in celebration

Today, SAR was born. Back in the day, that is. I have now known her longer than I haven't known her. We met, back in the day, that is, in high school and I will swear on everything I hold holy that she was blond then. Or at least, she had some very natural blond hi-lights. And, no, this does not mean, as some have said, that I think she is secretly a lesbian. It just means that she was blond at an early point in her life.

I hosted this party for her on Saturday (you have been keeping up with your reading, haven't you, Internets? Remember? If not, go back and read it before you continue. *sigh* We'll wait....). Well, it was really more like housing a party for her, there was very little prep, or actual hostess work, or even clean up. There was some fucking fabulous butter, though, because that girl does love butter. But I think I ate most of it. Anyway, it was great. It being the party, not the butter, although that was also great, clearly.

And there have been other, equally great, or even some lesser, parties I've hosted or attended with SAR. There was the one for my birthday, out at my folks' house that was sort of a surprise, but we were late, because while SAR is really the best at keeping secrets, she's not so good at lying, and so she had a hard time getting me out of the house early enough and so all the other (surprise) guests were either already there, or arriving as we did.

There was the one that was supposed to be a dinner party, but we never made dinner. Some folks showed up and we ate bread and cheese and artichokes and drank (oh, the days of living 3 blocks from the wine shop), and ran out for more bread, but then some other folks showed up after a rehearsal and we realized it was really too late to cook dinner, so how about some more bread? And wine.

And then there was the time I sort of drunkenly invited the entire theater community over for brunch the day following an event at the theater. Poor SAR, I think she really only intended for us to have one friend of hers over, but I got a little carried away. The next morning, I could not for the life of me remember who I'd invited, nor could I think what we would feed them. Luckily, they all brought nice breakfast-y things. They just kept coming.... knock after knock on the door. And SAR just kept making coffee as the kitchen filled up. There are pictures, somewhere.

You know you want to hear about the one involving lots of wine and a cd of Madonna on repeat and changing in and out of dress-up clothes....but there are people whose careers might be hurt if word got out about that one, so I'll hush now.

There were others, like the going away party where folks seemed to materialize out of the night, with baskets of food, and the porch was so crowded people stood out in the street (ok, so it was a small porch). And the ones that were so common as to be lost to my memory, the ones where folks just came by and stayed for a bit - you couldn't even call it a party.

She's the tops, this one. She'll say something snarkier than you thought could even be, but she'll keep up with you when things are bad and she'll do it so carefully you'll not even notice, you'll just realize you feel a little bit better. She can wear a dog collar like nobody's business; she can find herself 50 cents anyplace; she knew the kids on the mall back in the day when those kids didn't go home to the suburbs. She sings like to make you feel like home and she damn well better be at my birth, because nobody writes like her and I'll trust that story only to her.

Happy Birthday, girl.