It's April 19 again

I'm not a big fan of surprises. I'm one of those people who can't stand to watch people blow up balloons, crank up jack-in-the-boxes, or count hanging chads in Florida elections. You know it's going to be loud, obnoxious and ugly when it happens -- you just don't know when.

I read the last chapter of mystery novel first because I'm scared something will happen to me before I finish the book and I'll die, never knowing who dunnit.

All too often, even those surprises that are well intended will backfire. Like the time an old college boyfriend I hadn't heard from in two years surprised me by driving 300 miles to see me -- the day before my wedding.

Then there are the surprises that aren't. I woke up one morning to find a pretty little Tennessee walking horse staked out in my back yard. Whoo-hoo, my hubby surprised me with a horse!

Or not ...

He came into the kitchen behind me and I prepared to throw my arms around him for the greatest good morning kiss a man ever got, when he opened his foolish mouth.

"What is that thing and what did it just dump in my iris bed?"

Oh, well. If anything good came out of the whole thing, it was watching the mare's real rider stagger back from the bar he'd passed out in front of and spend 15 minutes trying to get back on the horse. It's not like the time when, on Valentines Day, a florist brought a dozen red roses to my front door, only to find out they were intended for 209 North Polk, not South Polk. For some reason, the ubiquitous azalea my husband arrived with hours later didn't have its usual appeal.

Today is April 19, which has been, in history, a day for grim surprises, from the Branch Davidian stand-off's grisly ending in Waco, Texas, and the Oklahoma City bombing to the death of my father. Just scanning a day-in-history page, I saw one ugly surprise after another. It was the date Charles Manson was sentenced to life. It was the date a gun turret exploded on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.

No, I'm not a big fan of surprises.

There are, however, some surprises that are priceless forever, like my third son. While none of our three were precisely "planned," at least two of them were seriously considered. Buzz, well ... let's just say he's the nicest surprise we ever got and he continues to surprise us daily.

I got another nice surprise Easter Sunday. We'd gone to visit some friends for an Easter egg hunt and lunch and to spend our day sitting in the sunshine. Or, in my case, snoring in the sunshine. When we got back home, we were tired and not really ready to face laundry, a sink full of dirty dishes, a basketful of malted milk ball Easter eggs, and the fact that we all had to go back to work or school the next day.

OK, I lied. I'm always ready to face more malted milk ball Easter eggs.

But we were a little grumpy and out of sorts and the only thing I had to look forward to was watching the conclusion of "Little Doritt" on Masterpiece Theatre, which isn't even one of my favorite Dickens tales. (Why are his villains always so much more fun to read than his heroes and heroines?)

"Hey, Mom."

Wait -- who was the stranger lounging in my door, needing a haircut and sporting a gawdawful nose ring? Could it be Scott? The prodigal son?

Surprise!

Originally, he wasn't going to come down for the day because he had to work Easter morning. But he got a little restless and he and the girlfriend loaded up the car (MY car) and decided to surprise the old folks back home. And they didn't even bring dirty laundry or overdue bills. Wow.

We had a great visit, playing Apples to Apples and cutting up and swapping insults. The next morning, I got up and fixed him breakfast (while my hubby, the official Breakfast Fixer in the family who had just fixed me breakfast) gaped in disbelief. I kept waiting for something bad to happen, some bad news to worm its way into the bright shiny apple of my surprise. It finally occurred to me -- if you go looking for bad things, you're going to find them.

I went back and looked at April 19 again.

It's the date Captain Cook first spotted Australia, for which I and all other Hugh Jackman fans profoundly thank him. It's the day the first Boston marathon was run. And the second, and the third, and the fourth ...

April 19 was the date Joan of Arc was declared a saint, and Connecticut finally got around to approving the Bill of Rights -- 148 years late (A-yuh, don't be seein' the need to rush into these things, a-yuh). There were all kinds of actors and composers and artists born on this date, and while we can never forget the horrors that did fall on April 19 -- the 148 dead in Oklahoma City, the 47 sailors, the FBI agents and Branch Davidians who died in Waco -- it's a date that has held some nice surprises as well.