As we do every year, a group of us volunteered to participate in Hands on New York Cares Day last weekend. In the spring time, we mostly end up cleaning parks. In the autumn, it's usually painting schools. So this April we were asigned to a little waterfront park in Queens, where we were directed to remove unwanted debris from the coastal water-edge.
We were each given a pair of pickers, and had to poke and prod between the large rocks to pull out pieces of plastic and litter. Doing this every year is always a great lesson for me on the horrors of our plastic generation. But this time, we were otherwise preoccupied with other horrors. What with the recent news reports about the Long Island serial killer, everyone was slightly nervous about reaching their pickers between the rocks, only to discover the remains of a human body. But of course, this didn't transpire in the end (luckily). Instead, the events took a far more pleasant course, with our team wrapping up work early on account of the rain, and heading over instead to the nearby pub.
A few drinks into the afternoon, Lahsiv suddenly announced, "so guys, what should we do about my birthday next week?". We all looked at him in disbelief. How could none of us have known it was his birthday coming up?
"There's no way it's your birthday, man," someone said.
"Isnt your birthday in September?" I asked.
"Are you trying to just get free presents out of us?" someone else demanded.
"Guys!! It's my birthday next week!" Lahsiv launghed at our ridicule.
Not the most supportive of friends, I suppose you could say.
Finally, we checked it on facebook (the wikipedia of personal life), and realised that he had indeed been telling the truth. And so Delta and I decided to throw an impromptu party at our home yesterday, in honour of the ever mistrusted Lahsiv. I even decided to bake a cake (using case mix), but miscalculated the proportion of batter to pan, and we ended up with two cakes instead.
But a party's a party, whatever it's origin, and however many the cakes.
We were each given a pair of pickers, and had to poke and prod between the large rocks to pull out pieces of plastic and litter. Doing this every year is always a great lesson for me on the horrors of our plastic generation. But this time, we were otherwise preoccupied with other horrors. What with the recent news reports about the Long Island serial killer, everyone was slightly nervous about reaching their pickers between the rocks, only to discover the remains of a human body. But of course, this didn't transpire in the end (luckily). Instead, the events took a far more pleasant course, with our team wrapping up work early on account of the rain, and heading over instead to the nearby pub.
A few drinks into the afternoon, Lahsiv suddenly announced, "so guys, what should we do about my birthday next week?". We all looked at him in disbelief. How could none of us have known it was his birthday coming up?
"There's no way it's your birthday, man," someone said.
"Isnt your birthday in September?" I asked.
"Are you trying to just get free presents out of us?" someone else demanded.
"Guys!! It's my birthday next week!" Lahsiv launghed at our ridicule.
Not the most supportive of friends, I suppose you could say.
Finally, we checked it on facebook (the wikipedia of personal life), and realised that he had indeed been telling the truth. And so Delta and I decided to throw an impromptu party at our home yesterday, in honour of the ever mistrusted Lahsiv. I even decided to bake a cake (using case mix), but miscalculated the proportion of batter to pan, and we ended up with two cakes instead.
But a party's a party, whatever it's origin, and however many the cakes.
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