I Suck At Celebrating My Friend's Birthday

Saturday marked the beginning of a couple of things.

For starters, I mowed the lawn shirtless. Now before you envision my strapping chest with its single strand of chest hair, there is a reason for my shirtless lawn mowing. The reason: the farmer's tan.

I have developed quite the farmer's tan... through previous lawn mowing with a t-shirt in the hot summer sun. It was suggested to me some time ago that I try mowing the lawn shirtless. So, in an effort to scare my neighbors, I decided to give it a go.

The other more important beginning is... the birthday cycle. Within my circle of friends, August marks the beginning where at least one of my friends was born in the month. The cycle ends in January, only to restart again in August. So, for every month from now until January, Karen and I will most likely be celebrating one of my friend's birthday.

Unfortunately, I suck at celebrating my friend's birthday. On the agenda for Saturday was the celebration for my friend (Cass). Granted, Cass's birthday is not for another week and a half... but his wife (Ellen) wanted to plan it early.

I must say, Cass's birthday celebration was quite the memorable one. In fact, I would rank this birthday celebration up there... in terms of being memorable... with the birthday celebration for my friend (Garv) who was asked to step outside of his very own bar on his very own birthday celebration to settle a dispute... and the birthday celebration whereby there was another drunken dispute and a possible resolution to walk all the way home for my friend's (Marc) birthday celebration. Perhaps I am starting to see a trend in celebrating birthdays.

Cass's birthday celebration started off at the Sunset Grill located in Allston. As a sign of things to come... my friends (Kelley and Leeann) had to back out of the plans. Kelley was sick and Leeann had to work. So in an effort to save the environment, a bunch of us (Marc, Cass, Ellen, Karen, and I) car pooled and plan to meet Garv who was running late. As it turns out, we took a wrong turn on our way to the Sunset Grill.

Eventually, we made it the Sunset Grill. Dinner was fun and great. We had a good time just hanging out as usual... laughing... being silly... you name it. The laughing and good times are but one of the reasons why I always enjoy hanging out with friends.

Anyway, we headed back to Cass and Ellen's after dinner. That was when things went downhill for the birthday boy. It turns out something happened to Cass's father while we were out, which required his father to go to the emergency room. At the time, Cass only had limited information about his father. All he knew was that his father was at the hospital... that an ambulance had to take his father there... and that there was a lot of blood.

As you can imagine, the panic of not knowing is very unnerving. (Cass's father is okay. He received a nasty cut that required stitches.) If the worrying and panic of not knowing what has happened to your father is not enough to make the day officially terrible... it turns out that Cass's car went kaput.

Luckily, Cass had already picked up his father at the hospital at the time and was simply running to get his father his medication. So Cass's car had to then be towed to his mechanic that night.

Needless to say, I feel bad for Cass. I don't think anyone could have predicted the string of unfortunate circumstances on Cass's birthday celebration. But at least his father is doing well. And I suppose, at least Cass was not asked to step outside for a good o' fashioned round of fisticuffs.