Our 102nd Birthday Party
Jan. 21st, 2024 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerFor several years now Hawk and I have celebrated our birthdays with one combined birthday party. Our actual birthdays are a few weeks apart so it would be tough to have separate parties for each. Plus they're both close to the Christmas and New Year holidays— mine especially— so each has a challenge of friends having conflicting social engagements, traveling, or just being partied-out. Because we combine the celebrations we also combine the ages. This year we turned a whopping 102!
Our first order of business for was getting some cleaning done in the morning. Oh, and baking. After lunch we went to the party store to get some decorations. As I ordered up the "1-0-2" balloons you see in the pic above the gals working there were curious, in a reverent way, who's turning 102. I explained how it was us, together. One of the gals then remembered that she made the balloons for our 100th birthday party last year. 😅
In addition to the centerpieces we bought a bunch of black and purple helium balloons to decorate the house. Black is thematic because we're "old", purple is because we like purple and it also goes well with the black. We also have a few other old-themed decorations. The the thing about party signs like "Holy shit you're old!" is that once you buy them once you can just keep on using them. It's not like anyone gets any younger. 😅
Another thing we do every year at our birthday party, and actually for almost every party we host or attend, is make guacamole. Our guac is legendary among our friends. This year it didn't go so well, though. The four ripe avocados I bought that afternoon were actually overripe... to the point of being kind of rotten. The flesh of the fruit smelled, in addition to being a disgusting shade of brown, when I sliced it up into my mixing bowl.
What to do when the party starts in less than 20 minutes and the guacamole's a fail? I phoned a friend! ☎️ I knew our friend Todd was bringing sandwich fixings for the party. I phoned him up. "Hey, Todd, where are you? Have you been to the grocery store yet?" As good luck would have it he was just parking at Safeway. I asked him to grab two dishes of guac. It's not as good as our home-made stuff, but at T-minus-15 minutes one can't be too choosy. 😥
The party was a hit. We had 16 attendees— ourselves plus 14 guests. I had hoped for a bit more. As of the day before we had as many as 17 confirmations but then one person changed to a "No" and 2 others were no-shows. But 16 was a good number. As I've observed before, it fits well in our house, is big enough that there can be 3-4 different groups/conversations going at a time as people mingle, and is small enough that Hawk and I can spend time with everyone as the hosts.
A little later in the evening I made a tumbler of Manhattans. There's only a few of us at these parties who enjoy drinks like that. Though possibly some of the same people who enjoyed my Manhattans at New Year's Eve a few weeks ago remembered getting too sleepy afterwards. It's a stiff drink. As I like to remind people, "The only thing not alcoholic in the mixture is the ice cube." 🤣😋🥃
Later in the evening a friend gently suggested we open the bottle of small batch bourbon he brought as a gift. That sounded like a grand idea, so I opened it an poured tastes for 5 of us. Wow, it was good. And strong. The bill read 60.25% ABV— 120.5 proof! That makes it actually the strongest liquor I've drank straight and the strongest I've had of any kind since occasionally mixing 151° rum in a cocktail back in college. And the bourbon had surprisingly good flavor at that high strength. Though we all agreed pouring it over a single large ice cube softened it up to make the flavor even better.
By 11:30 it was just Hawk and me left at the party. At that point I guess it's technically not a party anymore. But we weren't ready to call it a night. We sat downstairs curled up on the sofas listening to the music. ...Well, I wasn't curled up but rather sitting sideways with a leg splayed rakishly over the side of the chair, glass of fine tequila still in hand.
All good things do come to an end. We shut off the music and spent a few minutes cleaning up the cups and plates and leftover food. Running things out to the trash bin would wait until morning.
I keep replaying in my head something one of our friends quipped as everyone was saying their goodbyes a bit earlier. "You always have great parties," he complimented us. "I always enjoy your parties. I hope you keep doing them like this."
I hope we do, too!
