I also love parties. Being married to an introvert, I have cut back on my party throwing. But on my birthday, I figure, I can have a party if I want! (Tad says I can have a party if I want anytime I want and that it doesn't have to be my birthday. Which I should probably listen to because parties make me really happy).
I used to throw parties all the time but I'm a little out of practice right now. So first I sent the email and forgot to say "Don't bring gifts!" But I didn't want to send another email separately, specifically telling people not to bring gifts. I mean, that would be weird. Anyway, I like gifts! I mean people bring gifts who want to bring gifts even when you tell them not to.
Then I was trying to keep it semi-small. (Why I was doing this, I'm not sure. I mean I could say I was keeping Tad in mind and didn't want to overload our house full of people, lest that would be too stressful. Or that I was keeping Coen in mind because he was having some anxiety over the number of children coming. I guess it was both...who knows.) So then I started to stress because there were people I didn't invite..not because I didn't want them to come but I felt like I could go crazy inviting people! So I tried to invite only people that I hang out with on a regular basis. But then I couldn't stop thinking about the rest of the people who I like and would have liked to invite and had to just tell myself to be quiet.
Then the cake. I ordered my own cake. I mostly do every year because I just really like cake and I want it to be the right cake. Lucy made me a cake a week ahead of time on the playground at school and it looked like this:
So I thought I didn't want to call and ask them to write "Happy Birthday ALIE!" on it because then when I placed the order they would say "And what's your name" and I would have to say "Alie" all sheepishly since I was the one ordering the cake. So I just asked them to put yellow flowers on it like the cake Lucy made me.
I picked it up on Saturday morning and upon having it brought to the counter, I saw that it was fricking enormous! WAY bigger than I imagined and WAY more expensive too (I didn't ask ahead of time what the price was and had I done so, would have realized that it was going to be WAY more cake than I needed). The woman showed it to me and said sweetly, "Somebody's birthday?" And I just smiled and said "Yup." without elaborating.
On the way out of the store I walked with my big enormous cake down the sidewalk and suddenly I stumbled, tripped and nearly fell right down on the ground. I had to grab the cake box tightly to keep it from falling and in doing so, smashed on side of the cake.
Of course.
I laughed all the way home. Because of course. Of course I would order my own birthday cake. And accidentally order a huge one. And then nearly fall down carrying it out of the shop.
That is exactly the right thing to happen to me.
And of course I would still be stressing two days later about the people I like very much and didn't invite and wanting to send them all singing telegrams about how much I like them and hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. If you're one of those people and you're reading this, rest assured, you'll be coming to my fortieth next year.
Man, birthdays are stressful.
But fun too.
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