THE SOIREE

Aya has a girls only Valentine’s Day Party every year.  Pardon me, it’s not a party, it’s a soiree. She’s very particular on the title.  Not only is it not a party, it’s not on Valentine’s Day either.  And with soiree in the title, you’d think it would be in the evening, but it’s right smack in the middle of the day.  So it’s more of a Spring Lady Brunch.  She invites all her close girlfriends over and they sit around, eat, and talk about their feelings.  Which is pretty much what I do here, so I’m surprised I don’t get invited.

I usually help in the preparation of everything.  I help chop vegetables and bring up extra chairs from the basement.  I’ll vacuum and dust while she frantically prepares the food.  But this year my job was very specific.  I needed to extend our table that normally sits six people, to sit fourteen.  We couldn’t just tack on a few card tables at the end.  Nooo.  Aya wanted everyone to be at the same level on the same plane.  After I’d get that situated, I needed to stick around long enough for Ellie to make her debut with the ladies, and then we’d leave.

I don’t know if you read that right, but I did indeed say I needed to adjust the table to seat fourteen.  Fourteen ladies. FOURTEEN!  I mean, the majority of my close friends are ladies.  Well, they’re not always “ladies,” but they’re women.  I find they are easier to be friends with.  They are more likely to call you back or respond to an e-mail.  When you ask them “how are you doing?” you usually get a detailed response instead of just, “good,” or “busy.”  And to top it off, they smell better.  After one of my friends left the house, Aya had commented how her scent had lingered.  You could smell her perfume in the area she was sitting.  I just kept thinking, could you imagine if my friend Rob left his scent to linger?  That’d be awful.  Anyways, even though I’m friends with a lot of women, this was a LOT of women, in one place at the same time.  I was worried if I hung around too long, I was going to get on the same cycle.

There was a pile of designer shoes and purses at the front door.  They were all so excited and talking over each other.  All I could make out was an “OH.EM.GEE” every now and then.  The funniest part was how much our fancy Japanese toilet seat was talked about.  Someone came out of the bathroom with a little smirk on their face and excitedly asked, “is that a heated seat?”  I found this surprising because if I sat on a warm toilet seat at someone else’s house, whether or not it was a heated seat would be the last thing I would wonder.  I would most likely wonder who sat there before me, and then worry about who would sit there after me.

Finally, Ellie had made her rounds and it was time for us to leave.  I already had mallwalking plans in place so I wasn’t worried on what to do.  Our friend Shannon’s fifteen year-old daughter was coming to our house and I think she was getting the boot like I was.  So she, Ellie, and I went mallwalking with a planned stop at Olga’s Kitchen.  It was pretty uneventful except we saw a kid, about twelve, with a parrot on his shoulder.  A live parrot! Why?  I have no idea.  Did this kid think he was Long John Silver or something?  I love the Southland Mall.

We managed to kill a few hours during our outing but when we returned home I found out I had one more duty left before the party was over.  I needed to take pictures of everyone.  Her friend, Ksenija, who is a professional photographer was there.  Doesn’t she want to do this, I thought.  But I guess she actually wanted to enjoy the party and be in a few photos for once.  Can you believe that?  Some people.  I didn’t want to take pictures in front of her, though.  I felt dumb all of a sudden.  It’d be like having to cook for a chef.  Or play the guitar for Eric Clapton.  A camera?  What’s that?  Oh that thing?  I don’t know how a camera works for real.  Most of my pics are happy accidents.  But I guess if you stood still and smiled, I could click that button.  One, two, three, click?  Or one, two, click on three?

It seemed like everyone had an awesome time and with it over, I got to indulge in all the leftovers.  While I was stuffing my face sitting alone at an empty table that seats fourteen people, I thought, it smells kinda good in here.