Hope your Labor Day weekend went well. If you asked me, I wasn’t ready to go back to work, but hey, I don’t have much say in the matter right? We’re all gearing towards the new holiday season at 123Greetings. We’ve completely redesigned the 123Greetings site, and there’s a ton of features. Click here to check out our brand new site.

News from the Adrian front folks! He has shifted his focus recently from theater to films. He’s been coming home almost daily with a rented movie tucked under his arm. I didn’t give it a thought for a couple of days, but he’s been staying up till late night watching movies. I could hear the background score flowing in from the living room. One day he barged in all charged up. I was working at the desk. He came straight up and shoved a DVD under my nose.

“Bob, my man!” he yelled, “do you know about this movie?” I looked at the DVD. It had a black and white picture of a Japanese man and a woman. The woman looked distraught, the man looked like a thug and had an aggressive expression. Before I could read the title of the rented DVD, he blurted out, “It’s Rashomon man! Haven’t you heard of it? It’s by one of the greatest director of all times, Akira Kurosawa!” Oh yes, I read about the film somewhere, I thought. It has a unique format, but for the life of me I couldn’t think what it was.

I didn’t have to think long. Adrian tore through my thoughts. “It’s the film that has the unique format of having many versions of one event. ‘Run Lola Run’ is similar to it in format.” Bingo! That was it! Now it struck me. We settled down to watch the rented DVD that night itself. We ordered sushi and had a little in-house Japanese movie fest. I loved the sake. Of course, I liked the movie too. They don’t make movies like that anymore. Something that’s engaging, and entertaining without the big special effects ya know?

Emily and Ethan have been hanging around the office after school. Donna was not able to arrange a baby sitter who can pick them up and stay home with them yet, so she picks them up herself and keeps them in the office until we get off from office. Last week, the brother-sister co-conspirators sneaked into my cubicle. “Bob, we have a mission for you if you choose to accept,” said Ethan. I was amused and surprised by their seriousness about the matter. “Well, what do you have in mind Ethan?” I said, trying not to laugh and make a mockery of them. “Mom’s birthday is coming up and we wanted to plan a surprise birthday for her but we can’t do that without someone’s help,” said Emily. How could I say no to them?

We had a huddle in my cubicle. I was to help them get party supplies and the birthday cake. We were working with a very small budget–the kids wanted to use their allowance savings to organize the party. So I said, “Hang on guys, do you mind if I ask my friends to help out?” They were ok with it, so I recruited Megan for the birthday cake. Megan was delighted that I finally trust her cooking enough to assign a task. I told Emily and Ethan that we only need to get other stuff like veggies, chips, soda, and other ‘grown up’ drinks, which I got Rick and Kaitlin to do. The twins also wanted to decorate the apartment so I told them that I’ll go and buy the party favors. It was Steve’s job to stall Donna so that she’s stuck in the office while we sneak out and go decorate the apartment. Steve and his interns started brainstorming ideas on how to stall Donna in her corner office.

So the “brotherhood of the birthday party” set out to work on the surprise birthday treat. I’ve baby sat for Donna so I know the secret place where she keeps the keys, so entering to decorate the apartment was not a problem. Donna’s birthday was yesterday. It was perfect team work between the twins, Steve, the office interns, and the rest of my friends. Donna was really surprised too. She didn’t really want a party and was going about the day as if it was any other day. None of our colleagues wished her during the day because we didn’t want her to know that we knew what day it was. So she suspected nothing and expected nothing.

Kaitlin and Rick got the drinks and snacks, Megan came with a chocolate birthday cake (it tasted delicious) and Steve successfully stalled her with his geeky jargons–telling her about new viruses and new technologies that we should be implementing in the office etc. Most of it was heavily borrowed from Quantum Leap, Star Trek, etc. of course! When Steve’s team sensed the frustration in Donna they decided to let her go home. The team followed her out of the office and messaged, “The eagle is out,” to my cell phone. We switched off all the lights and waited for Donna’s arrival. When the twins and Donna walked into the door, we shouted a big, “SURPRISE!” and started singing the Happy Birthday song. Donna’s face was really bright red. She was surprised, happy, and thrilled. “Bob, this is not fair,” she later told me with her Gin and Tonic in hand, “nobody celebrates their birthday at my age. Besides, I didn’t think anyone would know.” So I told her that the fact was, nobody really knew, but the twins decided to organize it anyway. The credit goes to them. Donna started smiling and crying at the same time and she said, “Ya know Bob, they’re really good kids. Sometimes it’s tough when you’re going through the day-to-day stuff as a single mom,” Donna said, wiping her tears. I gave her a tight hug and said, “Well, I don’t know what being a single mom is like but I know that you have great kids, and you’re a great mom.” Finally I got her to smile. I don’t really know what to do when people cry in front of me.

