It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To

I woke up excited for my party. I was at Costco the minute they opened to buy wine, jugs of brandy, lemons, limes, oranges, and beer. Came home and started slicing all the fruit for the white wine sangria. The art salon I rented for the party doesn’t allow red wine. Throughout the afternoon up until the start of the party, about 16 people flaked! 16 people out of a confirmed guest list of 75. That’s more than a 20% flake factor. My blood was boiling with each text message, each Facebook message, each phone call. I was almost in tears. Why do people have to CONFIRM YES, then flake out? None of these people were maybe’s. They were all confirmed guests. Granted, enough people who hadn’t confirmed or who were maybe’s brought my total back to the confirmed number. But to me, it’s a matter of courtesy. I don’t think I’m flaky. If I am, I hope people call me out on it. But I certainly wouldn’t tell someone I would definitely come to their party if I wasn’t going to be there. Besides, this wasn’t some one-off pub crawl or ghetto house party. This was an event that I had seriously planned for…something I had sent out invitations for a month in advance.

“Sorry, out of town.” And you didn’t know you were going to be out of town until the day of?

“Sorry, can’t help the circumstances.” Excuse me, are you 12 years old?

“Sorry, I’m not feeling well.” But you’re now sitting at a restaurant having dinner with friends?

LAME, DUMB excuses. I am obviously harboring a lot of resentment. I’m trying to be zen about the whole thing, but can’t put it behind me. I feel like these ‘friends’ really let me down.

Then on top of the above no-shows, about ten people called asking, “What time should I be at your place?” Ummm, it’s at an art gallery, dingbat.

“I didn’t write down the address. Can you tell me again?”

“I’m not in front of a computer. Can you give me directions?”

So this whole experience has warned me that I cannot have a fairytale wedding. I will go ballistic on someone. I really might slash someone’s throat. I could just see myself walking down the aisle with a cell phone going off, someone asking where the church is. Insane! People of all ages need babysitting. I thought Dominic was bad.

By the time dusk rolled around, I really wanted to cancel and wished I hadn’t planned such a birthday event. It didn’t seem like anyone cared to be there anyway! It got worse when my parents and aunt (who were bringing the food) got there twenty minutes before the party started. I was freaking out. There were bins of food, platters, napkins, forks, serving spoons, ice chests. The sangria hadn’t been mixed yet. I was freaking out. My aunt slowly started putting the trays of food together. I continued to freak out. My parents were moving very slowly. And I was like, “I am really stressed. Do you understand that people are going to be here in 15 minutes and there are red Trader Joe’s bags scattered throughout the venue. There are bins of food that haven’t been strategically placed.”

I was sure people were going to start walking in any minute. I envisioned them looking at the place aghast; there was all this food stuck in the entryway as we figured out what to do with everything. I started sweating. “Mom, please help me. Can we just get these bags out of the way? This is really bad.”

The owner of the art salon saw my frustration. “Let’s setup a little station outside over here where we can put all the extra stuff…all these boxes and bags…and we can take the food out throughout the party.” While they did that, I poured two bottles of wine into the punch bowl, measured a cup of brandy, spilled here and there, not really caring about accuracy. Fuck it. My friends will appreciate the extra kick. I doused some sugar into the bowl, stirred frantically and took a chug. Mmmm, not too bad.

Erika was a God-send when she walked in early with her boyfriend Michael. “Erika, Erika, oh please help me.” I put her and her boyfriend to work, setting trays of food up on the roof top, on the mezzanine level, and on other tables throughout the art gallery.

Everything was setup just in time as the first few guests started traipsing in. And my sadness and nerves completely went away. I had a really great time, hanging out with all the people who mean so much to me and introducing everyone to my family. There was so much food! The sangria was a hit. Erika brought my favorite petits fours. People moved from the art gallery to the mezzanine to the roof top. It was a great venue for a rare hot summer night in San Francisco.

Jen made me Scrabble cupcakes that I got to blow out. The day had started out miserably, but turned into a perfect night.