I DID, however, find something to complete last week! And it's actually a pretty good story.
#36 buy board game (and play it)
It was my one-year anniversary last Saturday with Brian. I know, cute. It's actually my first anniversary with anyone ever-- I've never been so good at long-term commitment until recently. Not because I'm the kind of person that likes to "get around" or anything: I think it just took me a while to feel comfortable looking for someone that I would potentially, maybe, possibly want to be with for a while. But one year down-- totally handled it. :) Brian is awesome, so that made it easy.
Because it was my first, I had a hard time figuring out what to expect. Brian made it even harder for me, of course, by keeping his whole plan a secret, even when I asked him for an IDEA of what it MIGHT be. He just said "don't make plans." Very helpful.. So I spent a few weeks trying to figure out what to do for him and asked several people, who gave me a spectrum of suggestions (none of which I followed, naturally.)
I'm usually pretty good at giving gifts. I even made my brother cry tears of joy once when he was in middle school (he might kill me for saying that, which is why I won't say WHICH brother.) ;) After a year of dating Brian, however, I had already determined he was impossible to buy things for. First, he is incredibly focused, so his life usually revolves around one thing at a time. So I have the option of getting him that one thing and being incredibly obvious, or buying him something else and running a huge risk of him not being interested. And he doesn't sugar coat it either. He's not mean, he's just not good at hiding his disinterest. Neither of which are appealing to me as a gift-giver. I wanted to think of something that he would be excited about but not figure out.
And then it came to me! He plays board games regularly and just a few weeks ago he had been ranting and raving over this new game that his friend had bought that he knew "I would love." I didn't want to get him something he was already obsessed with, but I could see this becoming a NEW obsession. And I was going to buy it for him and be the BEGINNING of a new obsession. (And of course I could cross it off my bucket list.) It was perfect.
So the plan was to ask one of his friends for the name of it, run to the Mall of America a day or two before our anniversary, and hide it in my car. Fool proof.
Wednesday, I invited my cousin and her husband over for dinner. Here is the email I got from Brian that morning:
"I haven't really spent any of my money for my bonus yet, other than thinking of doing things for anniversary, but I am considering the possibility of buying that Catan-like game I keep playing with my friends. Would you want to learn and play that game tonight with your cousin and husband if I pick it up?! I bet you'd all really enjoy it."@#$%
I plotted my excuses, came up with a couple and emailed him back.
"What was the name of the game again? Honestly, I would love to play that game, but we should probably do something else since Michelle has only met you twice and we were fighting because we were playing Settlers one of those times. It would probably be better to do that later with just about anyone else."Basically, we're competitive. We want to make a good first impression. It didn't work. In fact, we emailed back and forth (I counted SIX emails from him), with me coming up with new excuses like "I need you to come over RIGHT away so you can help me with dinner," all of which he countered. He REALLY wanted that game RIGHT away. See? Focused. And stubborn, I should add. I finally won this battle when I literally had to beg him not to go. But it was Wednesday and our anniversary was Saturday. Maybe I could hold him off Wednesday, but what were my excuses going to be on Thursday and Friday? How fun is it to have him come over saying "Look what I got?" only for me to say "Surprise... you have to return it..."?
By Thursday afternoon, I was feeling defeat. I figured my only hope was to give him an idea that MAYBE I got it for him, so that he would wait to buy it until after our anniversary. And of course, he figured it out. But unlike a normal person who would keep it to himself until after our anniversary, he called me the second he pieced it together. He said it was because he wanted to be able to say "I told you so," since he figured it out, but really I think it was because he wanted to play it right away.
Oh, I should probably say what it's called. Power Grid. It's kind of a business-y, economics-ish game, where you build power plants and expand your business, while resources grow more and less scarce and expensive. That's why he thought I would like it. And I did.
We played it Friday night with a few of his friends. His friend beat him by $1... which is pretty ridiculous. I lost, of course (but it was my first time...) :)
So success or unsuccess? I'm not sure. He figured it out, yes. But obviously he LOVED it. However, if success is relative, I was incredibly unsuccessful. Our anniversary was a hugely elaborate day filled with things that I love. Brian spent 6x as much as I did. And the entire thing was a complete surprise. But we were both happy. And we kind of like each other, on top of it. So, as a whole, I think it was a pretty good anniversary. :)
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