Give Me Sexy

On Saturday, we went to two very different birthday parties.

Since having the kids, our social life got automatically curtailed a bit, by default, so it was unusual for us to be double-booked. Normally, I would simply have picked one thing and ignored the other, but both were quite important.

One was for my Uncle Charlie's 80th birthday party. The second was for my friend Jen's 40th birthday party. The two were in deep contrast.

My uncle's was at a Chinese restaurant (actually, it was a joint celebration for him and my Aunt Susan). I had thought that it would be a simple family affair with us having maybe three tables or so to accomodate the extended family, but they had booked the entire restaurant. There were probably 150 people there.

It was a full on Chinese banquet. If you've ever attended one of those, you will know that there is no shortage of food. We had, among other things: fish maw soup, peking duck, crispy chicken, whole sea bass, seafood stir fry in a crispy taro root bowl, long life noodles and several other dishes, to make up eight courses (plus soup, not to mention the sew bao (little peach-shaped bean paste buns traditional at birthdays).

They went all out for this celebration. At each table were goody bags for the guests with chopsticks, bowls and candy to take home. Balloons festooned the tables. They even had karaoke (I've never seen karaoke at a chinese function, ever).

Now, one thing about the chinese is that we (they) place a lot of value on things like color (red and pink are lucky colors and will always figure prominently at traditional weddings) and numbers (my mom had advised me to donate $30 to the institutions of my aunt and uncle's choice and I, not knowing the significance of this obeyed. All I know is that to give four of anything is very bad form, as four ("see") has the same sound as death in Chinese).

I'm pretty sure that it's because of the desire for lucky colors that our goody bags were pink Victoria's Secret bags. They were lovely bags, to be sure, but the slogan ("Give me sexy") was not something that I tend to think of when I think of my Uncle Charlie....

The balloons were also pleasingly inappropriate: Happy Birthday Barbie balloons.

I mean, "Give me sexy" notwithstanding, I can almost understand the Victoria's Secret bags (they're sturdy, glossy and perhaps some family member got a stack for cheap), but the Barbie balloons, with the big color image of Barbie on them were a little more inexplicable...

After hearing some somewhat painful karaoke (well, the important thing is to have fun, though, and I certainly could not do better, so I should just shut up), both in English and Chinese, and having some of the very beautiful cake (two giant sheet cakes with decorative dragon and phoenix, representing the husband and the wife), we departed to deposit the children at home with a babysitter and to go to my friend Jen's 40th birthday.

Two big milestone birthdays, but very different occasions.

John and Jen pioneered the Poetry Slam home party. They had the first one perhaps 10 or more years ago. The rules are that each guest must bring a poem, written piece, song or other material and read or perform it in front of the others. Guests are, by necessity, fortified with a certain amount of liquid courage before the curtain rises. Over the years, people have performed many wonderful, amazing and creative pieces, some better than others, but all, no matter what, received with great encouragement. They're always fun.

This one, as it was for Jen's 40th birthday (FORTY, I tell you! We're all getting OLD!!!!), had a slightly different crowd, but all still very fun, wonderful people. One man that I didn't know, that must have been a work person, shouted funny things from the back and reminded me of no one other than a prominent exec I know and admire. In very non-exec style, he and some friends did a very hilarious take on the old SNL Sprockets skit ("Touch her monkey!")

We had a great time, it was wonderful to see people that we haven't seen in a long time.

One of the great people that I always look forward to seeing at these types of events is our friend, Terri. Terri had some sort of stomach-stapling type surgery for weight loss last year and SHE LOOKED WONDERFUL. Her piece was about how her life was beginning to open up, that she was dating (and loving it) and how exhilarating this all was for her. She gave me a link to her blog and later I read, with great fascination, about the incredible shrinking girl. Check it out, she's funny and honest and it's a really good read...

My own piece focused on the birthday girl, but I have to tell you that it's sometimes not so easy to find rhymes for "Muir" (pure? cure? manure?)