Birth Day

Ok, we still maintain that God has an absolutely wicked sense of humour, and that is just about the half of it. See, for someone who has been proudly proclaiming that “I don’t go to church for no particular reason” – I am finding myself finding my way in there every Sunday morning without fail for a while now – alone, with no ulterior motive that to be in there and listen and learn and worship and feel great (but don’t tell anyone) – oh, and the music is just miraculous. And to think that you would have to drag me screaming and shouting out of bed at any time before 1200hrs on the weekend – and here I am waking up at 0700hrs just so I don’t get late – wow, I am sure God just has a blast day on Sundays pointing and laughing at me. Ah, well!

I am also a walking cliché for ‘a series of unintended consequences’ in that more often that not, a cascade effect of my actions and/or omissions leave me either falling about laughing or just falling about – and no, I do not learn. Why try to do things differently when you can do the same thing over and over, and with no effort whatsoever on your part, get the same results, and blame it on ….? Ok, I suppose that doesn’t work.

So, here we are, on the anniversary of my birth, and other than a look on my face that says: I am ready for whatever; the day is just starting to look like “The best laid plans … and all that”. Started with impromptu song and dance from some colleagues (I always start worrying when people burst into song), I walk to the door and another colleague (whom I discovered a few days ago has a major crush on me (another story for another day) handed me a digital camera because I have been literally singing for my morning cup of coffee for it. I had no words – Cameras and I are anyone’s worst nightmare – cue taking pictures of all and sundry (and that is just the inanimate objects). Ever since my trusted Casio was nicked a few years back, I had refused to get myself one just to punish myself (yes, I know – Freud would have a field day with me) – but who says when someone else decides you deserve a present (or are tired of you literally stealing theirs on a daily basis), you still need to self-flagellate or something?

After that moment, my day cannot get better! - at least while I write this, my day is still getting better, so ignore that statement. And no, I will not tempt fate, seeing as that cliche up there still holds.

But, let us backtrack a little bit:

What would a G post be without:

a) It being a long ass-one

b) Having to go back to the beginning of whatever

c) Digressions that intertwine making the National Grid rethink its wiring? (hmm, figure that one out!)

a) has already been taken care of

b) That happened yesterday - oh, wait - it has been happening but culminated yesterday - and my brains and other faculties haven't yet dissected and/or digested the whole thing yet. Mental picture moment: A snake swallows some [holy] cow whole and is still trying to decide whether it was a clever idea to not take out the hooves and the hide and the halo (yes, as in holy cow??). Moving on (chuckles) ... I knew this was gonna be a 'straitjacket, padded room, horse tranquilizer' day .. never mind, it is my birthday after all... the powers that be started it!

After I moved here at the ass end of 2009, I was a bit 'fish out of water'ed about the whole area and people and I was not sure whether to make it a semi or permanent move - but like everything else, I tend to not balk down at a challenge, especially one that ends up with the statement: 'You could not hack it' - said silently with trepidation to self by self. Anyway, my relationship was on hold for personal and geographical considerations, my relationships with other people had all but disintegrated into little moments which necessitated me to take time out and reevaluate and rejuvenate self. A few weeks into it, a colleague asked me at a meeting whether I thought a particular gentleman was 'hot'. I, being of sound mind and aloof exterior, could not point out under a microscope which of the gentle and not so gentle men she was referring to, but I humoured her and said something that sounded like I was choking LOL. See, if we backtrack a teeny little bit more, we might find that said female human had expressed an interest that I was unable, unwilling and/or unprepared to meet - and I had a feeling she was trying to suss out which team(s) that I might be so inclined to bat for. Self was not inclined to either entertain or accommodate said musings, so the issue was frozen, or so I thought.

Side note: Said gentle man was indeed 'hot' - very! But, self preservation dictates that whenever you are in a new environment, casing the joint does not necessarily mean zeroing in on the most gorgeous man in the room and making your presence and/or interest or lack thereof felt.

About a month later, the dog incident occurs (long story which involves me and gentle man ending up looking at the same thing with a dog attached and drawing the same conclusion, and the moment he said it, I burst out laughing and the ice was broken - poor canine - she still gets the blame for putting us together, I tell ya) and the rest is history. But from that moment on, I always felt like a teenager (and hopefully, but not definitely, not acting like one), waiting for that tiny moment where I can sidle up to him and say a few words, where he can surreptitiously give me a good morning hug, when he sometimes sits a few chairs down from me when we have a morning meeting, whispered questions with double entendre attached, long words that I write on chewing gum wrapper and pass to him and marvel when he Googles them on the sly so he can then whisper to me 'Can you use that in a sentence?'

The Chemistry between us was uncanny - the electricity palpable. I can 'feel' him when he is around without seeing him - it is like this pull he has - I tend to call it 'Radar'. His mates tell him often that 'The two of you should stop doing that thing you do (I have no idea what they are talking about), which makes the rest of the room feel like there are only the two of you in it'. Poor souls.

Very long story dissected into not a very bite size portion, after spending time with the most amazingly smart, annoyingly handsome, gentle, loving, giving, sexy, passionate, history-bursting, rock music listening, poem writing, agnostic confessed, multiple-book reading human male - we had some semblance of 'the' talk yesterday - which included somewhere there me giving him the essence of one G. In the process, while we knew that our lives have taken similar paths, and that a series of unintended consequences had led us to being in this Antarctican hood at this time and meeting one another and even .. ... well, falling mercilessly in love with one another - he turned around after lunch and asked me to marry him. I know, I know - has he any idea what he is getting himself into?

Do I?

And, well, I never said I do anything the easy way, did I?

So I said YES!

Within moments, his best mate came by and M told him - his mate couldn't believe it and he goes: "You better not be kidding me cos I have prayed for this moment ever since you guys met - you are making an old man of God very proud and happy". Told ya, that man God is sure shrewd in his wisdom!

What a bloody marvelous birthday present, eh?

I know that nothing is certain in this life, and that God is sitting around scratching his scraggy beard smiling like an indulgent Father, because even if I somehow saw this one coming from a mile off, it still threw me a curve, and I had that adrenalin rush moment where I thought: 'What the f* have I done?' - but I know that if anything, I want to spend those uncertain moments, the certain ones, the unbelievably hilarious ones, the ones where he looks at me and all thought freezes, the sad ones, the cute ones and all the others, especially where wit is pitted against wit (that which is lost in translation (English v. American) notwithstanding), learning him and with him and for him and by him.

(It is OK, you can put the puke bags down now)

And as I sit here typing this, he is sitting over there looking at me waiting to go out for lunch - and as with the first time I spoke to him, I still feel like that teenager who is waiting for the most gorgeous guy in school to come over and say hello to her.

Happy Birthday to me!