There sure are a lot of tico birthdays in April and May. So many that I wasn't sure that we'd be able to celebrate Susan's early (May 6) before she left for Canada for 2-3 weeks on April 28. But our tico friends came through.
The night before she left, Susan and I were scheduled to have our (almost) weekly dinner at Chaka's, a restaurant that serves very good and cheap typical Costa Rican food. Our favorites are garlic shrimp or breaded fish with salad and rice.
So we were sitting at our regular table when in marched a bunch of tico friends singing Happy Birthday (Feliz Cumpleaños) in Spanish. She was totally surprised, and I have to admit, I was a little surprised, too.
For two weeks I had been telling our friends that I wanted to have an early birthday and going away party for Susan. Yalile, our ringleader, said there were birthday parties scheduled for every day, and she didn't know when we could fit in Susan's. Yalile herself celebrated her 45th birthday over the four days leading up to Susan's party. Her big party at a local stable, El Picadero, complete with tables with tablecloths, her brother, Alex, playing keyboard and singing, dancing, food and much merriment was a lot of fun.
So it looked like it was just going to be Susan and me at Chaka's on Tuesday night. Until I called Yalile at 4:30 to ask (again) if she wanted to join us. She said that everyone had been asking her if we were going to have the party for Susan. In the space of three hours, she called a dozen of our friends, some of the friends got gifts (or maybe they already had them), one friend bought a cake, and they piled into cars to arrive at Chaka's around 7:30.
Our group took over the place, asking to listen to ranchero music instead of the heavy bass teeny bopper music they were playing, and being our boisterous, fun-loving selves. Susan is very well thought of in this Spanish-speaking community, and her friends turned out to wish her an early 51st birthday and a safe trip to and from Canada.
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