I had a wonderful birthday surprise last night. Mark and I had sworn off surprises (if you know how miserably previous surprises have failed, you understand why). This actually worked in Mark's favor, as I was expecting nothing. Also, we have a dinner the night of my birthday, so in my mind my birthday was set. Well, we have some friends who are engaged, and the fiance is currently away, so the fiancee had planned to set up all these pictures and send one a day to him - of her totally dejected without him. She and Mark told me that Giraffe, an Asian restaurant here, was one of their favorites, so it would be perfect to take a picture there of Mark and myself totally engrossed in each other, ignoring her ... her missing her other half... I went for it. She even made sure I was going to be really dressed up - it would make the picture better. Again, I bought it. When we ran into a few friends at the restaurant, that was normal - you can never go somewhere in Haifa without running into other Baha'is basically. I had no idea - other than I thought their responses to the question of 'may we join you?' were odd. Then, when Mark told me it was my birthday he brought out this beautiful diamond necklace (see photo) that he'd bought out in Oregon (thank you, Beth and Ramine!) for me to wear (he'd given it to me previously, but it's a 'special occasion necklace' and he wanted to make sure I had an occasion to wear it!). So, I had a fabulous evening last night - and we even managed to do our laundry last night, too! Amazing.
One of my friends from Fiji sent me this email (he arrived at the same time I did, back in July) today. It's so beautiful I wanted to share it:
what a beautiful day will it be tomorrow when you wake up and realize that you are another year richer in character, friends, wisdom. what great opportunity time gives you as you follow its path as it slowly unwinds. anyway I will stop this nonsense and say what I sat down to write. have the most fantastic day of your life from tomorrow onwards and happy birthday to you. may you and your family be heaped with blessings.
eminoni raivoka
