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Birthday (Sorta), Rehearsal Dinner
Dec. 27th, 2008 04:22 amMy birthday on Saturday was somewhat overwhelmed by Other People's Plans. Those plans were all unavoidable, so it's not like I was blown off or anything, which I can count as a blessing. And, truth be told, I didn't do anything to reserve the day, so it's sort of my fault if not much was made of it. Which isn't to say that Doug the Best Friend and Sharon the Friend would have refused dinner with Sharon's Boss, or that Juli the Friend wouldn't find her wedding rehearsal postponed a week for the Stormpocolypse, just to say that if I didn't make a bigger deal out of my birthday, it was my own doing.
I actually have a weird dualistic feeling about my own birthday celebrations. I vaguely remember seeing this Kool-Aid commercial once as a kid (stay with me here) in which this little boy is convinced that his family and friends have forgotten his birthday. He mopes around for the first two acts while sad music plays, then in the third act Kool-Aid Man bursts down the wall of his house to reveal an incredibly elaborate surprise party. There are, like, ponies and a bounce house and clowns twirling flaming sticks, and his mother is smiling and all his friends run up and start hugging him. And somehow, that's set forever the way I feel about how birthdays should be conducted (well, minus gigantic anthropomorphised pitchers of sugary kids' drink). One is not supposed to have anything to do with planning one's party, but should have a wide circle of family and friends that are willing to go to great effort to produce it.
The irony is, if anybody did go to that kind of effort for me, I'd be mortified. As an adult, it seems to me that the only way to properly celebrate a birthday is to take a group of folks out to dinner to celebrate, and pick up the tab. Even though I yearn for the tremendous effort because TV commercials from the mid-80s tell me I should, the reality of it would be deeply embarrassing and awkward. I like planning and directing social events, but not being the center of attention at them. And I'm not judging anybody else for their elaborate birthday stuff - like Sharon the Friend's trip to Las Vegas, or "kidnapping" Morgan the Ex-Friend, or even getting Juli the Friend a Piñata (not that that was elaborate, but I wanted an excuse to link to the entry; it was good times); rather, I envy other people their ability to inspire and enjoy such events.
Anyway.
Doug the Best Friend, as is now his weekly habit, dragged us (Sharon the Friend, Robert the Gamer Guy and Rain the Gamer Girl) out to dim sum at Jade Garden. It was absolutely, inexcusably busy and we had to wait a solid 45 minutes for a table that would accommodate Rain's wheelchair. Doug the Best Friend fretted that the restaurant would again be out of his beloved Honey BBQ Pot Pies, but upon seeing him, the push-cart operators ran to the kitchen and brought the table three orders of the Most Caucasian Dish on the Menu without having to be asked. Robert the Gamer Guy refused to taste a single dish, because he apparently hates Chinese food, but Rain the Gamer Girl enjoyed herself. I have no objection to dim sum myself - after all, it was I who led Doug the Best Friend down this path - but Doug's obsession with BBQ pot pies is starting to wear a little thin. I understand the obsession with a particular dish (I had Fire Islands weekly in Scottsdale), but I feel like I'm getting a little tired of shrimp in rice noodle. I crave wider variety.
After dim sum, I kinda lounged around. I put in a call to my mother to thank her for giving birth to me, then I read a bit. Then, in the early evening, Juli the Friend and her entire wedding party - her groom, Kern the Friend, her bridesmaids, Tyra, Bonnie, and Angie, and her groomsmen, Al the Roommate, and Beorn the Friend, descended on the house with Juli's Mom Pam, fo a rehearsal...thing. Not exactly a rehearsal dinner (although I ended up ordering Pagaliacci's because I had to feed everybody something), but more of a...rehearsal. Pam was too overwhelmed by last-minute wedding stuff to stay, but everybody else put the time to good use by blocking and rehearsing the wedding ceremony. Juli and Kern wrote very lovely vows and it was clear the ceremony was going to be very sweet.
