2 posts tagged “birthday”
Well, it's my birthday, but since I'm known as Weasel and got a card covered in Sea Otters, our other Mustelid friends, I thought that would make a good title.
The party was great, part-catered by JB's mum who provided home-baked cookies, smoked salmon and nibbles and part-fuelled by a few bottles of Kefallonian Robola my parents had. I went to a spa with Ma as it's her birthday today as well, and when I came back, facialled to the max with sparkly finger and toenails, JB had cleaned and rearranged the living room, bought all our other supplies, stocked the fridge with beer and white wine and made a dish each of egg and tuna mayo. All I needed to do was spread it on a few bagels!
Enough people came that it was fun, not so many that it was uncomfortable. Some people I hardly knew, others I'd known all my life. The best possible mix. JB had great fun being the stage manager and I flitted from group to group trying to ensure even the shyest got to speak to one person they hadn't spoken to before.
My friend D, who has just been accepted to become a Catholic priest, had his traditional drunken religious conversation in the kitchen with a mutual friend who is about to become a Catholic (having been brought up as nothing), one of JB's relatively devout Jewish friends, a lapsed Catholic, a Hindu and anyone else who happened to be caught in the crossfire. He then proceeded to get so ridiculously drunk that he offended T, the lapsed Catholic, by doing things like wandering off mid-sentence; D has a habit, when he notices he's annoyed someone, of deliberately continuing to gently push their buttons.
It's not malicious at all - he's the kindest person I know - but she was maudlin, drunk and irritable about something unrelated; I ended up irritated with her for being touchy about his drunken silliness when our mutual friends are a bunch of rude, habitually intoxicated, overeducated and frequently obnoxious people with whom it can be impossible to have a conversation unless you break into their insular discussions with a sledgehammer. I say this as someone who loves them just the way they are, but I thought it rich of T to get annoyed with D for being a bit mock-sleazy and incoherent when I've frequently introduced my friends to T and our mutual friends and had them complain that no-one was approachable.
We ended up having a heart to heart after that, then she was sick and went home with a friend so I ended up more concerned than anything else; although it can't be helped, it bothers me when two people I like can't like each other, hence the need to blog about it.
So JB and I scuttled off to bed at 3am, marinated and full, and got up this morning to meet up with my family and have the joint celebration of afternoon tea at the Lanesborough, a smart London hotel. Thanks, Dad. :)
It's been a pretty brilliant birthday, really. I like the age I've become and I'm on the cusp of a new job - with, presumably, new friends - a marriage and, with any luck, a happy life. If only for today, I definitely cannot complain.
In the grand tradition of JBs everywhere, JB has a best friend called Daniel. This is his party law, based on stereotypes that mostly, it must be said, turn out to be true:
- 2 bagels per Jew / Greek (eaters), 1 per non-eater plus fillings
- Vegetarian nibbly crap for all from, and I quote, "Asda or similar pikey supermarket"
- 1 beer per Jew / Greek, 2+ per non-eater
- A couple of bottles of spirits for non-beer drinkers / stereotypical women
Remember that Jews / Greeks will bring a bottle but drink barely half.
Works for me. JB's mum suggested vol-au-vents made from pastry cases and Campbell's mushroom soup and that sounds like way too much effort. Still, she's donating a small ocean's worth of smoked salmon and the obligatory bag of Kettle Chips so I'm not inclined to argue too much.
