A tender moment

Today is one of my friends' bday.

Usually, I wouldn't call a person my friend this fast. Honestly I still don't know this person that well, however he is just such a down to earth genuine guy, I have had good times hanging out with him for the short half year I have known him.

He is moving back to Shanghai in China working for an American architect company in their marketing department. Of course partially is through his ironclad Chinese government connection from his dad. But I think in his case, he deserves this great chance.

My best friend made reservation for 8 of us in Villa Sorriso in Pasadena. I had to arrive early to sign a very sweet homemade picture montage card. It had pictures taken from our surfing trips down at Malibu beach and gambling trips in Las Vegas. We also all chipped in and bought him a 600 dollars LV wallet. I was the last person to sign so the 2 foot tall card has already been filled. Also, what is so sweet is that we had all our cartoon avatars sticked to our well wishes and those cartoon avatars were illustrated by none other than our birthday boy. He sketched them with a fine sharpy on envelope paper when we were stuck in traffic on the way home from Vegas. He saw the card and said "I Shall Keep It till the Day I Die!" lol so dorky. He is definitely straight and usually wears basketball gears. But today he was wearing a nice pair of jeans, a black v-neck tshirt and pair of converse. Shorter haircut. Very crisp image and such a huge contrast. He is turning 27 and yet he always has that 18 year old smile. He is 6'3" and still acts like a big child, much like me in that sense lol. I have to say he looked pretty charming tonight.

We had great food, and wine was flowing on the dinner table. Nice conversations ensued. It was about a lot of things and yet about nothing. It wasn't some great epiphany over life or some sad farewell party. We were talking about our extremely amateur surfing techniques, about the strayed dog we rescued and how she was shaved because of entangled fur, about bitchy people we ran into during the day, about how expensive is to live in China nowadays, about how boring work is and why everyone works at places they hate yet they never move around, about which free iphone app is the most addictive and how pathetic we are talking about which iphone free app is most addictive. 4 hours passed by quickly.

I was just thinking, there we had 6 guys and 2 girls. The guys are all over 25 and one 31. If it were only the guys, most likely it'd be just dinner then drinking. Fun for sure, memorable? maybe not. it is not like they aren't partying or clubbing on a weekly basis anyways. But with the thoughtful younger girls, with a move that is a bit cheesy but definitely touching, we have a montage card that recorded memories that emerged in this very particular time of our lives. I don't know. I just felt that something special was captured. I guess I can understand how crazy yet precious that my best friend is taking hundreds of pictures of us every month and post them on facebook chronically. Ok I guess it is probably crazier than precious but precious nevertheless.

It was a great time. But it made all of us think, what would happen in 5 years, how many of us would still hang out like this, 2, 3 times a week. Are we getting old together? When life happens and we might stop talking to each other. Kinda bitter sweet.