The problem's not the butterflies, the problem's getting them to fly in formation.

I'll give you the short answer first. It went very well. A solid "B" (or 8/10 for the rest of the Anglosphere).

She was beyond surprised. Edging towards shock, even. Had NO @#$%ing IDEA.

OK, let me take it from the top.

This weekend is the school carnival and seeing as how these things are on my personal scale somewhere between painfully boring and mildly disgusting, I was able to beg off and attend to party matters.

I had had enough sense to take a copy of the invitation to the balloon place and so the balloons echoed colors* in the invitation. We had 6--or was it 8?--large tables in the room, and (since said room has French doors that open to the fountain courtyard) 4 tables outside. We called this the smoking section. Atop each table was a balloon weight wrapped up to look like a little gift, and strewn around that were bits of glittery confetti in the shapes of birthday cakes and also martini glasses. around these were small votive candles. The room looked great. (Pictures to follow. I know. I suck.)

The CDs (which had a lot of Esquivel-type neo-retro-ironic lounge tunes) were handed to the appropriate parties and the revels were set.

Since TFBIM believed this was a surprise party for someone else, I had to play it cool and abandon the setup crew while I came back home to get ready. The bar opened at 7pm and all guests were supposed to be there, as TFBIM and I were supposed to roll in at 7:30pm. At 7:17pm** I got a text message to the effect that only 6 (!) people were there. So I had to stall.

I took my sweet time shaving. I made sure to give last minute instructions to the boys and also to my in-laws and once I could stall no longer we left. I made sure to park as far as possible from the actual party. The building is U-shaped and since it doesn't seem U-shaped, I parked at the "wrong" end of the U, so we had a good long walk to get there. Then, a near-disaster.

As we're rounding the curve of the U, I spot one of the guests who also spotted US and beat a very hasty retreat. TFBIM damned near saw him, too. I coulda clobbered him. Then the manager stopped to ask where we were headed, and before TFBIM could ask*** I said, casually "The surprise party."

"Turn the corner, go to the end of the hall, make a right, a left and it will be the door on your right hand side."

"Thank you."

And so we walked. And so we walked in.

My wife was greeted with a roar of "Surprise!" in chorus. At first she was befuddled, thinking something like "No, wait! I'm TFBJM, not Mildred Q. Fudpucker." Then it dawned on her (seeing MQF front and center and laughing maniacally) that she'd been had. And those who were facing her were delighted in her stunned and glazed look.

My sister ran up with a cold Cosmopolitan and the revels began in earnest, with the staff filtering and trickling through the crowd handing out canapés, disappearing with the spent skewer and empty highballs and double-old-fashioneds and wineglasses. By 8:30pm the "serious" food arrived (carving both the beef and the smoked salmon).

Turnout was a healthy 85% of those invited. Half of the no-shows were people who R.s.v.p.-ed with regrets. (About half the out-of-staters.) The other half of the no-shows were those who having R.s.v.p.-ed in the positive, simply failed to show up. More on this vexation later. I had had enough sense to order a cake rated for a crowd smaller by 25% than we got. This way there were only two bushels of uneaten cake. (When they tell you a cake is for 20 or 30 or whatever, the bakers assume this is ALL the food these people will eat that day.)

TFBIM was happy to see a lot of friends who, as a result of busy modern schedules (theirs and ours) we don't see nearly as often as we should. It's appalling that our friends Y&N (who live 20 min. away) see us FAR LESS than the Buxoms who live 73 states away. In a way that was my favorite part of the evening, to see TFBIM reveling in the affection of her friends. Even if half her friends are, frankly, nothing to write home about. So TFBIM mingled aerobically (she's one of those extrovert types...alas) all evening long and pretty much just had wine and Cosmopolitans and no food and was experiencing a death wish of a hangover by the time we rolled home.

The food--considering it's club food--was actually really damned good. Most of the food I chose was selected on the wide margin of error they have. A hunk o' cow is hard to ruin save by overcooking. A smoked salmon is damned only by an inept guy manning the slicing knife. The bartender (an impassive old coot) knew his stuff and was churning out Seabreezes, Cosmopolitans, Cape Codders, Foghorns, Manhattans and Whiskey Sours (from scratch!) with deftness and talent.

The cake was an unqualified sensation. It sure looked swell, with white fondant icing (I happen to hate buttercream, and Italian meringue frosting isn't everyone's cup of tea.) with some pink fondant**** "ribbons" and a bow that was shaped into a "40." The cake itself was a rum genoise, with s thinnish schmeer of dulce-de-leche (or "cajeta" for those west of the Mississippi rivah) between the layers. Rich--but not too--and silky and yummy. In fact, we let the staff help themselves during cleanup and they immediately produced takeout (or "takeaway") packages***** so that we wouldn't let this yumminess go to waste.

Lastly, people seriously dug the goodie bags. To that which you already knew to be included, I also managed to score at Macy's "Cellar" on supah-dupah clearance, plain stainless cocktail shakers for a mere $2.25 each! So I threw those in there. Our friends were pleased with the goodie bags and HER friends (as opposed to our friends) were stupefied, as they had never, ever, EVER gotten a goodie bag. Thinking these are things you only read about in the pages of People Magazine. So that was a big hit as well.

Why, then, didn't this party rate a "Perfect!" or "Smashing!" score? Well, here's why:

1- The phantom no-shows. If you're going to R.s.v.p. that you'll come, and then something happens...CALL ME. Don't just not show up and send a message with your friend that "X was too tired from her flight."

JUST

@#$%ING

CALL

ME.

People (i.e., me) go through some trouble and expense on behalf of a guest and to just blow it off, even with good reason, is unspeakably rude, inconsiderate, boorish and, honestly, the hallmark of a bone-through-the-nose/let's-go-sack-and-pillage-Rome savage. Sending me an email three hours before is...borderline. Also, being a man and unaccustomed to doing this sorta thing, I didn't know that if you have X number of people R.s.v.p.ing you lower that number by 7%-10% to accomodate the abovesaid Visigoths.

2- Some of the food I let my SiL talk me into didn't go over all that well. The cheeses and the late-addition whole smoked salmon weren't quite the home run the prime rib or the appetizers were. I should have opted for an antipasto station, which had some cheeses along with a guy slicing prosciutto, mortadella and sopresatta. My fault.

So there you have it.

Oh, and TFBIM scored****** pretty damned well. More on that later tonight when I can find the camera and the wire thingy.

-J.

* Half were a deep pink, and 1/6 each of violet, light pink and light blue.

** Residents of more-or-less-tropical areas are deservedly legendary for their appalling lack of punctuality. We're no exception.

*** She would have asked by name, as in: "We're looking for Mildred Q. Fudpucker's surprise party." And the manager might well have said "Who? All we have to night is TFBJM's surprise party." Which would have suct.

**** Food coloring tastes bitter, so I minimized it by just doing some thin strips that could be picked off by the foodies in attendance.

***** I wish they had brought those out sooner, so I could have hauled off the beef and salmon on which I spent so much @#$%ing coin.

****** In case you worry, I got her something GIGA-nice. She was, understandably, speechless.