Sick

It started Saturday afternoon. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something wasn't right. Kind of a dull, queasy feeling.

We had a party to go to Saturday night, and as of 9:30 am that morning we didn't have a costume. We've talked about going as Gomez and Morticia for years now, but haven't done it. Likewise Elvis and Priscilla. So, like I was saying, the day of the party arrived without us having any idea of what to go as. For a while we looked toward a helpful post from Grant Miller Media and considered going as victims of the new depression, with sandwich boards and a cup full of pencils for sale.

I found a list of last-minute costume ideas, and one of them was mummy. It involved buying a set of neutral long underwear and a bunch of bandages, then soaking the bandages in tea or coffee to stain them. MizBubs, girl genius, saw this and promptly announced that if I went as a mummy, she'd go as the archaeologist who dug me up. She also mentioned that it would be easier and cheaper to buy gauze and some burlap at a fabric store. Off we went, and by 1pm we had all our stuff. It ended up like this:

The party was a blast, but I felt worse and worse. I took some pleasure in the fact that, when I stood very still against a wall, or sat down in the room where the beer cooler was, and someone walked in, they'd get startled when I moved. I got mistaken for a decoration a few times. It would've been more fun if there had been small children to scare.

MizBubs had to drive me home, and by the time I unraveled myself I was spent. The effort of cutting myself out of my costume left me with a fierce headache. I hit the pillow by 11:30 and was out.

Good times

Hey, where'd everybody go?

I miss em, the crazy bastards.

_____________________

The party Saturday was a blast. We had a great time, and I can't say enough to thank everyone for showing up and having a good time with us. It made us very happy to see all of you. Our guests are an extremely generous bunch. We ended this party with possibly more booze than we started with, we've got new tiki accessories and a vintage album by cocktail comedian Woody Woodbury titled "Booze is the Only Answer." Beautiful cheesehead pastry chefs showed up bearing sweets. People brought desserts and more desserts, and more wine. To those of you who couldn't be here, well, hopefully next time?

I think, counting kids and teenagers, there were about 60 or 65 people in and out. We managed to have enough food, enough ice, more than enough beer and sangria (anyone want to stop by for a drink or three?) and everyone seemed to get along fine. It's always fun to introduce people who've never met and then see them talking away later on. We had bakers, writers, cops, artists, entrepreneurs, sign language interpreters, engineers, internet musical geniuses, social workers, unofficial mayors of Chicago, IT professionals, HR marketing professionals, stay home dads, stay home moms, sophisticated European businessmen and mysterious beautiful women who asked not to be identified on this page in order to protect their privacy.

Here's the thing about parties. You do all this work, you get ready, make lists, clean, cook, all that stuff. You set up places to eat and drink, you arrange chairs in a way that you hope will encourage people to socialize. You worry about how you're going to deal with all the garbage when your cans are already half full from housecleaning, and all the food packaging you got rid of. You wonder if anyone will show up, because this might be the time that people realize they're just tired of your bullshit.

Then the party starts, and at some point--Saturday it was about an hour in--the number of guests hits a critical mass and the party starts. And, quickly after that, you lose control and the party becomes almost a living thing on its own. The chairs you set out get moved around, people end up hanging out in places you didn't think they would, your guests start to find their way around your place as they get comfortable and things just seem to run themselves. I love that ride.

So...it turns out that there's always enough food, and if it all gets eaten that just means people liked it. You can always find a good-humored kid who'll take a buck or two to climb into your garbage and recycling cans wearing a pair of your daughter's rain boots and jump up and down, compressing your trash into more manageable piles. When that one defective firework misfires and nearly hits a young girl in the head, setting her hair ablaze, her father doesn't punch you in the face and she actually turns out to have been excited about the whole experience. Lord, I hope so anyway.

See you later, alligators.

Farewell to the fourth

Man oh man.

Throw a party, put out some free booze and there's no telling who might show up.

I need a party

Something with some strong booze, and some stimulating conversation. Well, the conversation should at least start out stimulating. How it ends up, I don't really care. This time last year we were planning a tiki poker night; this year we just can't get it together to throw a good party.

I'm thinking of organizing an outing to some local gin mill for an evening of hanging around, some place that isn't home. Drinking at home when it's -5 outside just seems insular and desperate.