I also got a chance to work off some inappropriate laughter. I was cursed at birth by a mildly malicious fairy to find tremendous hilarity in situations where I Must Not Laugh. This tendancy is bone-deep; I've had it since babyhood. I remember misbehaving as a kindergartner and my mother's wrath as she tried to chase me down for a spanking. The chase and her anger sent me into hysterics, such that I screamed with laughter through the spanking (she didn't really try spanking much after that). Then there was the time in high school where Laurie the Friend and I did something to piss off Mr. Werhli the English Teacher, and the angrier he got, the more violently my shoulders shook with poorly contained mirth. I was in agony, but totally helpless. The slightest stress of laughter in a person's breath will set me off. Awkward social confrontations, people having physical accidents; all of it fuels my desire to laugh, especially if it occurs to me that I should not do so. And there's no containing it if somebody else is also laughing and trying not to. That is the funniest thing of all.
I warned Juli the Friend of this early on and vowed to strangle myself if I started to feel inappropriate giggles during her ceremony. I thought I'd practice during the rehearsal, and I mostly did okay (there was some joking around and goofing off as it was). But then, during the second run-through, when Al the Roommate officiously climbed over a piece of furniture to turn off the iPod at the proscribed moment, and just as Juli and Kern were starting their lines, I lost it. I let out a tremendous snort of laughter, then clamped my hands over my mouth. I glanced at Al, who was looking away, although his lips were tightly compressed and his shoulders were starting to shake. Another tremendous snort of laughter spewed past my fingers like vomit, and then Al cracked up, too.
The ceremony stopped, I apologized, and we calmed down. Then the ceremony started again, and five seconds in I thought about how inappropriate it would be to laugh. Cue: laughter. The harder I tried not to laugh, the harder I laughed. The harder Al tried not to laugh, the harder I laughed. I knew everybody was getting pissed and that it could easily be misconstrued as my finding the vows themselves funny - but they weren't. They were great, actually. I just found myself funny, that's all.
Eventually I was able to knock it off, and the rest of the night went off without incident.
I can't for the life of me remember what we did after everybody took off and Doug and Sharon got home. I took a shower to avoid the rush the next morning, then I read until I felt sleepy. If there was movie-watching or a dinner in there, I sure don't remember it now. Must be the senility kicking in.
I actually have a weird dualistic feeling about my own birthday celebrations. I vaguely remember seeing this Kool-Aid commercial once as a kid (stay with me here) in which this little boy is convinced that his family and friends have forgotten his birthday. He mopes around for the first two acts while sad music plays, then in the third act Kool-Aid Man bursts down the wall of his house to reveal an incredibly elaborate surprise party. There are, like, ponies and a bounce house and clowns twirling flaming sticks, and his mother is smiling and all his friends run up and start hugging him. And somehow, that's set forever the way I feel about how birthdays should be conducted (well, minus gigantic anthropomorphised pitchers of sugary kids' drink). One is not supposed to have anything to do with planning one's party, but should have a wide circle of family and friends that are willing to go to great effort to produce it.
The irony is, if anybody did go to that kind of effort for me, I'd be mortified. As an adult, it seems to me that the only way to properly celebrate a birthday is to take a group of folks out to dinner to celebrate, and pick up the tab. Even though I yearn for the tremendous effort because TV commercials from the mid-80s tell me I should, the reality of it would be deeply embarrassing and awkward. I like planning and directing social events, but not being the center of attention at them. And I'm not judging anybody else for their elaborate birthday stuff - like Sharon the Friend's trip to Las Vegas, or "kidnapping" Morgan the Ex-Friend, or even getting Juli the Friend a Piñata (not that that was elaborate, but I wanted an excuse to link to the entry; it was good times); rather, I envy other people their ability to inspire and enjoy such events.
Anyway.
