Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

That's just the way it is.

My birthday evening post was a denial of sorts: an attempt to cling to whatever good feeling the day had brought before it all came crashing down. Friends made my day; family not so much. It didn't even occur to me till Luz asked me about it, that my mom hadn't called. Anyway.

On Thursday the girls dressed up for me: polished corporate instead of the usual business casual. We went to Panda Express for lunch, where I showed off my mad chopsticks skillz, introduced them to tofu, half-and-half chow mein/rice plates, sweet and sour pork, Chinese chili sauce and the always-popular orange chicken. They later bought me a chocolate cake and had it iced "Happy Birthday, Farah" so they could dunk my face in it and take pictures.

I got a single red rose, a Hershey's candy bar and a Dr. Thunder; and everyone who could make my day was attentive and sweet. Save one.

I stayed to help unload the truck. I had a blast because I was among friends and the interactions were... lively, to say the least. Everyone else left by 5:45. Patrick was supposed to get off work at 5:30, and travel time is less then ten minutes, so I scanned labels till 6, then finally called him.

"Where are you?"
"Oh, I'm at the car wash."
"Alright, I'll get my things. Why didn't you tell me you were on your way?"
"Because I was going to buy you roses."
"Okay."

We met up by the Xboxes and he pointed out the games he wanted to get. I got some groceries and he headed to the wine section and brought back a Martini and Rossi Asti. "Is this okay?"

Perplexed, I replied that I'd had a good Asti and a bad one, so apparently there are differences I'm unaware of (the difference between a Brut and whatever else there might be, maybe?) He told me to go ahead and get the flowers I wanted since he doesn't know how to pick out roses, and he went back and got a Riesling. "I tried this on Thanksgiving at my parents' house, so I know it's good."

We got home, I heated up some leftovers, which he ate while I walked the dog. When we got back he was at the computer, putting together a scrim*. He quit his CAL (Cyberathlete Amateur League) team this week and is putting together one of his own. They were supposed to scrim the other day but not enough people showed up. They finally got one going last night and he was on the computer for a few hours. It went well, he was exuberant, and I hated to bring him down from his high but by 10:30 I'd seen my birthday night go by like any other weekday night.

I clipped the stem ends of the rose bouquet I'd requested last weekend and picked out for myself that night, rearranging them into two milk bottles. I left half a dozen on display on the kitchen counter, viewable from any part of the apartment. The other six red roses sit prettily at my desk, and in the background are the seashell glasses. I've filled two of the seashell glasses with water. One holds a pink carnation, the other a lone rosebud.

I curled up on the carpet next to his computer seat. He was posting the scrim's highlights when I lay my head on his lap and asked if we could talk. He finished up and asked what I wanted to talk about.

"What happened to my birthday?"
"What do you mean?"
"You ate dinner alone, then I ate dinner alone, we were just at our computers, and then I even had to eat my birthday cake by myself."
"We're celebrating this weekend, remember?"

~*~*~*

My mom called me today, apparently they had some new tenants who moved in sooner than she'd anticipated and she was installing window treatments yesterday. Luz brought the gift she's forgotten yesterday, a burgundy cami just like Blanca's which I admired last month, I think.

~*~*~*

From Wikipedia:

"Scrim is also a term frequently used in the world of online gaming (short for Scrimmage). Players use it as a term to mean competition between teams, which are usually made up of organized clans. A scrim is like a match, except not as serious (sometimes just for fun), scores are usually not recorded, and they can be organized spontaneously if enough players are available from each team. The number of players and maybe even teams vary by the game played and the available team members."

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrim"