Cupcakes and Donkey Balls

Saturday night was my birthday party, to celebrate the epic (not) milestone (not) that turning 26 years old is (not). Mostly I just wanted to have an excuse to cook a lot of food and have people over, and none of my friends have ever argued with an invitation to come eat my food. An invitation to come over to help me decide between "Creme Brulee" or "Endless Wheat" as a wall color, perhaps, but never an invitation to come over to actually ingest creme brulee or endless wheat, whatever endless wheat is. Aside from a recipe for gastric disaster, of course.

I had started cooking early last week so as to ensure that there would be enough food for everyone to consider nibbling between drinks, should they feel compelled to put their drinks down long enough to assemble a plate. I made Greek chicken skewers, enormous chocolate cupcakes, a giant lemon tart, and a slew of other things that no one would be able to taste once they had drunk enough to render their tongues plastic and numb. Additionally, I had made the party as eco-friendly as possible: The cocktail plates were all reusable, recycled glass, the beverage bottles were recyclable, and the wine was all sourced from criminal grapes who deserved to die. Eco-justice for all!

The first win for the evening was that I did not suffer a wardrobe malfunction, which I considered a real and frightening possibility as I slipped an apron that tied around my neck over my sundress, which also tied around my neck. Right before the first guests arrived, I was whipping a batch of chocolate frosting, and the chocolate frosting whispered to me that it wanted nothing more in life than to make sticky love to my Lily Pulitzer sundress. I couldn't have any such fraternizing on my personal person at the start of the party, so I threw on the apron to finish putting the food together. Amazingly, in a frenzy to later whip the apron off so as to appear party-ready, I managed to not untie the sundress AND the apron in a humiliating act that would have put my later plans to pop out of my own cake to shame. Not flaunting your birthday suit at your birthday party: WIN.

The second win was that approximately 647.2 people showed up, ebbing and flowing in and out of the front door constantly from 7 to 11 pm. It was all I could do to keep up with squealing at new guests, checking the drinks of the guests who were already cruising down the freeway to Bourbontown, and reminding LB to make sure he had on his tiara and birthday sash to jump out of my cake on cue. I started at least 877 conversations over the course of the evening, and by the time the last reveler wandered out the front door, I think I had only finished four of them. House full of friends: WIN.

At one point I happened to glance out the front window in time to see LB shepherding a tall couple through our front yard, thoughtfully showing them the progress we had made in the yard. (It should be noted that this was the only *thoughtful* occurrence of the evening.) I had no idea who these people were! Did we invite them? Do I even know them? I darted from window to window, trying to peek stealthily between the blinds without them noticing--which was probably a lost cause, since my sundress was louder than I could ever hope to be. After a few minutes of scrambling around the front of my house, I finally thought to open the door, to discover that the mystery party-crashers were, in fact, my godparents. Who, by the way, I had invited. And whom I was really excited to see, once I realized they weren't covert serial killers out to wreck my party. Because, you know, that happens.

The third win for the evening was the presence of Donkey Balls, the Super Bowl of yard games. Apparently in classy circles and/or Wal-Mart, this game is known as Ladder Golf, but when we met, it was introduced to me as Donkey Balls, and I think it might hurt the Balls' feelings if I were to rename it at this point in our relationship. We played with the Donk all throughout the night, including after dark, which was an accomplishment of Olympic proportions, since there is no light in our backyard. What is really the accomplishment is that no one got whacked in the face with a drunken Donk. At least, not in my backyard, and not on my watch. Excessive use of the word "Donk" in public: WIN.

Throughout the night, I gave house tours to a huge number of our guests. I had forgotten how many of our friends hadn't seen the new house, and by the end of the evening, I was a regular Debbie Docent, swinging my wine glass perilously through my prepared spiel about plaster walls and wrought iron. I really had the routine down, hitting the high points with booze-fueled fervor, until I took one of my friends on the tour late in the evening. As we walked into the first stop on the upstairs circuit, I hit my cue. "And this is our master bedroom," I said, strolling in to check my hair in the mirror. My bangs were striking out to form their own independent nation.

"Ohhh, I see," he said. "So this is where the magic happens!" Quicker than you can say three-legged giraffe, I shot back without even thinking about it, "Nope, that's the kitchen!"

What? I'm a good cook. Oh, and my friend to whom I fired that gem? My former boss, Michael Scott. He couldn't be but so surprised; I'm not much more of a normal human being at the office. I just drink less. Kinda.

All of our friends whose babysitters would turn into pumpkins at midnight had to punch out around 11:15, and those of us that stayed through the halftime show burned it down until THREE AM. The best part? I have absolutely no idea what we did until then. I know we played with the Balls, and I think I ate 45 cheese wafers, but the overarching theme here is that I am still not too old to think it was a little ridiculous. Eight-hour birthday festival: WIN.

We are so doing that again next year. Or next weekend. Once my liver has recovered, whichever comes first.