Happy Birthday, Tom!
We just got back from playing pool at Snookers with a couple of people for his birthday. Only a few people showed up for it, Nathan, Jenny, Scott, Brendan, and Antonia came out to play some pool and wish Tom a happy birthday. A low key kind of night for a low key kind of guy, I suppose. Thankfully, the object of Tom's birthday wasn't to get him as drunk as possible, as it seemed to be last year when we all met up at Dick O'Dowds. I think it may have something to do with the fact that Vince and Amit weren't there buying everyone a million shots. Those two might be on their second or third liver by now, with the amount of alcohol they consume in one sitting...and they always try to get everyone else to follow suit.
Pictures of the evening have been posted, if you know where to find them. If you don't, ask nicely and I just might tell you....
For his birthday, aside from picking up the tab at Snookers, I got him the JBL iPod speakers for the new (engraved) video ipod I got him for Christmas. He uses his ipod as an alarm clock, and always has to unplug his speakers from his computer to set up his ipod to off in the morning. Now, all he has to do is set the alarm and then set the ipod in the speakers. I was amazed at how big the sound was for such a small set of speakers... A birthday wouldn't be complete without a dinner, so I took him out to dinner last night, after he got off of work. He picked Italian for dinner, so rather than go to one of our usual restaurants, I decided to take him to one in Rochester that he's never been to....
I stopped trying to plan anything overly elaborate or special for Tom's birthday without asking him after the first birthday we were together. Now, I just ask him exactly what he wants to do (and what he can do) and make plans accordingly. Two years ago, I bought tickets to the DSO for his birthday, thinking that it would be a nice surprise for him, given all of our conversations about classical music and how he had always wanted to go to an ochestra performance, but never had anyone to go with. For well over a month, I hinted at the idea of going to an ochestra performance and he always seemed to think it was a good idea, and that he would be able to change around his schedule with the kid for one evening at the orchestra for his birthday. I went ahead and bought the tickets, thinking that he genuinely wanted to go and would make it happen on his end of things. Well, I was wrong. I told him about the tickets two weeks prior and asked him to make his arrangements. He said he'd try, but never said anything to me about it after that. I had to ask him again and again and again to see if he had made arrangements...and finally, it came down to it, two days before the performance and he told me he couldn't go...
I wanted to cry. As it turns out, he had never even tried to make things work. He was too afraid to say anything to his family or anyone else to see if he could go out for one evening for his birthday present. I wasn't about to let $150 go to waste, so I called up Sterling at the last minute and asked him to go with me. When Tom found out I took Sterling instead, he had the nerve to get mad at me. I couldn't believe he was mad at me for using the tickets, instead of letting them go to waste since they were non-refundable. I hated him for doing that to me, telling me he could go and that he would work things out, but then never even trying...and then getting mad at me for going with someone else.
Unfortunately, these are the kinds of memories Tom and I have from the beginning. Our relationship was built on a shakey foundation, and we're paying for it now... I just hope that we'll get to a point in our lives where we can create nothing but good memories....