If you want a social life when you have a baby, you gotta bring the party to you. And so even though Adoring and Wonderful Husband claimed he didn’t want to be feted for his 30th birthday, I eventually caught him at a weak moment, and hastily sent out a “save the date” email the second he uttered “I suppose so...I guess.” I repeat: hastily. As in: an invitation without the address on it, requiring a clarification email the day before the event. As in: an invitation with an hombre on it acquired from Google images that committed me to too much tequila and too little sleep on the designated night. No problem? No, not just no problem. No problemo.
Especially since as the weeks wore on Adoring and Wonderful Husband did half the preparation himself, picking out the piñata and suffering through the sombrero shopping. And especially since not only did K. practically come up with the menu herself, she cooked nearly the entire spread as well. (Babies are the best excuse ever. Don’t want to talk to a telemarketer? “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t speak right now. My baby’s crying.” Don’t want to help your transient 20-something friends move every four months? “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t prove my love for you by climbing up and down three flights of stairs 27 times on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon. Gotta watch the Babe!” Don’t want to take responsibility for preparing for the party that you yourself insisted on throwing? “Which would you prefer K.? Cupcake duty or rotten, runny, mustard-seed filled poopy diapers? That’s what I thought.”)
But the impending fiesta wasn’t good enough. D. and C. insisted on a morning kidnapping, followed by a round of golf and (I’m sure) more than a few rounds of beer as well. The nabbing came off without a hitch, with Adoring and Wonderful Husband merely protesting: “What’s going on here? Whose toque is this?” The birthday boy had no problem leaving me to attend to the final few details without him, especially once he knew K. and B. were kindly coming over to make sure I didn’t burn the kitchen down in his absence or accidentally drop the baby into the sangria mix.
24 cucumber shots and 48 cupcakes later, I was ready for anything. Even the illegal fireworks that Adoring and Wonderful Husband crossed the bridge to buy and insisted on setting off in our backyard. Even the Gordonator’s unfortunate puking incident after eating $20 worth of piñata candy grown adults apparently aren’t that interested in (especially when it comes to the options of searching for said bonbons in the dark for 15 minutes – with the distinct possibly of discovering puppy poop instead - or just going back up onto the deck and readily finding a Corona in the cooler. The choice is a clear one, especially if you have an MPA from Queen’s). Even a Babe who cried a little more than usual before going down for the night, because “Mommy! I KNOW there’s a party going on! And I don’t want to miss it!” Even an increasingly drunker crowd despite my increasingly sober and tired self, fully aware that babies? They don’t sleep in, not so much.
Despite the changing themes, one thing is a constant when Adorable and Wonderful Husband and I decide to throw a par-tae: we never fail to wake up the next day resolving “never again!” And ever since the Babe has come along, we sometimes think we’ll actually follow through on the chaste existence we tell ourselves we’d be better off living. It’s cheaper, cleaner, and we wouldn’t be left with 36 cupcakes to eat for breakfast or give away to our crazy neighbours. And we certainly wouldn’t be forced to break it to C., that – yes – there actually IS an etiquette involved in piñata beating, and it doesn’t involve being the second guy to wield the stick and busting the poor paper donkey open so wide that the whole song and dance lasts only 37 seconds. But we all live and learn.
And love. As in: love that there are people out there who care as much as I do about sending Adoring and Wonderful Husband off into his fourth decade in style. As in: love that two crazy kids from Saskatchewan can move 3300 kilometres away and so quickly find people who make this foreign province sometimes feel like home. As in: love that even though we may say “never again!”, a running list of ideas for the next shindig is never far from the back of our minds. As in: love that being thirty means that no one upchucks all over your deck from the insane amount of tequila they drank.
Evidently your thirties is the classy decade. Thank god. It couldn’t have come soon enough.
(Check out K.'s baby-less version of events here, and B.'s tequila-coloured lens here.)
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3 sweet nothing:
And love: As in people like W&J who embody generosity and friendship with every tequila shot they pushed on us, every bottle of beer they passed in our general directions, and every memory we will hold in trust for moments of blackmail in some not too distant future.
Snaps for W., and snaps for J., who live by an example I only wish I was cool enough to follow.
Awesome cupcakes! awesome party! and most importantly, awesome company!
You guys really no how to throw a bash. Thanks a bundle (the left over stuffed peppers were fantasmic).
We do need to teach people about pinata ettiquete though. And perhaps next time not use a golf club.
I knew I messed up on pinata etiquette!
And I knew I loved you two (now three) a long time ago.
Bust makes down-home cosmopolitan, Winter makes everything groovy, and Boh just makes me melt.
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