Happy Birthday, bear who eats chocolate
Surprise, surprise
I never mentioned whose birthday party I was going to on the rare chance that she'd read about it here. Now that it's over, I can tell you yesterday was my friend Avery's golden birthday. Her friend, Rita, threw her a party. I know Rita in passing but that's about it, so I had no idea what to expect.
Both of them grew up in and still live in Naperville, and that's where the party was. I knew the basic area, so Rita's house was easy to get to. I had a feeling this was a surprise party, and Rita confirmed it when she answered the door, so I moved my car around the corner (fearing she'd recognize my plates).
I really had no idea what to expect. I've not known Avery to have had parties. Basically, Avery is me on steroids--like, she is a really nice, sweet girl, smart, doesn't partake in bad activities (no smoking/drinking/swearing), lives with her mom and grandma (known as her "parents"--it was several years before I realized she didn't live with her dad), doesn't really date (but she's had several boyfriends...okay, she had to one-up me somewhere :P). I know she's uncomfortable with large groups of people. As it turned out, there were a total of six people at the party: Me, Avery, Rita and her husband John, Scott, and Ed. I think they all may have gone to high school together, so everyone knew Avery. I'll have to email her to see how they did know each other. Anyway, it was just the right size.
It ended up being like a dinner party. Rita made pasta with meat sauce for us. She has three little kids, ages 4, almost 3, and 3 months (all boys), and you could tell that by the way she dished us all up and gave us our forks. It was cute. Then came cake, made by a friend of Rita's, and then do-it-yourself ice cream sundaes. Mmm. I've finally had Magic Shell. Good times. Oh, but it turns out Scott's a vegetarian, which Rita remembered after she mixed the pasta with the sauce. She had a meat-free pizza and popped that in the oven for him. For whatever reason it seemed to take FOREVER to bake, so Scott had to watch us eat before grabbing a pizza slice. We were joking that he'd have to eat the whole pizza, since it was made for him, before he'd get any dessert.
Even though I really only knew Avery at the party, I got along well with everyone. We had some interesting conversations. Avery is in a show, Agatha Christie's "A Murder is Announced," so we talked about that and other mystery shows/movies. When she opened her gifts after dessert, Scott had gotten her the book version of the show. We all know Avery loves chocolate, so Ed got her this big chocolate chip birthday cookie. Rita and John gave her a puzzle, and I did get her Lindor balls and Bad Cat. Okay, so I should have given her at least one more copy--poor Avery barely got to look at it! Rita and Scott stole it and kept looking through it and laughing. When Rita packed her up when we eventually left (I got home around one), she picked out the book and put everything else in a large paper bag. Luckily Avery caught her in action. :)
As it got later, we got sillier. While Scott only had one slice of pizza, we did end up finishing it off. I was the next person to eat it, trying to cut the sugar buzz from all the sweets. Ed had been making jokes about it--it had spinach on it--but even he eventually gave in and had a couple slices. I ate my slice over my napkin, which I then rolled into a ball. Somehow I got the idea that we should play Bozo Buckets with my napkin and our cups. It wasn't a true game, as Scott had left by then and we only had five cups on the table, but we all played...and then it degenerated into Rita, John, and Ed throwing the napkin-ball at each other (and by that time, the napkin was wet and kind of gross).
I can't remember the pretense of Rita getting Avery to come over, but Avery brought two picture frames with her. One was a picture of her in this summer's production of "Fiddler on the Roof." I forget the name of her character, but she was a ghost, and she had to ride around on this guy's shoulders and they had to be costumed together. I seriously would have been freaked out to do that, but it went well, and now I've seen what she looked like. The other was a gift from her mom; it was a poem about her name. Back when she was born, nobody was named Avery (it was a relative's surname), but now it's becoming more popular, so there's stuff out there for it. Yeah, I never had that problem. :) We started talking about what people's names mean, and Rita got her baby name book to look up names. My name means "white" or "fair" (which, if you've seen me, makes sense--I'm rather pale) and my middle name, Leigh, means "from the meadow" (and even though I'm a city girl, I enjoy living out here). Avery said her name comes from Alfred somehow, but Rita's book said something like it's related to Aubrey, which means "bear." There were some interesting definitions in the book. Eventually we started making up our own names for each other, like Ed and John would have been "guys who like to drink Guinness." I think I was "girl who turns napkin into ball." It was sort of like Dances with Wolves in a way, too.
