Rich's Epic 60th Birthday Party

This was a most excellent weekend, although Friday night I was mostly making a really big cake that looked like a rocket ship. Plus one of the cakes kind of fell apart when I took it out of the pan. I do have photos and will post them, maybe tomorrow. As it turned out, we only ate half the cake, so I could have gotten away with baking one cake, but leftovers are not a bad thing… except maybe during Lent.

Saturday was Richard Bonomo’s epic 60^th birthday party. The theme was the Space Race, and Kathbert had borrowed lots of cool photos from the Space Place, while Travalon had made a giant banner that says: “Welcome to Cape Canaveral.” He had even gotten some old Life magazines from an antique store, so we made color copies of the coolest photos and hung those up too. We were planning to start the party at noon with lunch from David’s Jamaican, but by one, when the steel drum guy (Bahama Bob) showed up, not many people had arrived yet, so we hadn’t dug into the food. Bahama Bob set up in Rich’s sunny solarium, with a sign that said: “Beach” pointing due south, a beach umbrella, and a fake parrot on a swing. People sat in the family room to listen, but I danced on the floor of the solarium, and soon people had joined me, or had gone up into the loft to dance up there. Yes, it was a two-level party! Tiffy even got us all to make a giant conga line, with Rich leading us through the living room, dining room, and kitchen. There is now a video of said conga line on MyFace, so I will try to figure out if I can link to it or copy it or something to post on this blog. Bahama Bob had a long list of songs he plays, and everyone had a request. Everyone had a good time, even Bahama Bob, who emailed me today to say our party was the most fun one he has ever played at. Then we did dive into the food, and after everyone had eaten, we called the Mothership so she could tell us funny stories about Rich’s childhood at roughly the times key events had happened during the Space Race. Then we sang her Happy Birthday because it was her actual birthday; Rich’s was actually the day before. When we brought in the rocket cake, we counted down and lit all the candles at the bottom of the cake to be the flame behind the rocket – that was Kathbert’s idea. Rich got a number of presents, including a Prince Valiant book from Travalon (since he is the only one we know who reads that comic strip), and a group gift of “space pants” (Gore-Tex pants) and a star in Aquarius named after him. At that point most of the people left, but some of us hung out drinking wine and/or tea, and then a second wave of people came in the late afternoon. Travalon and I left around eight, and then I had to run in place for seven miles to burn off all those calories. (I had already gone three miles from dancing to Bahama Bob.) But I did it – I burned off 777 extra calories!

Yesterday was a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Travalon, Tiffy, and I went to brunch at Cento off of State Street, then we went to a chocolate shop called the Red Elephant, and they gave us red carnations and free chocolates with our purchase of fancy chocolates. It was snowing big fluffy flakes, and the ground looked like it was covered with sugar. Travalon and I went to the Garden Expo, since I had gotten free tickets for helping set up a booth there, and he was delighted to discover it wasn’t just plants, but there were lots of free samples of food, and lots of books. We even saw Prairie Man there, as well as a number of other people I know. Then Travalon and I had a romantic dinner at Inka Heritage, and then we stopped by Rich’s place and chatted with him and Antoshka for a few minutes before stopping at the Nau-Ti-Gal for White Russians. They had a Love Stinks party there on Thursday, and the bartender was showing us photos from it – he even played the guitar with the band AND baked and decorated the cupcakes! A truly multitalented man! There are a lot of calories in a White Russian, so with our delicious dinner and all that chocolate, I had to burn off over 600 calories. I did it, though. Here’s hoping today I don’t have to run in place for ten miles to stay under my calorie count!

Famous Hat