Bday

As far as b’day celebrations go, the last weekend was pretty good. Definitely a heck of a lot better than getting robbed, which Adzim pointed out happened a good 5 years ago. Only worked for half a day today. Priya had wanted to take boxing day off and I decided to swap with her since I wasn’t planning to do anything during that particular weekend, and in return she’s doing my on-call today. Figured it’d be a nice idea to come back to my room a lil earlier and relax and have a c2c session with Sweetie. Which was what I did this afternoon, along with munching up about half my supply of Julie’s loveletters.

The weekend was quite eventful. Started out on Friday night, where I caught up with W2k, whom I’ve not met since his move to Manchester. Caught with the recent events in each other’s lives, exchanged a bit of gossip and ate a whole lot of southern fried chicken. Yus was around as well, and he’s now playing the role of a caretaker of the girls’ house although the poor bastard is probably going to repeatedly knock his head against the wall sometime soon if he doesn’t find a way to cure his boredom.

Saturday morning was the usual case of running errands and returning back to ‘parade’ my waiter outfit for Sweetie. That was followed by a few hours of trying to keep warm (horrible, horrible weather!). Reem came to pick me up around 7ish, and we proceeded to the Marriott for our X-mas ball.




The dinner itself was a little bland, although the dessert was good. Wasn’t really in the mood to socialise though, so I kept myself entertained by laughing at the antics of drunk folks (and at Jo coughing at her cigar), smiling as I watch Reem get all lovey-dovey with her man, discussing the role of Batman in today’s society with Nav, discussing real estate with the random guy next to me and taking lots of photographs (I tend to catch Reem at her ‘best’ moments). The best bit was catching up with Reem and Jo, obviously. It’s probably been around a couple of months since I’ve last sat down with these two and I realised that I really do miss their company, especially considering how us ‘3 musketeers’ used to hang out loads back in univ. One can’t help but wish that things remain constant with your loved ones but as we’ve all agreed, life’s a heck of a lot more complicated than that.

Rather surprisingly, we ended up in one of the surgeon’s house around 11pm, and we hung around ‘till about 4 in the morning. I can’t say I did the best of jobs in mingling – I was pretty much seated on the sofa with my drink (after drink) throughout the night, listening to the rather good music selection that was blaring out of the B&O sound system. Did participate in the occasional small talk, but I was too tired and too much of a stranger to want to make a proper effort (I guess). Things weren’t too bad considering another house officer vomited all over the surgeon’s leather sofa and the person’s poor other half was quite nervous by the end of it all.




Sunday started off with Elaine’s annual text of wishing me happy b’day a day earlier. It’s a rather amusing tradition of hers, which she does not do on purpose. Slept ‘till late, and hung out with Jo and Reem in town before going off to The Sage to catch Handel’s The Messiah, where I bumpred into Dr Prem as well. It was a great performance, and except for the alto who didn’t seem to have learned the art of brushing her hair (much to Reem’s annoyance), the solos were amazing. Did nod off a couple of times (I blame exhaustion from last night!) but the winner was definitely Jo, who managed to snoozed for a good half hour.

We had dinner at Kublai Khan, which was rather rushed ‘cause there wasn’t much time before I had to catch my train. Once again, it was good catching up with them and by the end of the weekend, I was quite surprised to look back and think of the various topics we’ve covered – from religion to the recent events of our personal lives to Teri Hatcher’s weight loss, although the latter was more a conversation that I listened to rather than participated in.

Prior to all that, I was seated in the back seat of Jo’s car when they presented me with a couple of gifts. Turns out I’m pretty ok at guessing stuff, and the first gift was a replica of a samurai sword (which is something I had showed interest in before). I never would’ve guessed the second gift though. Turns out those 2 had taken a day off to go to the Forbidden Planet when Neil Gaiman was in town back in November. They bought his latest novel, Anansi Boys, and queued up to get him to sign it with a b’day message for me. I had a lump in my throat when I saw this - not because I was ecstatic to have the book with the message in it, but ‘cause I was really touched by the lengths and breadths that they went to get the stuff for me. Didn’t really know what else to do except to give them both a hug, which was rather awkward, as anyone who has tried to hug both the driver and passenger from the backseat can very well tell you.




Also received a dvd of Crash (a brilliant movie that I hope will at least be nominated for the Oscar’s Best Movie Award) from the trio of Shanti, Yus and kakak Dr Siti and a voucher from Imaan, which helped me with my purchase of Star Wars Episode 1, a movie that I never bought ‘cause I thought it was crap. Only reason I’m getting it now is ‘cause I intend to spend Xmas in the sofa, watching all 6 Star Wars movies. Sweetie’s gift will only arrive next year, and although I’m curious as to what it actually is, she’s very good with not giving away hints.

It was also great getting the various SMSes and phone calls, which serves to remind me on an annual basis that although I might not know that many people, I’m truly lucky and blessed to have a number of friends who’re more like family to me- a small number of friends who might be scattered throughout the planet or whom I might meet every week or only every other month or even once a year – but who I know will always be there for me whatever the situation as I’ll be there for them. God, this sounds so bloody soppy. Time for more loveletters.