Best party moments

Okay, so I’m 26. Breathe, Ant, breathe. Coping. Sort of. Looking forward to the Gilb’s surprise tonight, and the big picnic tomorrow, even if I’m going to be a whole day into being 26 by then – let’s hope no-one notices.

Instead of moping, I’m going to try and be positive about the whole affair by taking a trip down memory lane – remembering the magic birthday moments. (Before I do that though, let me shout a HUGE thank you to Peas, who has given me an iPod, a lurid pink one, of course! Mwa babe, love you!)

19: threw a biggie at my parents’ house, where the last thing I remember was jumping off the roof and (presumably) landing in the pool – something I’d never had the courage to do sober. Apparently, hero M was so concerned that I’d wake up with a killer headache the next morning that he forced me to get up after passing out on my bed – while everyone was still there – and make me drink water. His report back is that I don’t chew my pizza properly. Later that evening when my memory returned, so did my parents. “Where’s Ant?” my Dad demanded, trying to barge into my room. “Uh-uh-uh, you can’t go in there, I’m protecting her from anyone who tries to disturb her,” Timmy told them bravely (Dutch courage, methinks), blocking the doorway. Ah, good friends…

20? Dunno?

21: Had a swish brunch at the Joburg Country Club, to which I wore a chainmail backless top with the British flag on it – they can’t kick the hostess out for under-dressing, I reasoned. And the hair was Lamborghini red. My Dad sweetly demanded that everyone gather outside for photos, but he kept taking the pics when people weren’t ready, so I’ve got group pics with me re-adjusting my boobs, Nan watching me, people knocking back champers, people losing their balance, random people, but none with everyone serenely facing the camera. A damn good birthday prezzie-wise, though!

22: After having met the Gilb a few weeks before and kerfoefeling a number of times before then too, he finally asked me (and I do believe I’d locked us in the bathroom, shame on me being antisocial at my own party) if we were official and he could call me his girlfriend (this, after asking me to move my party from the Friday to the Saturday because G.A.S.S. was having a really great party that evening – naturally I told him where to go stick it. Ironically, this is the club where we first met). The theme of my party was bizarre: your worst item of clothing, and all foods cheese-related. Huh? We’re talking leopard print meets cream cheese & chives-flavoured chips, brie and camembert, cheese cake. Due to my enjoyment of experimenting by mixing different social groups, I used to have a great track record of hooking people up (yes, used to consider myself to be quite a Cupid, I did – these days most of them are hitched), and big parties at my parents’ place often resorted in random kerfoefeling. On this birthday, it was the stunner doctor and the in-denial actuary-wannabe, getting far too cosy… in the pantry… on a bag of dog chunks! Kid you not. (at another party at the house later that year, I got chucked into the pool at 3am, tried to go into my room to change because it was freezing, and the same guilty couple had locked themselves into my room bumping uglies and saying things to each other that still make me blush today, but let’s not go there).

23: Can’t remember what the hell I did this year, except it coincided with my one-year anniversary, for which we went to the closing-down party of “our place”, G.A.S.S. But I had to have thrown a big party on the other weekend night, I wouldn’t have let it pass without it.

24: Picnic #1. Got a large assortment of friends together, headed on to the Witwatersrand Botanical Gardens for a good old-fashioned picnic. Made a huge container full of chocolate sauce for the equally huge pile of brownies – while driving to the gardens, I spilt some of the sauce onto my passenger seat (didn’t notice till the next morning. The car cleaners had great fun removing it from the seat a month later, I recall). While carrying the container to the picnic spot, I didn’t notice that the stuff was pouring all over the front of my yellow and light green outfit. Safe to say, I was the pleb of the party, if not the park. Jen-Jen licked the chocolate sauce off my left breast cos the Gilb was too embarrassed to do it in public; I bumped into Peas and accidentally rubbed chocolate onto her, which she then vigorously tried to rub off back onto me in what looked like an extremely kinky session; people milled about getting stoned. Good times!

25: By this stage, I was making big dosh, so I decided to splash out with a ‘gentlemen and escorts’ (not the Rivonia Rd specials, the invitation specified) theme at Wine on the Square in Nelson Mandela Square. Was meant to be a rather hoity-toity affair, but it’s hard to be hoity-toity when your hair is the colour of a Caribbean sunset. Yes, I decided I’d surprise my guests by arriving as a blonde, but learnt the hard way that hair doesn’t go blonde straight from blue-black. The bigger setback to my hoity-toitiness was a gift of cigars, from which I inhaled, after a large amount of alcohol – and the following hours are mostly a mystery. The as-yet-unnamed Third Roommate and I apparently engaged in a shockingly loud argument, which spanned the last hours of our evening in Sandton and all the hours we subsequently spent in Norwood. Oh, and two friends got fresh in the dodgy latter establishment’s bathroom hallway, I remember that.

26: a blank page, at the moment. Yes, anything’s possible, but I rather suspect it will entail consumption of vast quantities of food and alcohol, fending off beggars and some mild sunburn. (and that’s just party #1, Peas and I are throwing a joint one next week Friday, too).

So. The birthday theme is now well done and dusted, and life must go on. Look out for the same drivel in a year’s time. But for now, happy weekend, and bring on Spring!