Right before we left, Rita got out her camera. I said, hey, I have a camera, too, so I got mine out as well. I'm not kidding when I say we were leaving--Avery and I both had on our matching North Central windbreakers. We got pictures of me and Avery (twins!), Rita and Avery, and Avery and the two guys. Then Rita told me to get in the picture. They had been in height order--Avery, John, Ed--and Rita had me stand in height order as well. That actually put me between John and Ed, though I beat John by maybe an inch. It was close. We all put our hands out like we were some barbershop quartet. Then somebody said we should do Abbey Road, and Rita was barefoot, so John got out of the picture and Rita came in (between me and Ed) and we all stuck our feet up to make it look like we were taking big steps. It should be cute. Alas, I didn't get those last two pics, but that's okay. We were a little sad that Scott wasn't in there. However, one of our earlier conversations involved Rita's uncle. At first when she described him I thought he was just a weird, eccentric uncle, but no--he's actually very creative. If you've ever heard of Iz, this older kid's toy that can be used to make music or to be a speaker for an iPod, he invented it. I was impressed by that, because I've heard of Iz. Anyway, so her oldest son, Nathaniel, had to bring in a family picture to school, and her uncle Photoshopped Smeagol (Gollum) into it. Nice. So after all the pictures we were joking that we should Photoshop Scott into it, except we'd use a picture of Scott that made it obvious he wasn't really there, like a black-and-white photo from high school. And then I think we mentioned adding Gollum as well. Yes, it was one wacky party, but it was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I went.
I never mentioned whose birthday party I was going to on the rare chance that she'd read about it here. Now that it's over, I can tell you yesterday was my friend Avery's golden birthday. Her friend, Rita, threw her a party. I know Rita in passing but that's about it, so I had no idea what to expect.
Both of them grew up in and still live in Naperville, and that's where the party was. I knew the basic area, so Rita's house was easy to get to. I had a feeling this was a surprise party, and Rita confirmed it when she answered the door, so I moved my car around the corner (fearing she'd recognize my plates).
I really had no idea what to expect. I've not known Avery to have had parties. Basically, Avery is me on steroids--like, she is a really nice, sweet girl, smart, doesn't partake in bad activities (no smoking/drinking/swearing), lives with her mom and grandma (known as her "parents"--it was several years before I realized she didn't live with her dad), doesn't really date (but she's had several boyfriends...okay, she had to one-up me somewhere :P). I know she's uncomfortable with large groups of people. As it turned out, there were a total of six people at the party: Me, Avery, Rita and her husband John, Scott, and Ed. I think they all may have gone to high school together, so everyone knew Avery. I'll have to email her to see how they did know each other. Anyway, it was just the right size.
It ended up being like a dinner party. Rita made pasta with meat sauce for us. She has three little kids, ages 4, almost 3, and 3 months (all boys), and you could tell that by the way she dished us all up and gave us our forks. It was cute. Then came cake, made by a friend of Rita's, and then do-it-yourself ice cream sundaes. Mmm. I've finally had Magic Shell. Good times. Oh, but it turns out Scott's a vegetarian, which Rita remembered after she mixed the pasta with the sauce. She had a meat-free pizza and popped that in the oven for him. For whatever reason it seemed to take FOREVER to bake, so Scott had to watch us eat before grabbing a pizza slice. We were joking that he'd have to eat the whole pizza, since it was made for him, before he'd get any dessert.
