It’s my party and I’ll celebrate with tapas and cocktails if I want to.

For my 33rd Birthday, I booked a table for ten at a newish place in town, El Vaquero, and hoped to lure people to come help me ring in the new year with silly yet somehow appropriate Hiron’s cocktail invites. They boasted martini and lime colored cards nestled in glass-shaped vellum paper (You must see to believe, the kitsch value was worth the money alone). . . And then virtually no one RSVP’d, save a few very well-mannered friends. Why oh why do Eugenians think they can get away with not RSVPing when the invite clearly states in big bold letters, “Please RSVP?” Emily Post would have a field day with my friends. The RSVP debacle led to a brief freak-out in which I pictured myself, my husband and the lovely couple who RSVP’d sitting in a dark corner of the restaurant, empty chairs strewn about, Birthday hats askew and all of us pretending not to notice that no one else had shown up.

On the day before my 33rd, I did what every self-respecting girl would do: I headed to Macy’s to buy purple eye shadow. Immediately following my trip to the Clarins counter (at some point I’m going to have to write a girly post about how Clarins changed my life) I experienced a drive by shoeing. B was cranky, and it was ten minutes and counting before meltdown so I did stroller wheelies in the shoe section, circumnavigated the floor with lightening speed and tossed two possible Birthday pumps at an unsuspecting Macy’s employee. Meanwhile, B moaned and tossed his head and whinnied like a horse (“Horse,” by the way, is one of B’s newest and most favored words). I chose the pair that said, unequivocally, with their cheap price tag ($22) and their strappiness and their silvery glitteriness,
“We’re your mother-fucking birthday shoes, so fun, and if anyone dares to scoff at our ridiculousness they can kindly piss off.” There was no need for a second opinion but I consulted my son anyway because it’s what we always do-- I find it contributes to mother/son bonding.
“Honey, Honey? Look at me." (Horse head toss from inside the stroller). "Yes, we’ll go very soon. But first, what do you think about these shoes for Mama?" (Shooting my leg skyward so he can get a better look) "Do you like them?” And because the boy has been trained since month five, he looked me up and down, then at the shoes and then giggling, proclaimed, “Yes.” I know there will come a time when my son will size me up, place hands on hips and announce, “Come on Mama, you know you can’t pull that off.” But that day has not yet arrived and until it does, I’m workin’ it.

On the morning of my birthday, B and I headed to Amazon park. The air had that crisp, cool early fall smell and B was content to listen to Liz Phair on the stroller speakers as he watched the bikers and joggers blow by. At the big yellow tunnel slide, the one B is much too small to ride but nevertheless tries to climb up from bottom to top, I tried to teach him the Happy Birthday song. He didn’t seem interested. I was the crazy woman singing “Happy Birthday Dear Mama” to myself while my kid hung upside down in an impressive attempt to dismantle the slide. But by three o’clock, when I was on the phone and standing on our back deck watching B sift sand into the back of his tonka dump-truck, he looked up at me when he heard me describing the evening’s festivities and said, quite clearly, “bird day.”

By 4:15, I was comfortably ensconced in a salon chair with the wonderful Jarrell running her fingers through my hair. When she asked me what look I was going for I told her to make me blonder and to style my hair “like Bridget Bardot—you know, sex hair.”

By 6:40 I was back home, sprinting down the hallway while throwing kisses to my husband and B, who were so cute and yummy smelling, splashing about in the bathtub. I had five minutes to retouch my makeup, throw on my slinky birthday dress and scooch into my new heels. I was supposed to be at the restaurant at 7:00 and a quick scan of the clock told me I’d only be ten minutes late (fashionably so I thought). Leaving my husband back at the ranch to field questions/avert crises with the new babysitter, I said my “ bye”s and “love you”s while applying Chanel glossimer and in kissing goodbye got the lipstick all over B’s left temple.

Lo and behold, people showed up. In fact, nearly twenty friends trickled in as the night progressed, the latecomers scavenging for new tables and chairs. The food and ambience were perfect and the conversation, divine. And the good people at El Vaquero had the sense to put us in the quieter back room, so we had the space to ourselves and avoided the rowdy drinkers that littered the front. Having had only a Superfood shake and antioxidant orange juice for lunch, I took it upon myself to start the ordering.
“We’ll have Camarones al Coco and then Tacos de Pescados and the seared ahi. Oh and the grilled skirt steak tacos and my hairdresser said if I ever ate here I should order the pork flautas because they’re insane,” (I don’t eat pork but I knew others would). “And I’ll start with a Richmond Gimlet, please.” My friend Pete (who is a loyal RSVPer and a trivia master much like my husband) informed me that the Richmond Gimlet, a yummy concoction of gin, lime and lots and lots of mint, originated right here in Eugene. I must say, Richmond Gimlets are not to be missed at Vaquero. The cool of the mint pairs nicely with the spicy chipotle and tomato salsas. There were so many exotic tapas to choose from, but my favorite was the decidedly lowbrow Mac ‘n Cheese with Champignones (mushrooms). Oh My God—it’s a heart attack and an orgasm simultaneously, the ultimate full body experience. The two women on either side of me were drooling and I do believe the only reason they restrained themselves with a spoonful each was because I was the Birthday Girl. Next time, Mac ‘n Cheese for all!

As for the sparkling conversation, Emily G and I talked Spain. I tried to recall, on gimlet #2, the correct order in which I visited various cities in Europe when I was studying in Salamanca. She wanted to hear my favorites (Barcelona, Munich and Florence) and we compared notes. She remembered marvelous street fairs in Spain, which I suggested might have been Carnivale, and she loved the whole Swiss “The Hills are Alive” Sound of Music tour, which is just so perfectly her. Back on the far end of the table, Wendi and her husband Robin and I talked Spain too, Sevilla specifically, and how we longed to get back. I think our predilection for talking travel has something to do with being Moms to small children and knowing the closest we’ll be getting to Italy anytime soon is the pasta aisle at Safeway. How joyous it was to be having adult conversations about adult things! And Susan, my new friend recently arrived from Sacramento, dressed up beautifully. And so did Arian, with her pretty black frock and new sophisticated short ‘do that I initially failed to notice, tsk tsk. Anne Marie, an always generous friend whom I call first in a babysitting pinch, not only watched B so I could get my hair colored earlier that day, but also attended my dinner bearing a gorgeous bouquet that now sits on my dining room table, the gerber daisies almost as big as sunflowers. There were many more friends who I’d like to toast, too many to name here, but you know who you are and thanks for showing up and enjoying fabulous urbane dining with me.

As we stepped out into the night air following our six shared desserts and my delicious spot of port, Pete pointed to my feet and said, “You’re like Dorothy in those glittery shoes. Ok, now click your heels three times.” I did it and then took a long celebratory stride that landed my kitten heel right in a sidewalk grate. I wish I could claim I looked like Marilyn Monroe in that iconic air-blowing-up-the-skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch. But I didn’t, I just looked stuck. Arian helped me yank myself out of the grate and we all moved on. What Dorothy says may be true, there really is no place like home. But I really must get out more often.