I just received one of the best material birthday gifts I've EVER gotten. This friend of mine, Candice, who I just started reconnecting with last summer, after almost ten years...is one of the sharpest, most thoughtful people I think I've ever known. It wasn't anything expensive or extravagant. It was a used Rurouni Kenshin series disc. BUT. It has the episodes with my most favorite part of the series ever - Kenshin and Shishio's final duel, Saito and Aoshi's intervention, and the aftermath episode which shows Shishio, Hoji and Yumi reuniting in hell, in kind of a bittersweet touching moment.
Here's the thing. I nerdgasmed to Candice over my love of this series, yes. But that was almost a YEAR ago, and she's never seen nor had she heard of Rurouni Kenshin. My nerdgasming spanned maybe one e-mail and one voice file. I never specifically told her what my favorite episodes were, but I spent alot more time talking about the Shishio arc than the rest of the series, so she must have figured out that was my favorite story within it. Which means she actually spent the time looking over episode and arc summaries from the series online, then zeroed in on what had to have appeared to be the climax of what she deduced to be my favorite portion of the entire series. She SLEUTHED her way to getting me something she knew I'd love. Something I hadn't even mentioned to her for almost a year. I'm just...incredulous.
This is going right up there with the few moments in the last decade that have genuinely made me think of my birthday as not just another day, along with other moments such as Kate moving here on my birthday, and Chelsie sending me The Only Card to Ever Make Me Cry.