Pictured left is Gunnar, a friend of mine who recently married into joint ownership of a froufrou dog named Lulu. Gunnar is taking Lulu for a walk (he is also staring down the neighbor who, Gunnar is convinced, is throwing dirty looks his way...we love Gunnar). He's begging "Lou" (as he likes to call her...I think in a vain attempt to make Lulu more manly) to take care of business so she can be left at home for a while (for the shower in fact). Unfortunately, she prefers to use the nice indoor carpet rather than the rough outside grass.Why should this concern Barrett? Well, Erin also has a pet...not a froufrou dog, however. Erin has a vicious cat named Gracie:
This isn't an exact picture of Gracie (like many exotic, under-the-bed dwelling creatures, Gracie is difficult to capture on film. The above composite image was constructed by Stanford researchers and is based on eyewitness interviews). Like this aggressive, man-eating hell-tiger, Gracie likes to crouch, hidden, near a water source (such as a toilet) and spring out upon her victim suddenly. Another likeness between Gracie and this I-sharpen-my-claws-on-the-rocks beast: they are both male. And you wonder why 'Gracie' has a short fuse?
So, Barrett, be careful about intruding upon Gracie unawares, or you may wish you were instead walking, say, a Bichon down Westheimer in a pair of skinny jeans (like Gunnar will be doing shortly, we are sure).
Anyway...on to the actual shower...
Erin and Barrett's shower was at J. Blacks, a bar on West 6th street in Austin. We got our own section of the bar cordoned off, like so:
Private party. That's us. Chic. We also had high-def televisions at either end of our reservation, so that you could watch the NCAA tournament over the shoulder of whoever** you were talking to. All in all, a nice setup.
Here are all the hostesses involved with the party, plus Erin. From left to right it's Christina, Erin H.G.S.etc., Amy, Erin C., LL, Emily and Candice (Lulu's mom). There were also 5 guys hosting the party, but we didn't pose for a group photo.
Here are the party favors and some of the food. My favorite item, not shown, were the miniature hamburgers. They were low-fat because they were so small. The little blue things are gumball machine party favors...you'll see them better in a sec.
The tags say "Have a Ball with Erin and Barrett." I agree it doesn't sound that great, but we couldn't think of anything better. If you've ever had to come up with something like this (if you live with a graphic designer, you have to come up with crap like this all the time), you know how hard it is -- how much harder these little arbitrary decisions can be than the big important ones.No one will remember what these tags say! If you ask Erin, out of the blue, "Hey, what did the tags say on your gumball machine party favors?", she'll be like "I don't now..." (Or if you ask Barrett... "What gumball machines? You got gumballs? I'm hungry..."). I mean you know, going in, that you will never recoup the effort invested in coming up with a smashing party favor tag, yet you have to put something on there. My personal favorite suggestion was "Party Balls" (in honor of one of LL's sorority sisters from back in the day who brought this gauche phrase into one of their, I'm sure, refined meetings) but even I knew better than to actually use it.
Anyway, Have a Ball with Erin and Barrett! Yay.
In addition to being a shower, it was also Barrett's birthday. We sang to him and everything, sort of. Here's Amy putting candles on one of his two cakes (I'm telling you, the guy can EAT).
So one danger of stretching your arm around someone and clicking the camera is that you don't have any control over what your picture might look like. Come to think of it, that's probably the only danger, and really that's not even dangerous. In this case, I caught Barrett at an oblique, up the nose, angle. He looks like he's blowing out the candles, but he's really attempting to hoover the icing off both cakes at once. We also got tall skinny candles in honor of: a) Barrett, b) Gunnar's future jeans. (take your pick).
The aftermath. Can you do this to a cake from 2 feet away? Somebody feed Barrett.So, another aspect of the evening that I haven't mentioned is about Other Erin and Bryan (Sorry EGS, but, as it's EC's shower, you have to be "Other Erin"). Quote from Other Erin (addressing a crowd): "One thing that you all may not know about Bryan is that he will try anything on." Thus, continuing on our skinny jeans theme, and having fully gotten everyone's attention, did she go on to tell us about Bryan's shopping trip in hipsterland. I didn't get the whole story (there was basketball on, after all), but I'm pretty sure it involved the phrase, "Bring me the tightest jeans you have....no, tighter." Sad, Bryan.
This picture is blurry, but had to be used. Em is playing the gumball machines like maracas. It was THAT kind of evening.
Host gifts! I'm assuming that Amy (like LL and I) got a gift certificate to a restaurant. Erin gave GC's to all the hostesses in order to ensure that she will be the only one fitting into her dress at the wedding. It's called the "relativity diet," which, recognizing that "good looks" are primarily a comparative measure, attempts to simply add 5 lbs to everyone you know. Amy does look super-happy about her gift! Though not as happy as...
...Fisher. Fisher gets the Field & Stream Award for pulling out his pocket knife (actually still protracted in the photo above) to open his host gift. He's thrilled!** I know I'm supposed to use whomever in this case (pun intended)...I knowingly flaunt many a grammatical rule in favor of sounding conversational and not stuffy. I also unknowingly flaunt lots of other grammatical rules, but at least you don't know which are which.
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I am offended by your rendering of me. You didn't even show my bared fangs.
ReplyDeleteGracie