Ooops...

Well, I kinda f*cked up. I didn't do a very good job of celebrating Spouse's birthday yesterday.

In yesterday's post I wrote that instead of getting him a gift for his birthday, I had given him my permission to order any of the items he'd been eying on HSN, QVC, and ShopNBC. I thought I'd let HIM select what he wanted most. But apparently I only said that silently to myself. He claims I never told him that so he thought I had gotten him something for his birthday.

Although he appreciated the flowers I sent to his office, he was kind of deflated that there was no gift or party planned. Of course I felt terrible.

I should have planned something 2 or 3 weeks ago, but I was distracted. His family of 6 was here for a full week, I was coordinating with the contractor who is renovating our rental condo, we made a quick trip to VA (and back the same day) to move some finances and run another errand, work has been stressful, and I had the final walk-thru for our porch expansion project. I didn't forget about his birthday, but it kind of slipped my mind.

We did go out to dinner last night with Deb & Greer, but it was purely coincidental that it fell on his birthday. We'd planned the dinner a month ago so it wasn't really a 'birthday dinner', although they were sweet and brought him a goodie bag full of kitschy things.

So on the way home from dinner he said something to the effect that he sort of thought there would be a birthday gift from me and a party or something, at which point we discovered that I'd never told him to pick out his own gift. I felt badly that he was disappointed, and felt stupid for not being on top of the plans for his birthday. As reminded me, "its comes the same time every year".

I tried to explain to him about being stressed from work and distracted by everything mentioned above, but at the end of the day (literally), there was no gift and no party. Just a floral arrangement and a dinner out with friends.

My mind raced, searching for ways I could rectify the situation. I thought about planning a party for this coming weekend, but I'm not sure we're going to be here this weekend. The condo renovation is supposed to be completed on Fri, so we will need to do a walk-thru to make sure it was all done properly. We could go Fri night, have the walk-thru Sat morning, and be home in the early afternoon for a party that night. But Spouse doesn't want to miss his personal trainer appointment on Sat morning, so he suggested going to VA afterward. We could still return Sat but it would be too late to have enough time to set up for a party. Spouse got frustrated and said "Just forget about it." I went to bed last night feeling like a bad husband for doing such a lousy job on his birthday.

Then today it hit me. Tomorrow evening we're going to our friend Joe's house for dinner, along with Steven & Thad and The Bobs. So I worked it out with Joe to turn the dinner into a surprise birthday party for Spouse. I've asked Steven to pick up helium birthday balloons and the guys will have birthday cards. No cake since Spouse & Thad are on Weight Watchers, but I'll bring a bowl of watermelon and cantaloupe for dessert. I won't be able to include all of his friends, but at least some of them will be there and I will (hopefully) kinda sorta make up for what I should have planned weeks ago.

Wish me luck in getting back in Spouse's good graces!

Crush du Jour: Josh Harris