My secret cafe date.

Hello there friends. I promise to add entries in the near future that are relevant to the actual cafe business, because I know that's what everyone really wants to hear about. But for now, as long as life keeps supplying me with curious little anecdotes to share, I will share them with you and you will love them!
I was taken on a trip by one of my co-workers yesterday. Her name is Diana, and the trip was a special surprise birthday present to me. No matter that my birthday is in August. I think she'd wanted to take me out on my actual birthday, but we were both too busy and then we stayed busy through the fall semester and there just never was time to do anything. The extra few months, however, gave Diana time to build the birthday excursion up in her head as something far greater and more important than a quick beer after work.
Diana is, how can I explain this, fucking crazy. She is obsessive-compulsive, hyperactive, over dramatic about everything, a non-stop talker who has one of those grating external monologues going at all times so that all those around her know exactly what she's doing or thinking or thinking about doing. Can you imagine someone like this? You probably know someone like this, who is good natured and all that but as soon as she enters a room, its energy changes. Diana brings with her this high stress level to the most calm settings, and shifts at work are often mush harder on my soul if I'm working with her. I've tried to instill some of my "just let it mellow, man" attitude in her, but to no avail. She is simply ON at all times.
So for the past four or five months, she's been secretly plotting a surprise getaway for the two of us. And of course, because it's her, I've received a play-by-play commentary from her as she's made the plans, changed them, made new plans, cancelled, etc. I believe that she was trying to heighten my anticipation by keeping me updated constantly on how the plans were turning out, while never letting the actual surprise leak into my realm of knowledge. She could have interpreted my blase attitude towards the whole thing as me not being too invested, but no, that would require a grasp on reality that Diana simply lacks.
Privately, I was curious what she could possibly be so excited about doing together, but never did I let on to this. Privately, though, I just asked another co-worker where she was taking me since she's been talking about it to everyone for months. I didn't tell her this either.
Unfortunately for us both, yesterday was the coldest we've had this winter, and our trip brought us to the mountainous terrain upstate, to a sanctuary for wolves and bobcats and foxes.
Along with the two other visitors to the preserve that day, a bitter mom and her 8 year-old son with severe ADHD, we stood shivering for more than an hour while the director's delivered their educational talk while trembling themselves.
Wolves are sexy animals. They sort of slink around, like they're always stalking prey. They don't look trustworthy. The big white fluffy ones were my favorite.
The woman who introduced us to the preserve's three foxes had no gloves on. The foxes behaved more or less like naughty puppies, balancing on their hind legs and pawing at the woman to give them more dog treats. The evil foxes kept biting her fingers and drawing blood, but she wouldn't notice due to her beginning-stage frostbite, and this eventually brought her to a state of visible discomfort. Our session came to a close.
The most rewarding part occurred on our walk back to the tour van, when we got to howl at the wolves and get them so upset that the whole lot of them started howling back, defending the territory they feared was being invaded by a rival pack.
Why would Diana be so determined to give me a good birthday present that she would spend months Googling various activities around the state until she found the perfect one? Mind you, we'd never even hung out together before yesterday.
Diana frequently tells me that she wishes I was her younger sister, that I'm her favorite person, that I'm so funny and special. But she denies wanting to get it on with me. I went ahead and asked, just out of curiosity. What? What's wrong with that?