27

[liv]

So, the party report. Everything went amazingly well, everything I hoped for came about and I had a thoroughly wonderful time. Yay. That was one of the best parties I've ever had; thank you so much to all the lovely people who came.

People who made the party wonderful: doseybat and compilerbitch provided the venue, dealt with the music and were invaluable in helping with the food and drink and general sorting out, and generally the whole thing wouldn't have happened without them. pseudomonas showed up early so we could get the party started, and carried the flag for my Oxford set while blackherring was busy being highly educational at Limmud and darcydodo was prevented from attending by too much evil geography. midnightmelody asked a good question which led to biology textbooks coming out(!) ixwin brought vectorious whom I hadn't previously met in person. shreena provided tasty Indian "lumps" and quizcustodet increased our quotient of unreasonably tall people who are also really interesting (in the absence of lethargic_man and rysmiel). Talking of interesting unreasaonbly tall people, coalescent brought a shiny iBook and reminded people of the interesting study on high school relationship networks and gave me a Beth Orton CD. neonchameleon (another unreasonably tall person) braved the snow and horrible transport to make it about halfway through. timeplease (who has enhanced many previous parties by bringing exciting fruit beer) noticed my heavy hints that this was not really an alcohol centred party, and so brought board games instead, and was generally wonderful. ewtikins brought shevek, whom I had never met at all before (in contrast to shreena whom I've known since I was not quite 10, not to mention my sibs whom I've known since I was too young to remember). shevek flummoxed everybody with a grenade pin, and ewtikins started a really interesting conversation about how people's minds work. Thuggish Poet came with my cousin S and P'tite Soeur, but sadly no Screwy as the transport issue proved insurmountable. Thuggish Poet gave me a Roots Manuva CD in order to help me break into hiphop, and P'tite Soeur made an amazing fantastic cake with a clock face pointing to 2 and 7 (and gave me some very exciting French chocolate). Cousin S was the youngest guest for an age-range that covered nearly twenty years.

P'tite Soeur's cake together with chanukah provided the perfect opportunity for pyromania; timeplease carefully set up 27 candles on the cake, and I added three plus the shammes to the chanukiah. I did not burn myself or set anything unintended on fire, so ha. deborah_c and MF (WINOLJ) turned up later on, and provided a second wind after some of the earlier guests had headed out. I had some really lovely conversations with deborah_c, whom I'd only met once before, and enjoyed catching up with MF who is an old friend I don't see often enough. MF classified it as a geek party, which I think was more true in the later part than the earlier part but probably a fair comment in general.

By the time the party had thinned out in the later part of the evening, it was a good size to play Carcassonne, a highly enjoyable game which was thoroughly over-analysed (I think having huge debates about optimal moves is a large part of the fun of games like that!) MF, with the help of compilerbitch, played like the go player she is: setting herself up for large potential future gains rather than playing for short-term points. neonchameleon and pseudomonas were creatively evil strategic in finding lots of ways to screw over the other players. deborah_c kibbitzed initially, and then took over from neonchameleon when he had to leave. She complained that she'd inherited his evil reputation but I have a feeling that was a convenient excuse. midnightmelody applied educational theory to the approaches people took to learning the game (most of us had not played before). timeplease's bridge-like approach of carefully calculated risk-taking (while tempering doseybat's tendency to try for huge gambles) turned out to be the most successful, but until the very end it could have gone any way.

And the little brown teapot I gave doseybat did excellent service all afternoon and evening. It's probably cheating to count it in with the people but it did make an important contribution to the success of the party. P'tite Soeur , pseudomonas, MF, deborah_c and timeplease stayed over. I failed spectacularly to get up in the morning and therefore missed P'tite Soeur who had to leave early to deal with bureaucracy. But when I did manage to surface at about half past ten, deborah_c was utterly wonderful and gave me a cup of tea in bed. Too nice. MF and timeplease and eventually pseudomonas gradually drifted away, and then compilerbitch fed me and doseybat brunch and I finally managed to get dressed (this at about 3pm!) and we cleared up. Then somehow or other I got into a long and fascinating conversation with doseybat and compilerbitch and it was really too late to head home. So compilerbitch fed us some stirfry, because although I was careful to have a reasonable amount of real food at the party, including compilerbitch's wonderful and special diet friendly dahl, still vegetables are good. And then we carried on talking for hours, and oh look, it appears to be late morning the following day...

*bouncebouncebouncebounce*

monanotlisa didn't make it to the UK and therefore didn't make it to the party, but sent me lovely card, thank you Mona! loreid couldn't come because her own birthday clashes with mine, but belated happy birthday to her and thanks for her lovely message too. lethargic_man is at Limmud but gave me A Deepness in the Sky which I'm looking forward to reading. rysmiel (who also has geography issues) sent me a wonderful parcel with bookies, which arrived on time despite Christmas, yay organized friends. And Granny gave me her antique silver hair ornament which was a present to her from Grandad, which is really touching. I did pretty well considering I told everyone not to give me presents! Oh, and I forgot to mention that doseybat gave me a funky genuine Ethnic Vietnamese shoulder bag, which is gorgeous and exactly what I need.

I was hoping to see fluffymark at the party, but he didn't make it. I hope everything's ok with you, Mark? But I'm happy about several of the other people who couldn't make it, because I tracked down lots of people I've semi or completely lost touch with to invite them, and lots of really cool friends have reestablished contact by replying to my party invitation with regrets. So all in all things are utterly wonderful. I should have parties more often!

