A Birthday Dinner

 

                     🎂🥂🍾🎉🎈🎊

Hello my dearest readers. How are you doing?

I hope you’re doing good. And if you’re not so good, I hope you get better soon. It’s been a while here.

Anyway, taking a page from a friend of mine's book (of writing daily events), I decided to try it out.

Again.

 It’s been a while I narrated my day with ink. Here goes.

So, my best girl's (Vee’s) birthday was on the 1st of July, a Thursday. I was excited for her cos she’s a darling. Anyway, she tells me she has a birthday dinner at Lekki and I don’t have a choice, I must come. Haa, I thought about it for days cos she definitely didn’t tell me on the birthday. I thought about the transport fare as SAPA is seriously holding me. It was the end of the month, salary never show. I thought about the time I’d get there. I work on the mainland and close at 5. 

 Lekki is on the island. 

For the benefit of those not staying in Lagos, we have what you’d call constant traffic. I grew up here and it’s one of, if not the only thing I detest about the place. Anyway, continuing with my story, I didn’t want to sleep in traffic on a working day. So, this kept me thinking. I also stay with a family close to where I work, I didn’t know how not sleeping there on a week day would sound. My last thoughts were that the dinner was at Lekki, big man place. Hehehe, how do I cope or act around my bestie's other friends definitely living on the island. One thing about me is I get anxious a lot about a lot of things that aren’t even worth it. It’s something I always work on. I’m sure Vee will pound me on this. Yes, she  can scold!

Anyway, I had to get over my anxiety and worry. So, Monday night, I killed the first anxiety. I was gonna go to Lekki with the little money I had left. (Don’t worry, I didn’t starve 😂) Then I murdered the anxiety of the traffic. I’d try to leave earlier than 5. The dinner was for 8pm. I should get to Lekki before then to prepare for it. I decided to tell the Lady I was staying with that I had a birthday dinner to attend and I wouldn’t be coming home Thursday night. She had no problem with it. Just imagine, and I was worrying my pretty head over it.

I hadn’t figured out how to act around the so called rich friends. I’d get to that when the time arrived. Lol.

So, Thursday came, the whole serenre of posting her pictures, (beautiful pictures at that), chatting with her, calling her went by. Then at 4pm she called me to remind me that I had to leave early. I assured her that I would. At 4:30 I went to meet my boss and told him “one small thing” which meant I couldn’t stay till 5, at least 4:45pm I should leave. He wasn’t happy, I persuaded, I cajoled, I pleaded. He finally obliged. I japad with my bag at 4:44pm. Took a bike to mile 2. From mile 2, boarded a bus to CMS. Alighted at Marina, boarded another bus to Lekki/Ajah. Ugh, really exhausting. Someone will ask me, why not book an Uber. SAPA dey hold me wella. 

Anyway, after ‘small small traffic erre and dere', I got to the bus stop Vee told me to alight. In my head, I followed the street she said I’d see first before making a right turn to her street. Omo, na so I waka reach end of street I no see the so called “Alhaji something something” street. I called her to say I was seeing an “Otunba” instead of “Alhaji” o. Her first words were, “Beebee m efuola.” My Beebee has loss. (Lol, she has a very funny name for me. I refuse to go into how it came about). I started laughing and gave the description of where I was. She came out to find me, apparently I entered through the other gate of the estate. This was entirely not my fault. By the time we got to the house where she was staying with another friend of hers (Cee), it was about 7:10pm. Dinner was at 8pm. I had to bathe, dress and touch up my face a little. Vee and Cee were already through with their makeup. Vee was dressed in a black gown and Cee decided on a dress with different colors. Then, both of them chose my outfit, a sweet red gown and we sha left around past 8. Our restaurant people were calling us, saying they close at 10pm. Lori iro. Lol.

We were the first to arrive, Vee, Cee, Cee’s brother and cousin who drove us there. Then more people arrived. Her cousins, her bobo's friend, colleagues and so on. I still felt a little self conscious about how to act, but I swallowed it and just acted like me. I decided to kick away the anxiety.

Which was great. 

One of her cousin’s sat beside me and at some point during the dinner she asked me how much I had had to drink. Lol, I was like why? She said I laughed a lot. I said, “this is all me girl.” I had barely even finished a glass of wine then. It reminded me of something a friend of mine said at my brother’s surprise proposal, “Ebube you never drink but na you hyper pass. Wetin go happen if you dey high?” Lol, the truth is I can get really excited. Same way I can get really down.

The dinner went on well, and as a lover of food that I am, I tried to taste everything on the table. But I get filled up really fast, sad 😂. Anyway, I had little of the rice, waffles, kalamari abi gini, the wine (red and white), ice cream, veggies and fruit salad and water. The cake came much later. I love cakeeeeeee. But I couldn’t  have anything more before my belly exploded (I sha took cake when I left the next morning). The staff of the restaurant sang an amazing song for her. Walahi, we weren’t expecting it. This made Vee very happy.

 We took pictures and made videos to make sure the moment was captured and treasured. We talked about the celebrant who is a very selfless, wonderful and amazing lady. We laughed. We talked about funny moments and touching moments. We shared memories. I gave the first toast. I tried not to cause waterworks to flow. 

There was an exchange of contact between one of the guests and I sha. Hehehehe.

Anyway, we left the restaurant around 11pm. Maybe the staff stayed till then for us. Who knows. We got back to the house and we opened the gifts she had received. (I had given her mine earlier). Then Cee and I took the chocolate her bobo put inside her gift box. Yes, we did. Cee took more though 😒.

Whenever dopamine or maybe other hormones in my body are released, which means I’m excited or exhilarated, it takes a while before I sleep. And sleep I needed cos I had to be up early to get to work. After all said and done, I think I managed to sleep around 1am, but my mind was still very active. I kept seeing images and clips of the night and other moments. Maybe I was dreaming, but it felt like I was awake and not asleep. I anticipated my alarm a lot. I finally got up at some point and checked the time on my phone, wondering why it wasn’t 5am yet. It was 4:15. I managed to sleep back and when the alarm blared, I was angry at the stupid thing. Imagine, someone that was anticipating it before. Reluctantly, I got up, prepared, took my piece of cake and Vee walked me to the bus stop. I told her what her cousin had said to me and she said, “Ehya, Jay no sabi say you dey laugh wella.” We finally got to the bus stop and she hugged me bye and I left her to continue my Lagos Ije. God knows I didn’t want to leave. Fortunately I got to work early.

I liked the experience and I was glad I went for Vee's dinner (she would have killed me sha if I didn’t go, lol).

Again I ask, how are you?

Ok bye!

#Liv.

Dedicated to Chisom Vivian Onyekachi❤️