Papa Shin-Chan's Birthday

Maybe I should drop you at your door
Or leave tonight and vanish up the shore
Anywhere but here

- Better Than Ezra's "At The Stars" -

Ever since my colleagues in the same batch as I entered this agency, we’ve kept up this tradition of celebrating our birthday together. Nothing elaborate, just a small cake and a card with everyone’s signature on it, and it will usually be sorta a surprise, where everyone will gather in the food court and have lunch, an suddenly, ta-dah! a cake will be brought out, all the candles will be lighted up, and the whole food court usually joins in our birthday song sing-along. Even though we may not hang out with each other much, but when it comes to this, we’ll all be there, and stories will be exchanged over lunch and cake, then everyone will walk back to the office together, in a group of 10 people, solidarity in our small number. I think that the cake and the card may not mean as much as the thought of spending the day with the very bunch of people who were there from Day 1, and prolly have experienced the same things you’ve had in the time you’ve spent working there.

I had my fair share. Although, by the time ot got to my birthday, the surprise over lunch thingy was expected tho’ still anticipated, and I had an extra celebration where they gathered over dinner with me at Chilli’s, all 10 of use squeezed in one booth, sampling each other’s dishes. Twas nice :) Nothing like a bunch of my good friends, getting over good food, and best of all, everyone knew how much I love to read, so I got lotsa books for my birthday present. Thanks you guys, and it was so sweet how they would consult each other on the kind of books I liked to read hehe.

And so, yesterday was a friend’s birthday, and altho’ he’s been transferred to a different division hence enhanced workload, and the fact that he doesn’t spend as much time with us due to a tiny dispute some time back, the celebration preparations were still carried out. Since a few of the original cast members have flocked the nest to greener pastures, our number has dwindled and celebrations have been slightly smaller than the last one. However, we’ve acquired new acquaintances and friends who regards us as part of them, so this helped in maintaining and even increasing our party. Alhamdulillah for very, very, very nice, jovial, friendly and supporting aka gila-gila minded people like us.

Celebration preparations: Well, emails were sent out to everyone we considered bday boy’s friends, informed them of his upcoming birthday, announced that there’s gonna be a small surprise gathering, explained the cake and card scenario, STRESSED that no one is obligated to participate if they don’t want to *silently stating that those who participated has to contribute sincerely lah*, and instructed interested parties to submit their names to the organising committee. Organising committee which initially was headed by Poovs, who had conveniently forgotten he had more important matters to handle in hand on that day so then passed the job to me, comprised of Diva Deen, La Pacina and moiself. And true to my procrastinating nature, yesterday my desk were piled with more files and memos, while yours truly ran around to get a card, acquire all signatures for it, and to buy a cake.
Getting signatures from all 12 floors of friends is no easy feat, I tell you. I salute La Pacina for handling it all this while. People take so long to compose a short note, and us breathing down their necks while looking pointedly at our watch didn’t really help either, hehe. There were times when they were just twirling the pen in their hands, thinking up what to write, when me and the Diva, cannot tahan already, will blurt out, "U have only 2 minutes, that’s our clients’ charter!" Managed to get loads of signatures altho’ the Diva did sniffed and said that I asked too many unnecessary people to sign. Me!

The cake was bought in Baker’s Cottage in Bangsar, after a sumptuous lunch at the Delicious Cafe in Bangsar Village. Celeb spotting la kejap kan hehe. The chocolate cake is TO DIE FOR, btw. Work wasn’t attended to properly either in the afternoon as had long discussion with the boss over some files. Then it was already time to surprise the bday boy, who apparently, thought we had forgotten all about his bday already, given that we didn’t take him out to the customary birthday lunch. He was just prolly moaning about this condition to our friend *who helped in distracting him, thank you Joy!*, when all of us, bounced in yelling " Surprise!!" with the guys bringing up a baritone version of "Happy Birthday" hehehe..Even his boss jumped into the celebrations *cuz we were so loud*, and claimed that the room we were in is going to be known as a party room, cuz many a bday celebrations have been held there, hehehe.

It was worth it to see him so happy. I know this guy’s quite a sensitive dude, so this surprise has perked him up, and it is a welcoming break from his job. The tea lady provided us some drinks, and altho’ the number of people who came were less than those we emailed to, the celebration was just as festive. Hope it was a good one dude! and don’t think that we’ve forgotten or we simply didn’t care, we do! Btw, lyrics above is one of this dude's favourite songs :)

All those preparations made me guilty of the piles of files on the table, so I tended them in the evening. I had very pleasant company for a short while there tho :) However, remind me next time, that it is not productive to be working at night, while hairs on back of neck is practically standing up due to the fact that there’s no one else on the same floor except for you. Especially when overactive imagination also decided to do overtime.

Ooh, can’t wait to meet up with the girls later for lunch!

p/s: Take a look at Ms Read's latest catelogue..its super cute! Yay for super cool plus size women!