Oh, and this would be my 500^th LiveJournal entry. I'm pleased that it happens to be a memorable one.

Comments

[karen2205]

Yay, glad to hear you had a good time - sorry I couldn't make it.

[liv]

Well, there are always going to be some people who aren't free for any particular party. I'll hopefully see you in the new year; I'm planning to come to Borders again soonish.

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Thank you for holding such a fun party!

midnightmelody applied educational theory to the approaches people took to learning the game

Um, I have no recollection of doing this at the party (admittedly, it was about the only topic I *didn't* subvert towards education) . . . I left at the same time as neonchameleon. I am now scared that I apply educational theory without realising I am speaking, or perhaps I was being channelled by someone still at the party. :)

Yay for fun things!

[liv]

It's true, you did leave early. I was quite possibly conflating several other conversations with the particular one that took place during the game. Thanks for coming and starting interesting discussions, anyway.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The party that never ended!

It was fun, thank you for inviting me. I'm sorry I had to leave before the game-playing, now. :)

High school networks: article (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chains.htm), diagram (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/chainspix.htm), blog post with link to original paper (http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/13/love-is-a-battlefield-spanning-tree-network-with-no-4-cycles).

[liv]

*bounce* Glad you had fun, and thanks for those links. Yay interesting research.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was a lovely party!

[liv]

*bouncehugs* I hope your party goes as well.

Sorry!!

[sammee42.livejournal.com]

Hello from a fellow Old Mertonian! I just love your journal; but as a musician, pianist and musicologist I had to say something about the 'tuuuuuune' from your last post (thought you'd want to know!). It is 'GlenN Gould', with 2 N's. ;) Cheers!!

[liv]

Hi, pleased to meet you, and thank you for the compliment on my journal, I'm quite glowing. And thanks for the correction too; pedantry is always appreciated round here, so there's no need to apologize. I shall happily correct the original post.

[sammee42.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, my Latin conjugation (sp?) was corrected on the oxonians group last week (by a Classicist, of course), so I figured it would be OK if a musicologists corrected the spelling of a famous pianist. I enjoy your posts very much. :)

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

any chance you may have a borrowable copy of that Ursula Le Guin book you mentioned? if not, could you remind me of the title? (am considering investing)

fantastic party btw!!

[liv]

Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed I can most certainly lend to you. I have managed to leave all the chocolate in your fridge, so I hope you will either eat it or give it back to me. And despite making many good resolutions not to do this, I have left Mum's box (that formerly contained felafel) behind, so if you guys could put it aside for me that would be cool.

I'm particularly pleased that you enjoyed the party; I would have felt really horrible if you hadn't. Thank you so so much for hosting.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *bounces*
The easiest thing would be bringing it to the museum/borders thing - no you are staying over anyway - compilerbitch says she would be happy to drop them off earlier if they are needed *grin*

[darcydodo]

I couldn't phone you because I wasn't at home most of the time that would have overlapped with your time. :(

Also, I don't think I can phone your mobile from this country, and I doubt you were in Cambridge for much of the day, but then again, I also didn't think about that aspect until just now. :)

But I did send your present off on your birthday.

And also...

[darcydodo]

and I finally managed to get dressed (this at about 3pm!)

*laughs at you*

[liv]

And yay for laughing at me; I'm happy that evil geography can't stop you from doing that, at least. *hug*

[liv]

You sent me a present, yay! Thank you. Yes, I think it probably would have been hard to phone me as I wasn't at home for several days around my birthday. But thanks for the thought anyway.

[darcydodo]

Didn't you get my e-mail several days ago in which I said I was sending you a present?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Great to hear you had such a good time, do wish I could have been there. *hug*

increased our quotient of unreasonably tall people who are also really interesting (in the absence of [info]lethargic_man and [info]rysmiel)

pfft. The compliment is appreciated, but I'm not unreasonably tall, I'm just less compact and efficiently assembled than many people, but I am useful for reaching up to high shelves; also, forearms this length are rather good for holding small children along while soothing them preparatory to singing them to sleep with lots of Leonard Cohen.

[liv]

The unreasonably tall people comment was mostly a fairly cheap way of handling segues, to tell the truth. I was trying to write an account that looked like prose rather than a list of attendees and people I wanted to be there but couldn't make it. My definition of unreasonable is extremely subjective, not to say solipsistic: people who tower over me to the extent that it's awkward to hug them are "unreasonably tall". But I agree that there are many advantages to being tall.

It was a very good party indeed; it would have been better with less geography in the world, but hey.

[fluffymark]

Happy Birthday. I'm sad I had to miss it , just couldn't make it there in the end, and am very sad I couldn't as it sounds like it was wonderful. I should meet up with you sometime anyway, probably in Cambridge sometime.

[liv]

I am relieved to know you're ok. And yes, we should meet up. I'm in the process of planning to meet lots of people at the moment, and you're definitely on the list.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had a good party, although it was sad not having you at Limmud. I have a present in mind for you, but haven't seen it yet this year - late presents are fun too, right?

[liv]

It's a shame I missed Limmud; I spent all my spare cash on going to Australia! I am much in favour of late presents, thank you for thinking of me. I'm with Lewis Carroll on the superiority of unbirthday presents.