FiftyBogue

I’m finally getting around to posting about my 50th birthday party – two months later!

I turned 50 in January and had a wonderful weekend. Friday the 11th, my actual B-day, started off with a 90-minute hot stone massage at a local spa! I KNOW…! Every day should start like that! I went out for a nice lunch, lolled about a Starbucks and read with a latte, did a little shopping then went home to await my house guests. My sister and brother-in-law came in from Maryland for my birthday and my friends Jeanette and Bruce came in for the festivities as well.

That evening, after the four of them arrived, we hung out and talked and I opened some gifts – amazing earrings from L&G, wonderful necklace from J&B, and my sweetie gave me the most beautiful quilt rack every made (see at left). Then, we got ready to receive our dinner guests.

I really wish everyone I love could have been there, but I had about 23 of you in the house, and it was a perfect blast.

I dithered about whether to have it at a restaurant, rent a party room, or have folks over to my apartment. Since I moved in August, and haven’t had that many people over yet I thought it would be fun to invite folks over, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do all that cleaning. But since I was having houseguests anyway, I finally landed on having folks over to the apartment.

I wanted to keep it simple, though, but still needed to feed and seat everyone – plus accommodate my vegetarian and vegan friends. I finally opted for frozen lasagne (veggie and meat) from Costco, a big tub of salad and 6 desserts. You heard me. The desserts were important. Despite being perpetually on Weight Watchers (or perhaps because I am…?) I wanted to have a taste of all the desserts I love, so I had a wonderful key lime pie, a vegan chocolate cake from Whole Foods, a chocolate banana cream pie, and three kinds of ice cream: Haagan Daz coffee, B&J Karmel Sutra and B&J peach cobbler.

But of course it really WASN’T just about the food! We had a wonderful mix of people, with my worlds colliding – family, friends from dance, college, work, and wherever mixing it up. Not that many folks knew each other – at first – but there was a lot of talk and laughter and fun. After dinner – and lots of champagne – I insisted on a big game of Taboo. Not everyone could hang around, but we had 18 people playing in one big game for a couple of hilarious hours. A truly stupendous evening, my 50th birthday. Folks are still talking about it. And in a good way, I mean…

Next time – the LB Memorial Contra dance!