Of birthdays, baby showers, despedidas, and cupcakes

My college friend Jed and his wife Odette invited me and the rest of our college gang to dinner for a triple celebration. The evening served both as Odette's advanced birthday celebration and also her baby shower. The third part of the celebration was a despedida since both of them were actually traveling to the US the day after.

The thing is, I didn't know about the despedida part. Since I didn't have time to get a baby shower gift, I thought I would get Odette a box of Royal Touch cupcakes for her birthday instead. When I found out over dinner that they were leaving the next day, I felt like a bit of a dunce for getting perishable food items that they would not have time to consume before their trip. So I told Jed that I got them cupcakes and I even reminded him via text after I had gone home to make sure that they wouldn't go to waste. The next day, I got a text from Jed saying he and Odette thought the cupcakes were really good and they asked me where I bought them. Cool! It seems they enjoyed my gift. So what I thought was a wrong move turned out okay in the end. :)

The dinner was really good and the evening was made even more fun by a mini-program that included a series of baby shower games that we played. I was also really pleased to hang out with the gang since I missed our last get-together because it coincided with a friend's wedding.

*****

A few days later, I ended up having dinner with some of my ex-colleagues. It was supposed to be a baby shower as well for our friend Dorothy but a last minute conflict came up so she and her husband Alvin weren't able to join us. Since we had all cleared out our evening already, we decided to proceed with dinner in Mesclun. I hadn't eaten there before and I thought the food was good although my truffle pasta was a bit overpriced for the portion size (I got the larger to-share option but it really felt like it was just a serving for one). As it turns out, two of our friends were going on international assignment so it was sort of an unofficial despedida for them too. We did plan when the official farewell party would be. Can't say I'm too happy about it given the fact that so many of our friends had already left the country for work abroad but that's the way life goes.