So I'm planning my wife's 50th birthday party. That's right, my wife is turning 50. 50 years old. This reminds me of a line from a Greg Brown song: "My friends are getting older, so I guess I must be, too." Which then reminds me that I'm getting older, too. Not as old as my wife, though, who (or is it whom? as great as I am at grammaring, this one sometimes gets me) as you might remember is turning 50 soon. Next week, actually. I'm a relatively young 46, although I'll be 46.5 tomorrow.
That's right, I married an older woman. A couple of years ago I was talking to another guy who married an older woman. He said it was because he's "got game." I laughed and mumbled, "yeah, me too." Then he leaned in closer and said, "I got no game." "Me too!" I said, much more confidently. And it's true - I got no game. But somehow I managed to get married. And not just married - happily married. To a wonderful woman who's getting ready to turn 50. Hmm... a party would be kinda fun...
I'm not planning the party alone. A week ago I wasn't planning a party at all. My wife didn't want a party. The woman who cuts my hair looked at me like I'm an idiot. But in a nice way. "If it were me," she said... Uh oh, here it comes... "I might say I don't want a party, but..." Really she'd want the people who know her best to throw her a party. Just the right kind of party, because they know her so well. "Yeah, yeah," I said, "I know. But my wife really doesn't want a party."
So I'm planning my wife's 50th birthday party...
A week ago, she said she wanted to go to Santa Fe for her birthday. Some really good friends live there, and it would be great. But it turns out that a couple of the friends are going to be in Disney World. Maybe celebrating my wife's birthday, but maybe just riding the rides and dressing up like mice. I don't know.
It turns out that planning a party is a lot of work. I don't plan a lot of parties. I recruited one of my wife's best friends to help. Here's what I learned right away. Parties need: food, drinks, invitations, things to put drinks in that double as things to put drinks in mouths, things to put food on, bigger things to put food-holders and drink-holders on when they're not in people's hands, and more stuff, too. And the party's gonna be at our house, so the house needs to be cleaned (who knew?).
I said I'd write the invitation, or eVitation, or whatever it's called these days. So I started writing. Turns out that whenever I start to write, it's just like I'm writing for my blog. So the evite is lightly comprehensible and somewhat goofy. I even reused some of my I Hate Cheesecake material - the thing about National Clam Chowder Day. I feel ok about it, because, as I've mentioned, I have very few readers. I wonder if there should be a comma before that "because." Ok, I'll put one there. You'll never even know it wasn't there to begin with. Ha!
A great many years ago, I went to see Phish on New Years Eve in Boston. I was young, it was cold, and the tickets said, "Creative Formalwear Requested." I thought that was pretty cool. I wore a tshirt and jeans. But a lot of more creative people actually honored the request, and they dressed in their finest creative formalwear. We're gonna do the same thing for my wife's party. I'm excited to see what people come up with.
A band called Chucklehead opened for Phish that night. Mostly what I remember is that the lyrics to their songs consisted primarily of the word "Chucklehead" and they just wouldn't leave the stage when it was time. When Phish finally started playing, I took off my shoes and stashed them under the soundboard. A friend of mine also took off his shoes, and he left them next to a post in the middle of the room. After the show was done, I found my shoes, right where I left them, safe under the soundboard, and I put them back on. My friend wasn't so lucky. Nope, they weren't missing. Yep, they were covered in puke. Cuz if you're at a Phish show on New Years Eve and you have to puke, you puke right at the base of a post. It's like peeing on a tree. Everybody knows that.
We had a long walk back to where we were staying. He was gonna walk barefoot. I thought that was crazy - it was cold outside, really cold. The city was covered in ice and snow. I wanted him to just wear the puke shoes. He thought that was crazy. Mostly cuz of the puke. After a lot of fruitless disagreement, with several of our friends weighing in on one side or another, somebody said, "why don't you go into the bathroom and wash the puke off?" I thought that was genius. So did my buddy puke-shoes. So that's what he did.
That's all I remember of the story. But looking back, I wonder what it was like walking for an hour in freezing temperatures in soaking wet shoes. It probably sucked. It might even have been worse than walking in puke. So who's the genius now?
Anyway, he kinda deserved it. Cuz here's the thing: Phish has a song called Cavern. And the last line of that song, right at the end where you can't forget it, is: "Whatever you do, take care of your shoes!"
Well, now you know.