The Day Before

It's the eve of my birthday, and half the day is gone. I just got out of my weekly 2-hour staff meeting, which I presided. Actually, we take turns running these meetings, and this month is mine.

For the past few days, I have been thinking about little stuff related to my birthday. I normally don't plan anything, except for dinner with the family. I treat my birthday just like any other day. Keeping it low key. If you ask me how old I am, I'll need to do a little mental math because I stopped counting after I hit 25 years.

A family dinner is usually the only planned activity, but I have not even done that yet. I just can't decide on what I want (to eat). I want to try something new or different. Since I don't give it the attention it deserves, we typically end up going to some place we've already been to or somewhere convenient. The way it looks, we're headed in the same direction, unless I do something about it NOW.

Another thing I threw out there was to host a little birthday bash among close friends -- the mafia (a term coined by a school parent/friend of ours referring to the tight group of Filipino school parents/friends) and the "whites" (or everyone else not classified as "mafia"). And since we're talking about a sizable number of families, I thought of having the celebration off limit to kids. Don't know how that's going to work, but I know it has been done in the past. If ever it happens, it won't be this weekend, but probably no sooner than 2 weekends out. At this point, I am still undecided.

At our staff meeting this morning, my boss brought in some bagels to share, plus a little card from the team. It's been a tradition within our group to "celebrate" a birthday with a cake, pastries, and, yes, bagels (and a variety of smears) during staff meetings. And if you're lucky, you may even get treated to lunch by some of your peers. Yup! I've been invited to one.

As far as my calendar goes, I don't have anything major planned at work tomorrow, except for a one hour meeting at 11am. I've blocked off the next hour to hear mass at the Cathedral (of Christ the Light), which is literally just steps from my office. Then, there is the lunch treat from a couple of my peers. In the evening, my son has a basketball practice from 7-8pm, which just messes up any decent dinner plan. If I eventually come up with something, he may have to skip practice. Can't have a late dinner on a school night.

And there's one more thing. Last night, we got a note from my son's school, informing us that he is a recipient of last month's theme award, and that the award will be given tomorrow during the morning school assembly. How cool is that? I do want to attend, but I know I will have problems getting parking at BART if I arrive after 8:00am. I tried to get a single-day parking at the Fremont station just for tomorrow, but none was available. Good thing my wife can make it.

For now, I have a lot of thinking (and deciding) to do, and I don't have a lot of time. SIGH.