Pre-Birthday Lovelies

So, it's not quite my birthday. However, my parents were in town for my aunt Connie's engagement party over the weekend, so we decided on a little pre-birthday bash on Sunday afternoon. Yummy Thai food was had by all (sadly, not a good experience for Ari, or more specifically, Ari's stomach. . .Curse you, Thai Green Curry Noodles! Curse you!!!), then chocolate carrot cake and vanilla ice cream (see below: FOOD) and then. . .PRESENTS!

I love picking out presents for other people, when I can find the perfect thing. However, the best part about birthdays is that you don't have to remember to get presents for anyone else, nor do you even have to remember that it's your birthday until it is upon you.

For my 22nd year as a human being/first year as a real honest-to-God a-dult, the family decided to make kitchen/food/beverage gifts into a tradition. And I like it. I am now the proud owner of:

(1) wooden/steel spice rack, complete with
(20) full-to-the-brim spice jars
(2) sparkingly etched HUMONGOUS wine glasses
(1) bottle of Leaping Lizards Cabernet Savignon (Mom totally picked it out because she liked the label. Just as I would have.)
(2) olive green linen napkins
Macaroni & Cheese, a cookbook detailing recipes for 50+ variations on the classic
Cooking With Just Four Ingredients, detailing all of the most beautiful using (you guessed it) only four main ingredients
(1) red candle frame (Yep. A candle frame. It's pretty, and I don't understand it at all. I love my mother SOOO much.)

Sometimes being enthralled with material goods affords a vast quantity of happiness.

On a related note, pre-birthday dessert conversation included a retelling of my father buying beets from my mother at the Market, pre-dating.

Dad: I'm going to make beet juice.
Mom: Well. Good for you.

Note the recognizable Adams tone, resting gently between sarcasm and genuine well-wishing. My mother insists her subtext was "Are you going to make any for me?" while my father insists that he was really confused. This anecdote proves that I am, in fact, my mother's daughter.

This tale was followed shortly by another involving food, in which my mother made bran muffins for my father while he was still living in his parent's basement. He wasn't home when she went to deliver them, so she wrote him a note/poem wishing him, basically, happy pooping.

FOOD: This weekend I consumed more food than any one human being has a right or reason to consume. (I told this to a friend at some point on Saturday, and they made a snarky comment about needing food to live, which I may have deserved, but prompted me to clarify: consume IN ONE WEEKEND.)

Saturday morning Ari woke me up at 10, insisting that we eat some breakfast. I offered her my wide selection of breakfast options, and she opted for eggs with onions and cheese, Boca sausage, wheat toast, and coffee. This would have been fine, lovely even, except that at 1:30 we dashed off to consume more food at Ari's mom's birthday lunch. So. Salads and a split order of fish and chips, plus birthday carrot cake. Ari went spiralling into a food coma that lasted the rest of the night, while I had to settle for a shower and quick nap, as I had a performance to give. I then attended my aunt's engagement party, still a little full. I wasn't planning to eat anything (ever again), but then it turned out that the party was Mardi Gras themed, stocked with Etouffee, spinach/roma tomato dip, crab dip, shrimp cocktail, champaigne, chocolate cake. . .I SWEAR I only had a little bite of everything, but WHY OH WHY my stomach grumbled later that night.

Between Saturday's and Sunday's combined overindulgence, I didn't have to eat again until 6:00PM Monday night.

Happy Pooping, everyone.

Dance-Off 2006!

Saturday, the Undergraduate Theatre Council, for which I am the chairperson, threw a dance for the Department of Theatre and Film. The justification for this event is that we have a rally in August, and banquet in May, and not a bit of an department-wide event in between. So, we decided to have a wedding-reception style dance, complete with DJ and a dance competition. While it didn't end up being widely attended, the thing was definitely a fucking BLAST. It was about two hours long, we were in a room way too big for how many people attended, there was plenty of food and lemonade, a vast number of people danced til they had stomach cramps (oh, man, did I have a stitch) and everyone laughed a lot.

Highlights include:

* the DJ playing "Heartbeat" by Annie, which I sang along to while everyone looked at me funny
* making boys dance that had no intention of ever doing so, perhaps in their entire lives
* breakin' it down with TH&F's Cutter/Draper, Associate Director of Theatre, and Administrative Specialist, just to name a few
* the Dance Contest in it's entirety: 5 rounds, with elimination (Jon and I stayed in through the 4th round! We were proud.): Swing, Hip Hop (professors + hip hop = brilliant; this is when Del and Ione dropped out, sadly), Slow Dance, the Hand Jive, and Salsa

Many consolation prizes were awarded, including Hardest Worker Award (Brady Blevins), Explosive Award (Del Unruh for complaining about the volume of the music more than once), Rhythm Award (Eric Avery/Omofalabo Ajayi), and Weirdest Dancer (Adam Burnett), among others. The ultimate winners of the contest, for being the best dancers all around, were Gail Trottier and "The Boss."

Ultimately, it was a hit. Those who came and enjoyed have promised to spread the word for next year. I really hope Jeanne comes and wins the whole damn thing. Pictures of the event will be used in the banquet slide show to mortify us all, and as soon as I get some of them, I will probably post them. Even ones of me. I make stupid faces when I dance, so I can just about guarantee that I look sillier than everyone else. And proud of it.

We're sorry you weren't there, KatieG! Everyone asked about you. Feel better soon.