Tag Archives: surprise

An Unexpected Friend Hangout (or More Proof I Need To Be More Social)

Posted on October 14, 2022 | Comments Off on An Unexpected Friend Hangout (or More Proof I Need To Be More Social)

I’ve written about how I’ve become much less social compared to how I was before. I know a lot of that is because of the pandemic and my hesitation to feel like things are normal again so I’m not really going out the way I did. But also, a lot of events that I used to go to still aren’t back yet. But besides not going out as much, I don’t have as many friends who live in LA as I did before. A lot of my friends moved in the past 2 years. All of them had reasons they wanted to move and they all are thriving in their new cities. But that doesn’t make me miss them less. And as so many people know, it’s really hard to make new friends as an adult. And even harder when you aren’t going out much and meeting new people.

Even though my friends aren’t all local anymore, I do make efforts to maintain those friendships. I’m lucky that those friends are the type of friends that you can just text each other random stuff for a while but when you have time for a phone call or a hangout, things pick back up exactly where they left off and there’s no awkwardness. Those are the truest type of friends to me. Those relationships are strong enough that they don’t need regular maintenance. And I think because of how things have gone over the past few years, most of the friendships that I still have are that type of friends whether they live in LA or not.

But of course, I miss seeing my friends that I was used to seeing on a regular basis who don’t live here anymore. I haven’t been able to see most of them because everyone is busy. But I always hope that either they will be back in LA for some reason or I will have a chance to travel to where they are so I can see them again. What has happened has been random chance visits from friends because they are in town and need a place to stay. That happened over the summer when a friend needed a place to stay for a night when they were here for a wedding. And I got another random overnight guest earlier this week.

I hadn’t seen my friend Dani since she surprised me for my birthday last year. I miss our Disney days and going to musicals with her, but I know that she’s been loving her new city. And we keep in pretty regular contact via text so we both know what’s going on in each other’s lives. And the other night, she texted me to see if she could crash at my place that night. She was flying and had a layover at LAX, but due to delays, she didn’t make her connecting flight and the airline wasn’t paying for a hotel. She didn’t mind that I only had an air mattress and not an actual bed for her to stay in, so I told her that I’d love to get to see her and let her stay here.

It was the best unplanned hangout. She got here really late and we both had to be up really early the next morning, but we still got a few hours of hangout time in. It was so awesome to get to catch up in person instead of via text. We’ve both had a lot of changes happen in our lives, but I think we both have grown in really great ways. And she had only seen my condo in photos and videos, so I wanted to give her the tour. I haven’t been able to show off my place to too many of my friends, and I love how everyone agrees that it’s the perfect place for me and it really feels like it’s my home. And Dani has done renovations before too, so I had asked her a lot of questions while the work was being done and I was so happy to show her how everything turned out.

I wish that she and I could have had more time to hang out, but we both needed to get sleep before getting up early the next morning. And I will be up where she is located next month when I’m doing some family stuff, so there’s a chance we will get to see each other again then. I’m not sure of my schedule yet when I’m there, but I’m hoping there will be enough free time to meet up somewhere to continue catching up.

It is always nice when I make plans with friends and have something to look forward to. But it’s just as nice when getting to see my friends is a surprise and happens with no planning. I’m just lucky any time I get to see friends, especially those who have moved away, and I am always grateful for whatever time I can have with them.

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Surprises Really Can Make Your Day (or So Grateful To Be Celebrated)

Posted on November 18, 2021 | Comments Off on Surprises Really Can Make Your Day (or So Grateful To Be Celebrated)

The other day while I was working, someone rang my doorbell. I rarely have anyone unexpectedly showing up, so I thought at first it might be a salesperson. Even though I have a doorbell camera, it was just faster to get up and see who it was. And it was a delivery person with a big thing of flowers!

My first thought was that they had the wrong house, but they asked for me and I confirmed this was my address. So I took the flowers and brought them inside and spent a moment just admiring them because this was one of the prettiest bouquets I’ve seen!

I really was trying to think who it might be from, and I thought maybe someone I know congratulating me on the condo or something like that. But I was shocked when I saw that it was from my customer service job. And even more shocked when it was to congratulate me on having a good MRI scan and not needing my tumors to be monitored anymore!

I’ve never had a job send me flowers before. And I’ve never had a job congratulate me on something that wasn’t related to work. So this really meant so much to me. And I know that part of this might be because my friend is one of the executive team members and he knew what was going on. But it was still sent by others who don’t know me as well and it was really so special.

I did celebrate myself when I had the good news about my tumor, but it was different this year since in the past I was able to celebrate with others as well. And this was a big MRI because it also meant that I was done being checked on a regular basis. But in a way, this wasn’t as big of a celebration since I wasn’t around my friends or going out to dinner or something to recognize good news. So receiving flowers made things feel more special and I didn’t realize how much I needed that.

