Wanted: personal assistant with strong calendar skills

Is it me? It might be me. How can I screw up two parties in two weeks?

Last Saturday, Robert and I went to a birthday party for our friend, Theral, at his house in the Santa Cruz mountains. We had it all planned out: (1) training run at the Stanford dish, (2) lunch on campus, (3) drive to San Francisco to see an Asian Filmfest movie at 3:30, (4) get to Theral's birthday in plenty of time. So, we show up at the party at about 6:30, right when it was to start. Or so we thought. When we walked around the back, we saw they were already cutting the birthday cake. Only a few cold hamburgers were left lying on a paper plate. We ended up having a great time, but after I checked my e-mail, I realized the party had started at 3 p.m. No excuse. The e-mail was crystal clear. Showing up 3 1/2 hours late is a level of tardiness that is hardly a fashion statement.

Fast forward to yesterday. Big plans: (1) training run at the Stanford dish (2) lunch at Stanford Shopping Center (3) see the same movie we planned to see the week before but had got stuck in traffic and (4) go to my friend Lynda's retirement party at 7 p.m. at the Drying Shed.

I still don't really know what happened. I realized when we got in the car that we were going to be an hour late because my Blackberry chose not join the rest of us with the early Daylight Savings Time. But an hour is still fashionable, arguably. We got to the restaurant (where I've been before) and walked in the banquet room. Whew! They hadn't started eating yet. People were still milling around, getting drinks from the bar.

I swiftly placed our gift on the gift table with dozens of other packages and cards. We thought we lucked out. We were even pleased to find we'd dressed appropriately. We'd both stressed out whether we should go really casual or get dressed up for Lynda. As I was scanning the dress of the crowd, I suddenly realized I couldn't find even one person I recognized. Lynda knows a lot of people, but this was really odd.

I beelined it back to the gift table. A big yellow bag had the words "Happy Birthday" printed all over it. An envelope sat in front of it with "Debbie" written on it. I grabbed Robert and jammed out the door. Perhaps we're just in the wrong banquet room. We check with a hostess at the front. No, no retirement party for Lynda, just a birthday party for Debbie.

As delightful as Debbie's friends seemed to be, we opted to leave. Our hunch was that the party was moved to a larger venue and somehow I didn't get the message. We could have traipsed across town looking in the ballrooms at the Hilton, the Hyatt or the Marriott, but we're too kind to the planet to be spewing greenhouse gasses on a wild goose chase. We ended up eating mediocre Filipino food at Chow King in our slacks and sports coats.

I still haven't figured out what happened. I found the invitation and I was right about time, date and place (except for the DST snafu).

If you invite us to anything in the future, please plan on giving us a reminder call. We're a mess.