Doug the Best Friend, as is now his weekly habit, dragged us (Sharon the Friend, Robert the Gamer Guy and Rain the Gamer Girl) out to dim sum at Jade Garden. It was absolutely, inexcusably busy and we had to wait a solid 45 minutes for a table that would accommodate Rain's wheelchair. Doug the Best Friend fretted that the restaurant would again be out of his beloved Honey BBQ Pot Pies, but upon seeing him, the push-cart operators ran to the kitchen and brought the table three orders of the Most Caucasian Dish on the Menu without having to be asked. Robert the Gamer Guy refused to taste a single dish, because he apparently hates Chinese food, but Rain the Gamer Girl enjoyed herself. I have no objection to dim sum myself - after all, it was I who led Doug the Best Friend down this path - but Doug's obsession with BBQ pot pies is starting to wear a little thin. I understand the obsession with a particular dish (I had Fire Islands weekly in Scottsdale), but I feel like I'm getting a little tired of shrimp in rice noodle. I crave wider variety.
After dim sum, I kinda lounged around. I put in a call to my mother to thank her for giving birth to me, then I read a bit. Then, in the early evening, Juli the Friend and her entire wedding party - her groom, Kern the Friend, her bridesmaids, Tyra, Bonnie, and Angie, and her groomsmen, Al the Roommate, and Beorn the Friend, descended on the house with Juli's Mom Pam, fo a rehearsal...thing. Not exactly a rehearsal dinner (although I ended up ordering Pagaliacci's because I had to feed everybody something), but more of a...rehearsal. Pam was too overwhelmed by last-minute wedding stuff to stay, but everybody else put the time to good use by blocking and rehearsing the wedding ceremony. Juli and Kern wrote very lovely vows and it was clear the ceremony was going to be very sweet.
I also got a chance to work off some inappropriate laughter. I was cursed at birth by a mildly malicious fairy to find tremendous hilarity in situations where I Must Not Laugh. This tendancy is bone-deep; I've had it since babyhood. I remember misbehaving as a kindergartner and my mother's wrath as she tried to chase me down for a spanking. The chase and her anger sent me into hysterics, such that I screamed with laughter through the spanking (she didn't really try spanking much after that). Then there was the time in high school where Laurie the Friend and I did something to piss off Mr. Werhli the English Teacher, and the angrier he got, the more violently my shoulders shook with poorly contained mirth. I was in agony, but totally helpless. The slightest stress of laughter in a person's breath will set me off. Awkward social confrontations, people having physical accidents; all of it fuels my desire to laugh, especially if it occurs to me that I should not do so. And there's no containing it if somebody else is also laughing and trying not to. That is the funniest thing of all.
I warned Juli the Friend of this early on and vowed to strangle myself if I started to feel inappropriate giggles during her ceremony. I thought I'd practice during the rehearsal, and I mostly did okay (there was some joking around and goofing off as it was). But then, during the second run-through, when Al the Roommate officiously climbed over a piece of furniture to turn off the iPod at the proscribed moment, and just as Juli and Kern were starting their lines, I lost it. I let out a tremendous snort of laughter, then clamped my hands over my mouth. I glanced at Al, who was looking away, although his lips were tightly compressed and his shoulders were starting to shake. Another tremendous snort of laughter spewed past my fingers like vomit, and then Al cracked up, too.
The ceremony stopped, I apologized, and we calmed down. Then the ceremony started again, and five seconds in I thought about how inappropriate it would be to laugh. Cue: laughter. The harder I tried not to laugh, the harder I laughed. The harder Al tried not to laugh, the harder I laughed. I knew everybody was getting pissed and that it could easily be misconstrued as my finding the vows themselves funny - but they weren't. They were great, actually. I just found myself funny, that's all.
Eventually I was able to knock it off, and the rest of the night went off without incident.
I can't for the life of me remember what we did after everybody took off and Doug and Sharon got home. I took a shower to avoid the rush the next morning, then I read until I felt sleepy. If there was movie-watching or a dinner in there, I sure don't remember it now. Must be the senility kicking in.
