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Nashville, TN: There's no way around it -- I'm getting old(er). It's not old(er) in the BIG sense of 40 yet, but it's still pretty significant. I was thinking of ways to commemorate the day of my birth and came up with a few ideas that seemed to fit together nicely:
1) I could host a version of my "Ease Into The New Year" party (absent now for two years), which is an excuse to have friends come visit me in my home and love on me
2) I could offer an opportunity to raise money for Thistle Farms
3) I could have a chance to go to Costco and buy gigantic containers of hummus and mini quiches
4) I could make an excuse to drink in the middle of the day (who needs an excuse for that, though, really....)
5) I could do all of this AND play some of my favorite guilty pleasure music.
In short, I just multitasked my own birthday.
So instead of easing into a new year with easy listening love songs from the 70s and 80s, I turned up the tempo a bit and decided to focus on one of my favorite music genres around:
the boy band.
It started with a simple poster to let people know they had come to the right home:
And then carried onto a few more posters to REALLY let them know what kind of a party was going on. Two side notes about these posters: 1) I actually owned two of them growing up, but figured it was probably easier & cheaper to buy them on ebay than to ask my folks to go digging in their basement for them and 2) I figure some would disagree about The Beatles being a boy band but I was referring to the early-Beatles / short-hair-cuts / dressed-alike-days that made them more boy-band-friendly.
Next, I offered some mid-day snacks for the mid-Sunday tummy growl,
(not pictured: baby quiche)
And what's a real party without balloons!?!?
(thanks to Melanie for blowing them all up!)
There was cake,
(thank you Justin & Angela!)
And flowers,
(thank you, Jim & Janet!)
and most importantly, a room full of my friends listening to a mix of the best boy band songs I had.
As a special treat, Melanie came from San Francisco and Claudette came from Asheville, just to spend the day with me. (And listen to boy band music too, I'm sure.)
Although this birthday may make me feel more like 73 than 37,
Those who cared, really made it known that day, and the next (on the actual day of my birth.)
(Thank you for the graffiti bathroom art, Justin!)
On behalf of me, Jordan, Joe, Jon, Donnie & Danny -- thanks to all those who came by!
