Surprise…

My Sigur Ros kick continues. I’m seeing them live again in just over a week! Actually that’s a pretty crazy concert week for me: Sigur Ros, then Idlewild, then Franz Ferdinand. Earplugs, friends, earplugs. October appears to be semi-indie-but-well-known band month. Last month was singer-songwriter month for me: Aimee Mann, Ben Folds/Rufus Wainwright/Ben Lee, Vienna Teng and the Animators.

Well, enough about concerts. The big news recently is that we threw a huge surprise birthday party for my mom! The ruse was quite elaborate. Maya did much of the planning behind the scenes, including reserving a wing of a nice restaurant in New Haven, she and Meera mailed out invitations, and Umesh and I sneakily arranged to fly in for the weekend. To make sure my mom would come at the right time, my dad had the Dean of Yale College (with whom he’s buddies) formally invite him and my mom to a dinner at the restaurant at the right time. The dinner was ostensibly because a very rich donor faimly was in town and was considering donating to the sciences, so all the department chairs were invited. My parents go to a good number of dinners like this, so when my mom got the email a few weeks ago, she had no way of knowing that this one would be different. Also, her real birthday is in two weeks, so there’s no way she could have suspected anything.

So Umesh and I took the red-eye to New Haven, arriving this past Saturday morning (and going on about an hour of sleep each). Meera and Maya picked us up at the airport, and we hung out in Maya’s dorm room all day. My mom actually called Umesh during the day, and he answered in Maya’s room, as we all sat there, totally silent. He was perfectly nonchalant, mentioning that we had to go to soccer practice soon, etc. My mom had no clue (how could she?). It was great.

So finally we headed over the restaurant and set everything up. The other guests arrived, and we all waited for my mom and dad to arrive together. My dad almost blew it on the way over, but recovered nicely and we had about a two-minute warning before they came.

To say the least, she was speechless when she arrived. (If you know my mom, that’s quite impressive ;). The place was filled with friends, and of course she when she saw Umesh and me there she just couldn’t believe it. It course it was awesome for me to see her and the rest of my family again… although my tiredness (check out how spaced out I am in the second picture) kept creeping up, it was still a wonderful time.