Even though I really only knew Avery at the party, I got along well with everyone. We had some interesting conversations. Avery is in a show, Agatha Christie's "A Murder is Announced," so we talked about that and other mystery shows/movies. When she opened her gifts after dessert, Scott had gotten her the book version of the show. We all know Avery loves chocolate, so Ed got her this big chocolate chip birthday cookie. Rita and John gave her a puzzle, and I did get her Lindor balls and Bad Cat. Okay, so I should have given her at least one more copy--poor Avery barely got to look at it! Rita and Scott stole it and kept looking through it and laughing. When Rita packed her up when we eventually left (I got home around one), she picked out the book and put everything else in a large paper bag. Luckily Avery caught her in action. :)
As it got later, we got sillier. While Scott only had one slice of pizza, we did end up finishing it off. I was the next person to eat it, trying to cut the sugar buzz from all the sweets. Ed had been making jokes about it--it had spinach on it--but even he eventually gave in and had a couple slices. I ate my slice over my napkin, which I then rolled into a ball. Somehow I got the idea that we should play Bozo Buckets with my napkin and our cups. It wasn't a true game, as Scott had left by then and we only had five cups on the table, but we all played...and then it degenerated into Rita, John, and Ed throwing the napkin-ball at each other (and by that time, the napkin was wet and kind of gross).
I can't remember the pretense of Rita getting Avery to come over, but Avery brought two picture frames with her. One was a picture of her in this summer's production of "Fiddler on the Roof." I forget the name of her character, but she was a ghost, and she had to ride around on this guy's shoulders and they had to be costumed together. I seriously would have been freaked out to do that, but it went well, and now I've seen what she looked like. The other was a gift from her mom; it was a poem about her name. Back when she was born, nobody was named Avery (it was a relative's surname), but now it's becoming more popular, so there's stuff out there for it. Yeah, I never had that problem. :) We started talking about what people's names mean, and Rita got her baby name book to look up names. My name means "white" or "fair" (which, if you've seen me, makes sense--I'm rather pale) and my middle name, Leigh, means "from the meadow" (and even though I'm a city girl, I enjoy living out here). Avery said her name comes from Alfred somehow, but Rita's book said something like it's related to Aubrey, which means "bear." There were some interesting definitions in the book. Eventually we started making up our own names for each other, like Ed and John would have been "guys who like to drink Guinness." I think I was "girl who turns napkin into ball." It was sort of like Dances with Wolves in a way, too.
Right before we left, Rita got out her camera. I said, hey, I have a camera, too, so I got mine out as well. I'm not kidding when I say we were leaving--Avery and I both had on our matching North Central windbreakers. We got pictures of me and Avery (twins!), Rita and Avery, and Avery and the two guys. Then Rita told me to get in the picture. They had been in height order--Avery, John, Ed--and Rita had me stand in height order as well. That actually put me between John and Ed, though I beat John by maybe an inch. It was close. We all put our hands out like we were some barbershop quartet. Then somebody said we should do Abbey Road, and Rita was barefoot, so John got out of the picture and Rita came in (between me and Ed) and we all stuck our feet up to make it look like we were taking big steps. It should be cute. Alas, I didn't get those last two pics, but that's okay. We were a little sad that Scott wasn't in there. However, one of our earlier conversations involved Rita's uncle. At first when she described him I thought he was just a weird, eccentric uncle, but no--he's actually very creative. If you've ever heard of Iz, this older kid's toy that can be used to make music or to be a speaker for an iPod, he invented it. I was impressed by that, because I've heard of Iz. Anyway, so her oldest son, Nathaniel, had to bring in a family picture to school, and her uncle Photoshopped Smeagol (Gollum) into it. Nice. So after all the pictures we were joking that we should Photoshop Scott into it, except we'd use a picture of Scott that made it obvious he wasn't really there, like a black-and-white photo from high school. And then I think we mentioned adding Gollum as well. Yes, it was one wacky party, but it was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I went.