Our first order of business for was getting some cleaning done in the morning. Oh, and baking. After lunch we went to the party store to get some decorations. As I ordered up the "1-0-2" balloons you see in the pic above the gals working there were curious, in a reverent way, who's turning 102. I explained how it was us, together. One of the gals then remembered that she made the balloons for our 100th birthday party last year. 😅
In addition to the centerpieces we bought a bunch of black and purple helium balloons to decorate the house. Black is thematic because we're "old", purple is because we like purple and it also goes well with the black. We also have a few other old-themed decorations. The the thing about party signs like "Holy shit you're old!" is that once you buy them once you can just keep on using them. It's not like anyone gets any younger. 😅
Another thing we do every year at our birthday party, and actually for almost every party we host or attend, is make guacamole. Our guac is legendary among our friends. This year it didn't go so well, though. The four ripe avocados I bought that afternoon were actually overripe... to the point of being kind of rotten. The flesh of the fruit smelled, in addition to being a disgusting shade of brown, when I sliced it up into my mixing bowl.
What to do when the party starts in less than 20 minutes and the guacamole's a fail? I phoned a friend! ☎️ I knew our friend Todd was bringing sandwich fixings for the party. I phoned him up. "Hey, Todd, where are you? Have you been to the grocery store yet?" As good luck would have it he was just parking at Safeway. I asked him to grab two dishes of guac. It's not as good as our home-made stuff, but at T-minus-15 minutes one can't be too choosy. 😥
The party was a hit. We had 16 attendees— ourselves plus 14 guests. I had hoped for a bit more. As of the day before we had as many as 17 confirmations but then one person changed to a "No" and 2 others were no-shows. But 16 was a good number. As I've observed before, it fits well in our house, is big enough that there can be 3-4 different groups/conversations going at a time as people mingle, and is small enough that Hawk and I can spend time with everyone as the hosts.
I'll Drink to That!
Booze is always part of our parties. I enjoy drinking it... and I'm a social drinker so I especially enjoy drinking it when I can share that enjoyment with others. Not all of our friends drink of course. Hawk doesn't, and neither do at least half our friends anymore. So we started the evening with a pitcher of piña coladas— virgin piña coladas. Hawk had one, as did several of our friends. Then I made a second pitcher, this time with rum. Oh, and we'd made fresh whipped cream to go with it.A little later in the evening I made a tumbler of Manhattans. There's only a few of us at these parties who enjoy drinks like that. Though possibly some of the same people who enjoyed my Manhattans at New Year's Eve a few weeks ago remembered getting too sleepy afterwards. It's a stiff drink. As I like to remind people, "The only thing not alcoholic in the mixture is the ice cube." 🤣😋🥃
Later in the evening a friend gently suggested we open the bottle of small batch bourbon he brought as a gift. That sounded like a grand idea, so I opened it an poured tastes for 5 of us. Wow, it was good. And strong. The bill read 60.25% ABV— 120.5 proof! That makes it actually the strongest liquor I've drank straight and the strongest I've had of any kind since occasionally mixing 151° rum in a cocktail back in college. And the bourbon had surprisingly good flavor at that high strength. Though we all agreed pouring it over a single large ice cube softened it up to make the flavor even better.
Wrapping Up
By 11pm people had started to leave. The thing about being 102 together is that most of our friends are at least 50, too. Staying up late is hard! I poured one last round of drinks, this one a top-shelf tequila I bought in Mexico years ago. It's not even sold outside of Mexico. At this point I only had one taker (other than me!) though a few people were intrigued by the bespoke bottle. It's definitely a conversation piece.By 11:30 it was just Hawk and me left at the party. At that point I guess it's technically not a party anymore. But we weren't ready to call it a night. We sat downstairs curled up on the sofas listening to the music. ...Well, I wasn't curled up but rather sitting sideways with a leg splayed rakishly over the side of the chair, glass of fine tequila still in hand.
All good things do come to an end. We shut off the music and spent a few minutes cleaning up the cups and plates and leftover food. Running things out to the trash bin would wait until morning.
I keep replaying in my head something one of our friends quipped as everyone was saying their goodbyes a bit earlier. "You always have great parties," he complimented us. "I always enjoy your parties. I hope you keep doing them like this."
I hope we do, too!
