Un-birthday

I guess the "cat is out of the bag" and that's because I had to tell him. Not that this story is comparable to our pandemically worrisome situation currently, in fact, it's not even to an extent tantamount to that, but please forgive this rant as I express my disappointment to what I previously had to do.

You see I have, for the longest time, been planning to have a surprise party for my husband's milestone birthday. He's not particularly fond of these kinds of things so my sisters and I planned for it to be a surprise. I had invitations made, the venue booked, the caterer, photo booth and DJ commissioned, tablecloths and napkins ordered, centerpieces bought, so pretty much everything's been arranged and organized.

We left for vacation and have asked my sisters to be in charge of the communication to the invitees.

We were in New York when I was told that some of the invitations had been sent out.

While on a day tour to Washington, DC, we heard of the first CoVid 19 case in the US. We didn't think anything of it and left New York for the Bahamas. We took an Uber to the airport and while at the Bahamas, we've learned that an Uber driver in New York tested positive for CoVid 19 and that they've declared New York in a state of emergency. That was just after we left !

There were three cruise ships docked in the waters by Atlantis in Nassau in the Bahamas, so when we took the water taxi to sightsee in downtown Nassau, we were already a bit wary because of the CoVid 19 outbreak news in cruise ships. We bought souvenirs and head back to our hotel. The water taxi guy was telling us not to worry about the corona virus as its not going to spread there; that if there's a person with the virus in their community, they would just bathe that person in bleach ! That seemed to helped and we didn't think anymore of CoVid 19 in the duration of our stay there.

In the meantime, I had been in constant communication with my sisters and the caterer on the status of the preparation for the birthday.

The third leg of our trip is Las Vegas. When we arrived at the Las Vegas airport, the CoVid 19 situation from the media was starting to become worrisome, what with hearing about the entire country of Italy being on lock down, and the stats on people affected by the virus increasing by the minute.

After two days of sightseeing in Vegas, we were so glad and relieved we got home before our government issue a directive to cancel all flights were put in effect.

I was still hoping to push through with the party BUT concerns about the spread of the virus was escalating, with lots of people contracting it and with the stats rising everyday, news of celebrities getting infected, companies coming up with contingency plans for shutdown, schools cancelling in-class sessions, flight cancellations, directives to cancel mass gatherings, stressing the importance of social distancing, people panic buying, etc., I decided, with a heavy heart, to cancel my husband's milestone birthday party celebration.

I was really excited. For him.

This was my first time planning a party this big.

But I guess safety should come first.

I am thankful to all my friends for understanding. I received a lot of messages, from "it is good, prudence is good", to "you are very wise to err on the side of caution with the virus", to "we understand that it's better to be safe than sorry", to "give your husband our best wishes for his milestone birthday", and a lot more.

I was disappointed but was relieved that I did not become the reason for somebody contracting the CoVid 19 virus, erring on the side of caution.

I can only hope for the minimization of spread and pray for the total eradication of this CoVid 19.

While waiting for this ordeal to be over, let's continually look out and take care of each other.

Lots of love to you.