Post-weekend
Sep. 27th, 2004 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethSometimes I think we should get Mondays off, just to have a day of recovery from the weekend.
This was gift-giving weekend for me. Not intentionally, it just worked out that way. See, we have a good friend and long-time student of our martial arts school, Aaron, that up and joined the Air Force, and he's leaving in roughly a week for basic. So Saturday night we had a big good-bye dinner for him, with about twenty of us. Everyone from class pitched in to get him a going away gift, and since he's always admired and loved playing Mark's Gamecube, we got him the Gamecube package from Costco and a game.
Aaron is not one who shows emotion, ever. In fact, he's so hard to read that I was concerned he wouldn't really like the gift, that while he enjoyed playing games at our house, he wasn't really into having his own game system. Mark assured me that Aaron would love it, "but we might not know that by watching his reaction." Well, we got the most emotion out of him by giving him that gift that we've ever seen. When he opened it, his mouth dropped open in shock, and I seriously thought he was going to cry for a few minutes there. Chris, another friend (the one who helped me upgrade my computer eons ago, if any of you remember) who has known Aaron since high school, said it's the most emotional reaction to anything he's ever seen from Aaron. Ever. We were very pleased. :) He's been at home holed up with his new toy ever since. At least he has a week to enjoy it before he takes off for Texas.
Then, the second gift of the weekend. Veronica, my friend who never cries, the one who's getting divorced -- (she did cry on the phone with me once about that, but really, the woman never cries. It's an emotional response her body fights against. I've seen her cry maybe three times total in the more than a decade I've known her) -- had her home broken into last week. Whoever broke in took her husband's guns and her jewelry box. I'm still maintaining it was someone who either knew them, or knew a friend of theirs, because they didn't touch anything else in the house. They knew right where to go for the guns and since the jewelry box was obviously a jewelry box, I'm not sure if they meant to take that originally, or if it was an afterthought. Anyway, she cried for two hours about that box. Not that she had anything really valuable, but she had things in there that she loved, things her mother had given her, things we had given her, things her husband had given her. Things she intended to pass down to her daughter and nieces. Well, the rest of us decided to give her an early B-day gift yesterday, and we went shopping. We got her a new jewelry box, a pair of pearl earrings almost exactly like the ones she lost, and a super indulgent, very pretty ruby ring that Mervyn's had on clearance (we got everything on clearance). I'm telling you, Mervyn's is the place to shop for good deals on jewelry. We only spent $70 on the ring, but it's a better piece of jewelry than anything she's ever owned except her wedding ring. And it turns out her mother has a ruby necklace and bracelet set that Veronica will inherit one day.
Anyway, then we filled the box with fun little things form our own jewelry collections. Nothing valuable, really, just rings or necklaces or what have you that we don't wear anymore that we thought a)she would like for herself or b)would make a good present for her daughter or nieces, since girls at all ages love sparkly things. (When I say filled the box, I mean we added a few things. There's still plenty of room for her to add to her own jewelry wardrobe.) So, we gave her the box, and she cried. I think with her divorce, the box being stolen, and that, it's like the third time I've ever seen her cry. I'm very glad we did it.
And now I'm even more glad I got her pearls for Christmas. :) It's just going to be really hard to wait that long to give them to her.
This was gift-giving weekend for me. Not intentionally, it just worked out that way. See, we have a good friend and long-time student of our martial arts school, Aaron, that up and joined the Air Force, and he's leaving in roughly a week for basic. So Saturday night we had a big good-bye dinner for him, with about twenty of us. Everyone from class pitched in to get him a going away gift, and since he's always admired and loved playing Mark's Gamecube, we got him the Gamecube package from Costco and a game.
Aaron is not one who shows emotion, ever. In fact, he's so hard to read that I was concerned he wouldn't really like the gift, that while he enjoyed playing games at our house, he wasn't really into having his own game system. Mark assured me that Aaron would love it, "but we might not know that by watching his reaction." Well, we got the most emotion out of him by giving him that gift that we've ever seen. When he opened it, his mouth dropped open in shock, and I seriously thought he was going to cry for a few minutes there. Chris, another friend (the one who helped me upgrade my computer eons ago, if any of you remember) who has known Aaron since high school, said it's the most emotional reaction to anything he's ever seen from Aaron. Ever. We were very pleased. :) He's been at home holed up with his new toy ever since. At least he has a week to enjoy it before he takes off for Texas.
Then, the second gift of the weekend. Veronica, my friend who never cries, the one who's getting divorced -- (she did cry on the phone with me once about that, but really, the woman never cries. It's an emotional response her body fights against. I've seen her cry maybe three times total in the more than a decade I've known her) -- had her home broken into last week. Whoever broke in took her husband's guns and her jewelry box. I'm still maintaining it was someone who either knew them, or knew a friend of theirs, because they didn't touch anything else in the house. They knew right where to go for the guns and since the jewelry box was obviously a jewelry box, I'm not sure if they meant to take that originally, or if it was an afterthought. Anyway, she cried for two hours about that box. Not that she had anything really valuable, but she had things in there that she loved, things her mother had given her, things we had given her, things her husband had given her. Things she intended to pass down to her daughter and nieces. Well, the rest of us decided to give her an early B-day gift yesterday, and we went shopping. We got her a new jewelry box, a pair of pearl earrings almost exactly like the ones she lost, and a super indulgent, very pretty ruby ring that Mervyn's had on clearance (we got everything on clearance). I'm telling you, Mervyn's is the place to shop for good deals on jewelry. We only spent $70 on the ring, but it's a better piece of jewelry than anything she's ever owned except her wedding ring. And it turns out her mother has a ruby necklace and bracelet set that Veronica will inherit one day.
Anyway, then we filled the box with fun little things form our own jewelry collections. Nothing valuable, really, just rings or necklaces or what have you that we don't wear anymore that we thought a)she would like for herself or b)would make a good present for her daughter or nieces, since girls at all ages love sparkly things. (When I say filled the box, I mean we added a few things. There's still plenty of room for her to add to her own jewelry wardrobe.) So, we gave her the box, and she cried. I think with her divorce, the box being stolen, and that, it's like the third time I've ever seen her cry. I'm very glad we did it.
And now I'm even more glad I got her pearls for Christmas. :) It's just going to be really hard to wait that long to give them to her.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 12:04 pm (UTC)