But I also didn’t really understand how special getting something so unexpected would feel. And it’s making me think about trying to do things like that for my friends since I want them to feel special too. I’m not sure if I’ll do flowers since they can get expensive, but I do want to try to find little ways to make people feel as special as I did getting these flowers.

And I also rarely have fresh flowers in my house. And having them right now just feels luxurious when I know it’s not a huge expense. I might not do this until after I move, but I want to look into maybe having a semi-regular flower delivery or making more of an effort to buy flowers when I go to the store. It’s crazy how something so small can make a big change in how I feel in my home. But it would be a nice thing to do for myself and to remind me that I do deserve to celebrate the little things.

Who knew that a simple flower delivery could mean so much to me? I had no idea. But I am so grateful that my work thought to do that and I could feel so special and grateful that others are celebrating the wins I have in my life as well.

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A Night Out With Friends (or Emmys and Elopements)

Posted on September 26, 2018 | Comments Off on A Night Out With Friends (or Emmys and Elopements)

Sometimes, my friends throw amazing parties that end up being so much better than I ever could have expected. And this past weekend, I went to one of those parties.

My friend Dena has been out of the country for a while working and traveling. She is finally back in LA and wanted to have a party at her house to celebrate her being back in town. But she had a second reason to want to throw a party because her boyfriend had been nominated for his first Emmy this year! He didn’t win, but we all know this is the first of many nominations. So Dena invited me to a party that was half welcome home and half Emmy celebration. I obviously said yes to the party, and as an added bonus Dena lives only a few minutes from my house so it was super easy to get to!

I wish I had taken more photos at the party because it really was an amazing party that blew me away when I arrived! It was a cocktail party so it was so much fun seeing everyone dressed up. And they had a ton of food and a gorgeous dessert table with desserts baked by another friend of mine. I didn’t end up eating while I was there because I was still recovering from the Dri-Tri a few hours before and my stomach was a bit off. But everything smelled delicious and all my friends said all the food was incredible.

In the invitation, they mentioned that there would be a special toast at 8pm and to please be at the party by then. I personally thought that maybe Dena and her boyfriend were engaged and this was a surprise engagement party. A few of my friends and I discussed that when we arrived at the party and we all had similar ideas about that. We just had to wait until 8 to hear what was going to happen.

At 8pm, Dena and her boyfriend Greg got up to speak in front of everyone. There was a posterboard behind them that was congratulating Greg on his Emmy nomination.

Then they announced that they recently got engaged and wanted to celebrate that with us all! We were so excited for them but the announcements weren’t done. Dena and Greg said that they wanted to throw this party so they could ask us all to save the date and put another posterboard up with a photo of them and below the photo it said “Save The Date 9-7-18”. There was a moment of confusion before they showed us another posterboard explaining it.

They eloped 2 weeks earlier and were married!

So this party that we thought was a welcome home/Emmy celebration was actually more of a wedding reception for their elopement! Everyone was pretty much in shock and so happy for them. It was such a wonderful celebration already and now it was even better! Everyone was crowding them to congratulate them and I eventually got to Dena to tell her congrats and she could show off her engagement ring and wedding band.

After the announcement, the party continued pretty similarly to how it was going before. They just wanted to have a fun celebration with all of their friends and that’s exactly what they were having. They did have a first dance and a wedding cake that they cut so it made it more of a reception than just a regular party. But it really felt so perfect that this is how they were celebrating their wedding with their friends. It was so casual and everyone was enjoying themselves. All my friends who have gotten married have told me that all they wanted was everyone to have fun. And that’s exactly what Dena got.

I spent most of the party hanging out with my friends who were there and just enjoying the party as an observer. I know I was not my most social because I was tired and my body was sore, but that didn’t stop me from having fun. I really do love just spending time with my friends. And since I rarely see these friends dressed fancy, I think just seeing them in cocktail attire instead of casual clothes was enough to put a huge smile on my face. And I don’t dress up that often so I was enjoying looking fancy too.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to be at the party too late because of all the things I had earlier that day. But I managed to stay there for a couple of hours before heading back to my car to go home. But because a lot of the people at the party have kids or had a longer drive home, it seemed like it was starting to wind down a bit by the time I was making my rounds to say goodbye to everyone. I found Dena again before I left and congratulated her again and we agreed that now that she’s back in LA we will hang out soon and I’m sure I’ll get to hear all about their elopement and how it all came together. I can’t wait to hear the story!

I already knew that this party was going to be awesome because it was celebrating an amazing friend, but it was way beyond what I expected when I got there. It’s not often that I get to be surprised by something, but this really surprised everyone who was there and it was so fun to get to be a part of that!

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