Talk about having great kids, did you know that Fred’s a grandpa? I just found that out too! He disappeared from the scene for a while and we thought he was just at the Democratic National Convention or something but it turned out, he went back to Chicago to see his grand kids. Yes, it’s plural folks. He walked into the bar and I asked him, “Hey Fred, how’s it going? Where have you been hiding all this time?” “I went back to Chicago to see my newest grand kid,” said Fred. “What? You’re a granddad?!” I almost shouted in surprise. “Ya Bob, I married when I was really young and I have a daughter. She has kids now, a girl and a boy.” There’s so much of Fred that I don’t know about. He continued to tell me about his life in Chicago and why he went there. His daughter just gave birth to the newest family member and Fred went to meet him. He dropped all his plans for the Democratic National Convention because the baby was born premature. But now everything is ok, both the baby and the mom are back home now.

I offered Fred a drink at the bar and he told me that he did not have a drink for over ten years. That also reminds me of my friend Jason on MySpace, who was generous enough to share his story of sobriety with me, and also allow me to publish it on my newsletter. Here goes:

“One day I woke up in the middle of a dirt road in my truck. The truck was still running and I didn’t know where I was or where I had been. I drove around for about an hour before I figured out where I was, but I couldn’t remember how I had got there or where I was going. The last thing I remembered was being at a friend’s house for a party, but the way home was in the other direction. I ended up two counties over in another state. I had no idea how I got there. My so-called friends at the party said that I had just got up and said that I was going home. I thought to myself, man I could have killed someone or killed myself. I knew then that I had to quit drinking.

But that was easier said than done. I never knew how hard it would be. I never could hold a job for very long because I was short tempered and the littlest things would piss me off and I was gone. But I did find a way to make money though, I would fight for it, and I was good at it, for a little while. I found out that the alcohol kept me going. I didn’t know I was getting hurt so I kept fighting. I’ve fought with broken fingers, broken hands, a broken collar bone, a fractured skull, broken ribs, broken toe, and I have even been stabbed three times. I never knew that I was hurt until the next day. I was hard to put down–drunk. Before a fight I would get nervous so I would drink a lot to stay calm. Sometimes I drank so much that I didn’t remember the fight. After I quit drinking I fought three more times, and lost all three. Getting hit hurts! So, I quit fighting as well.

When I was drinking I didn’t want to be around my wife and kids, so I stayed gone a lot. I don’t know why she never left me, but I’m thankful that she never gave up on me. Without her support I never could have stopped. For me to quit drinking my life had to change completely. I had to remove myself from friends, certain members of my family, and situations where I would always drink. It was so hard for me to quit, I figured that the only way was to remove all temptation. I don’t have many friends now, but now I know who my true friends are. I know who in my family truly cares about me. It was a big wake up call for me.

On my way to being sober, I checked myself into rehab on a voluntary trial period. Detox was hell, but I’m glad that I did it. I recommend that anyone who wants to quit drinking to go to a rehab center. If you think that you’ve heard some bad stories in AA meetings, just listen to these people’s life stories. If that don’t make you want to quit I don’t know what will. Not wanting to end up like some of those people I met did it for me. I was very thankful for all I still had in my life. I still had a wife and three kids, and a home to go to. A lot of these guys lost everything they loved. They let it all slip away and let the alcohol control their lives.

Now I spend a lot of time at home with my wife and kids. I write a lot of songs and sing every chance I get. I try to keep my mind occupied with music when I’m alone. I still have the urge to drink now and then, but I think of all the things that I love and how I could lose them all if I gave in. Good luck and I hope my story helps someone. Take it slow, Jason Ace”

Thanks so much Jason for sharing your story with us. And folks, if you want to ‘meet Jason, you can check out his profile on MySpace. Since Jason is into music and it helps him a lot, I’m going to share this week Zen quote from one of my favorite musicians: Bob Dylan. Dylan said, “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” That’s what you do when you want to meet your goals, you take it one day at a time.