What do you do if

the best friend you want to share everything with IS the same friend you are throwing a surprise birthday party for? I have been DYING to share this with my best friend. I'll blog about it instead.

J turns 40 tomorrow, April 11th. I have planned a surprise party for him with a few close friends. Nothing too elaborate - just how he'd like it (I hope!) - 5 close friends and their families, all his favorite food, a few decorations, a cake and a lot of fun and laughter. Oh, and I am gifting him a "flight experience" - half an hour in a private plane. The pilot might even agree to fly the plane over our house (says so on their website :P) By the time this post gets published, we will be in the thick of it - the party, I mean.

To get him out of the house, so I can prepare for the party, I am gifting him two movie tickets to "Fast and Furious". I have enlisted help from a friend of his who will pick him up, take him to the movies and then for happy hour in a nearby bar and then bring him home when everyone has arrived. There the surprise will register and end pretty quickly because he is bound to figure everything out when he sees all those cars in our driveway. But it should be an interesting moment :)

The menu comprises of dishes he likes. Falafel, chholey tikiya, papdi chaat, dahi bade, daal kachori, matar (peas) samosas, shrikhand and baklava. Falalfel and baklava have been ordered from a restaurant he likes them from. Everything else will be made by yours truly. Well, except the cake. That responsibility has been handed over to another good friend who will order it from a bakery in NJ. A very haphazard menu but I hope he'll like it. I asked him what his favorite chaat items are and he thinks I am going to make them for him on his birthday for LUNCH! I have asked him to take us out for dinner :D I hope he doesn't know about the surprise and isn't just playing me along.

Well, I'll post an update on how it all goes. Till then, wish me luck!!

Update: It is 12.38 AM on April 11th. I have already gifted him the movie tickets and told him this is so he can get 2 hours without the three bhootnis who constantly badger him in this house :D I have told him that I am preparing so much food because I want to make his favorite food items ALL WEEK LONG. I don't know if he bought it. He did laugh and say "I'll see if it goes beyond 2 days" (That's because I am "famous" for changing the weekly menu umpteen times at the drop of a hat..... Well many hats)