T's Birthday Weekend - The Finale

If you'd like to catch up on all the scintillating details (including porn shenanigans),
Part One is here, and
Part Two is here.

I will reiterate that porn charades are awesome. I'd forgotten about "Hairy Pooter and the Sorcerer's Bone."

* * * * *

Saturday ~ Early Afternoon

Saturday morning we all eventually woke up and started milling about. Someone put on bad tv, and at least three others started making more food, probably out of fear that if someone weren't cooking AT ALL TIMES the food might somehow multiply and gang up on us and form a mutiny and kick us out. Persistent cooking was our way of ensuring our own safety. (SO MUCH FOOD.)

Here, Ish decides to take on some deviant-looking eggplant by using it as a football.


Anyway.

At one point during a commercial, the non-cookers looked around and said, "We should do something."

"We could go...for...a walk?"

Hmmm.

Let me take a moment to explain something to you all, dearest invisible internet friends, with excessive use of quotations.

I love -- love -- when my group of friends get together to do something outside. Because most of this group of folks, despite their more outdoorsy and/or suburban beginnings, are City People. The kind for whom "outside" is usually a "sidewalk." The kind who don't own "windbreakers" or articles made of "fleece."

Sometimes we get together for "pool parties" down at Reaper's place in San Jose. At least half of us don't even own bathing suits. We arrive and set up food and drink, and then disrobe down to our tank tops and shorts, and huddle closely under the large umbrella for fear that direct sunlight could, at any moment, melt our skin off.

There is precious little "swimming."

That is, until the sun starts to set and everyone clambers into the hot tub with their drinks.

So there was kind of a lot of looking at each other with respect to the notion of "going for a walk."

"Ooookaaaay..."

And then it took the better part of an hour for us to decide who was actually going to go, and what the proper attire would be.

I am pretty sure I wore flip-flops, which I believe is neither "proper" nor "attire." But by the time we were all ready to go in as-appropriate-as-possible "outdoor" wear, we were kind of excited for this foray into nature.

Here is Em. She is excited.


And so now I will embark on something of a photojournalistic journey I call:

"We've Walked HOW Many Blocks And There Is STILL No Bar?"

We leave the house. I was not kidding about the livestock in our backyard, and so here is a photo of sheep.


Maybe they don't look scary to you, but I swear. They were. In the dark we didn't know they were fenced in.

We go about 11 feet.



There is definitive "open space" so T and MJ decide the only appropriate response is to "frolic" in it.

Then another 6 feet or so later, there is a sign.

Em walks toward it as though already drunk.

Remember "Up With People?"


We come to the end of the road.


Or is it?

We decide to go past where the concrete ends, and actually walk on grass and trails and rocks, several perilous feet above the ocean. In flip-flop-like gear. Why?

Because it's pretty.



See?

And also, I like to use the very advanced setting on my camera called "sepia." And also "zoom." Because I am terrified of heights and would prefer not to walk to the edge of a cliff and slip and crash to my doom for the sake of taking crappy pictures with a camera setting intended to make things look like they're from a Saloon in the Old West.






And just as I'm starting to feel okay and not terrified of heights I'm seeing through my zoomed lens, my friends decide to climb rocks.




I do not approve.



I catch up with Ish and Ben.

Note: Ben is wearing a leather coat (i.e., NOT typical "hiking" gear), yet he has chosen to pair it with a backpack (i.e., VERY typical "hiking" gear). Is Ben more "outdoorsy" than we knew?

And then we learn. The real reason Ben has brought a backpack? It is for holding the beer.



Finally, I just like this picture because it looks as though Ish has accidentally dropped something of importance, and/or has absolutely no idea how to get down.


Or maybe he is just sad to learn that after all that walking and rock climbing there was still no bar at the end of the trail.

* * * *

Saturday ~ Late Afternoon

Some time after we'd all managed to return in one piece to the house, Ish decided that the afternoon's festivities should commence with a proper wine tasting. Because he is in the Wine Business and has sensibilities about wine that extend beyond "Should I get the $7.99 bottle with the crappy label, or the $9.99 bottle with the cute logo?"

Look how sophisticated we're pretending to be, as aided by further use of "sepia."


The sloshing-the-wine-around-the-mouth motion caught here is especially effective in "sepia."



Whereas in color, it might look silly.

And then following the wine tasting, we decided to watch the sun set from the master suite's balcony and toast to the birthday boy.







For those of you hoping to achieve my level of photojournalistic impressiveness, please note: sunsets do not require the use of "sepia."

* * * *

Saturday ~ Evening

What day of very sophisticated "walking" and "wine drinking" would be complete without a Showgirls drinking game*?

None, that's what.

The limited edition DVD set of the worst movie ever made in the history of movies does in fact come with shot glasses and instructions. And I'm sure I could tell you more about how the game was played (???) if my team didn't have to drink every time the word "darlin" was uttered.

(If you've ever managed to get through the movie, you know that "darlin" is pretty much spoken every other word.)

So yeah. Following the mostly painful Showgirls experience, there were few collectively coherent moments in the evening. There was much silliness, a tasty dinner, a vacuuming accident, fabulous birthday cake (thanks to Serre), a random and surprising group-sing to both Cecilia(?) and Piano Man(????), and a massive clean-up effort on Sunday morning that took several hours.

(I'm less concerned about how you remove wine from the under-side of a coffee table than how wine landed there in the first place, you know?)

But since you're probably wishing this entry had been a more limited edition, too, I'll finish off with this thought:

Dear Hot Gina Gershon,

Why?

Love,
k


*Lest you think this is merely a link to a REGULAR DVD, please see the details on Amazon, as below:

• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
  • "The Greatest Movie Ever Made": a commentary by David Schmader, with video commentary on the strip-club dance scene by the girls of Scores
  • Lap-dance tutorial featuring the world-famous girls of Scores
  • A Showgirls Diary: storyboard-to-screen featurette
  • Pop-up trivia track
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • Set of Showgirls shot glasses
  • "Pin the Pasties on the Showgirl" game with pasties and blindfold
  • Deck of Showgirls playing cards
    
  • Six photo cards with party games [ed. note: these are the drinking game rules]