The birthday party last night was pretty fun. I had my doubts at first. Shanny was super tired and didn't really want to go, but I talked her in to it anyway. I just thought it would be good for her to get out. I could hear that tone in her voice, the "I've just going to stay in and feel shitty about my life" tone. So her I dragged her out for the evening, despite her protests. And then we picked up B and he was drunk from a couple of hours in the bar after his rehearsal. And we arrived at the party, which was in a community hall, and there were an awful lot of children there and I thought "Oh great, this is going to be one of THOSE parties."

But it improved as the evening went on. They had a woman there giving Salsa Dancing lessons. The world seems to divide into two kinds of people - those who take free Salsa Dancing lessons and those who stand out back and smoke. Guess which one I am.

Actually, I spent most of the evening out back smoking. It was a lovely night. I like this time of year a lot, when it's till warm and sunny during the day, but the air gets that fallish chill to it in the evening. Just enough to make you wish you'd brought a jacket.

So we sat around out back of the community hall drinking Corona and smoking and listening to the combine sounds of the party inside and the other party going on in a big, rich looking home across the park. It was a lovely gang of ladies to hang out with - Shanny and Suzanne, and Shari, and Catherine (who just had twins 2 1/2 months ago - god bless her for the ability to hang out at a party and drink a couple of beers and smoke a couple of cigarettes. Life doesn't have to end with babies, especially if you're lucky enough to have a guy who will let you go out while he stays at home with the tiny twins.)

Most of the children had gone feral by about 11pm. That thing where they run around in packs and refuse to even acknowledge the existance of their parents. The band struck up, mostly made up of various musical friends, and they played until about 1:30. People danced - mosty the wild children.

The funniest moment of the evening was when they brought out Elizabeth's birthday cake. She has this huge, wild mass of curly hair, really really long and really thick, and as she blew out her candles, it caught on fire. Suddenly people were gasping and screaming and running at her with water, and she was just standing there, smiling and laughing, WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE! No lasting damage. She has way too much hair to miss the little bit that burned. And someone commented afterwards that she looked quite beautiful standing there with her head ablaze. Too bad no one managed to get it on film. It would have been a winner for one of those funniest home video shows.