the initial shock of the surprise, Jeanette stuck a mic in Mom’s hand and told her to go around and introduce all the party guest because not everyone knew each other. I had mixed feelings about this. Mom was in shock trying to take it all in while introducing everyone. It was funny to watch and you could see how exited and amazed she was. It was a challenge just to remember all the names while trying to understand how all these people could be here - but she did it. If she couldn’t do it, nobody could. You could see that she was just amazed to be mentioning all these names at once in the same room.

Here’s another great tip for your next surprise party. We had several round tables with seating for several guest. At each table, there was one empty seat. Mom was to sit at each table at specific time. For the soup, she was at one table. For the salad, she was at another table. For the main course, she was at the third table. For the video film, she was at another table. At the next table for the games and the next table for desert. This was a great idea because Mom got to talk to all the guest and all the guest got to sit with the Birthday Girl.

The games included Over The Hill Bingo and 20 Questions. Prizes were given and the beautiful flower arrangements at each of the 8 tables were given away as extra gifts to extra bingo winners. The flowers were donated by Mom’s friends Mike and Sharon Millano. If you have ever driven down the 5 freeway near Carlsbad and have seen the acres of flowers in bloom in the springtime, then you will have seen where the party flower arrangements came from as Mom’s church friends are the owners of this flower plantation.

4 hours later, we were all hugging each other good-bye but the fun party mood continued. Shortly thereafter, Mom and Dad and the immediate family all met at Jeanette’s house for coffee and a short visit.

The party was a big hit and lots and lots of fun. We couldn’t have done it with out you Mom – thanks.

For Jens and me, the 2 days after the party were lazy relaxing days. I do find relaxation in gardening work and therefore I was relaxing cleaning out my sister’s over loaded rain gutters and also a bit of weeding in the garden planters. A few weeks before departing from Copenhagen I sent a few e-mails out to some of my out of state friends letting them know that I was going to be in CA for a few days and that if possible, it could be nice to see them. I knew the chances would be slim since our time was so short and most of the time would be taken up by the party and time in Palm Springs - but you just never know.

Do fries come with that shake?

Here is a picture of pain.

Jens's arm is driving him mad.

What a surprise when Texas Tom T wrote back and said, “Hey I will in fact be in LA and San Diego at this time and I’d love to pop in and see you.” Here is a pix of Tom. He had a couple of hours to spare and popped in for a quick visit. It was great to see you Tom.

Likewise, I schedule a few hours for George. He is my long time friend and friend of the family. We are the same age and we have known each other for 31 years. George knows where all the restaurants are in LA and he always surprises me with a tasty new spoon. Here we are at a Ma and Pa style coffee shop in Long Beach. The food, home made pie and service were great.

We ate here at Hamburger Mary's in PS.

Wednesday morning Jens and I were off to Palm Springs. How Jeanette finds the time and the energy to do it, is amazing – she had a pic-nic basket and ice-chest filled with goodies for out trip to PS. Below is a pix of just some of the treats from the basket. Our 3½-day trip turned into 2½-day trip because we were in no hurry to get to Palm Springs to sit in the rain. According to the weather channel, it looked like we should wait awhile before heading east. We found a funky old 50’s style classic hotel that our friend Uncle Frank has stayed at. But suddenly Jens needed to go back to OC as his arm was giving him hell and he just couldn’t find comfort. He wanted to go back earlier than planned - back to Copenhagen. We knew in advance that this may be the

case and that was why having the stand-by tickets was a

good idea. Our time in PS turned out to be only one over nighter with a few hours in the sun. I managed to talk Jens into visiting my folks at their home in Fallbrook and then the following day we found ourselves back in Seattle waiting for our evening departure home.

Here we are now back in DK, almost a week later and still fighting jet lag and still fighting the cold winter. However, the warm memories will live on and help me get through the remaining winter months.

Ok – now if you have actually read this far, it’s time for you to shut off the computer and get a life.