I had a surprisingly lovely evening!  And now I am sleeping in before going off to the Maddy matinee, and then coming home to another friend who is planning to come over tomorrow afternoon.  What is happening to my social life?????  A month of nice quiet evenings and then all of a sudden everything happening in a few days.  I’m tired.

So, last night, first I finished the cake.  A layer cake!  Made in pie pans!  With nutella frosting!  And of course a Shahrukh face in chocolate.  Just like last year, only this year I used high quality chocolate.

 

Cake done, I quickly got my apartment ready for guests, which means pulling the dog cover off the couch and putting on the throw pillows, and hiding my toothbrush (thereby making the bathroom into a guest bathroom instead of a bedroom one).  I finished all that just as the first guests arrived, the Actual Desi Person who I know from work and her sister.  ADP had been to my place once before but her sister hadn’t, her sister walked in and assumed I put up a bunch of posters as decoration for Shahrukh’s birthday, and I had to admit that they were always up.  Oh, and they brought me Indian snacks and frozen laddoos to go along with my Shahrukh Cake.

(Frozen Laddoos! Surprisingly good!)

And then the next person arrived, the friend who came straight from school, and she brought chocolate dipped strawberries.  And then the other friend, who brought her boyfriend.  And suddenly my living room was filled to capacity for the first time since I moved in.  It was so nice!  And so different from regular nights when it is just me and Dog Hazel

(It was like this, when usually it is like the sad second half empty mansion.  But with a dog)

Since everyone arrived at about the same time, there was a strong vote to just watch a movie straight through, and JHMS was the obvious choice.  So everyone settled in with their snacks and their gin and apple cider (my parents gave me a quarter full bottle of gin when they cleared out their fridge along with half a bottle of ketchup and other useful things, I felt so adult having real alcohol available.  Of course, I didn’t drink it, but still I HAD it!!!!)

(It wasn’t this bottle, it was cheap.  But I do actually have this bottle.  Literally just the bottle, I collected them for a while to put cuttings in and isn’t it pretty?)

There was much enjoyment of JHMS, especially from the ones who had already seen it (the friend who came from school saw it with me in theaters, the ADP and her sister watched it on Netflix).  It really is a movie you enjoy more on rewatches.

(Everyone was excited for this song, for instance.  There was a suggestion of dancing along, but there wasn’t that much gin)

Right in the middle of this, my friend with the baby arrived.  Everyone was very excited to see her, and she was very excited to be out of the house.  We paused at this point to go through jewelry.  Did I say that?  I cleared out 90% of my jewelry and put it out on the table for people to pick through.  It was really fun, watching them all enjoy it so much.

And then we went back to the movie, until the final person arrived, my second oldest friend who I haven’t seen in almost 2 years (no reason, she just moved farther away and became a bit of a hermit).  So exciting seeing her!  And also exciting, she arrived right in the middle of the almost-sex scene in Portugal.  So I paused again, cut the cake, got her settled, and then while everyone ate cake on their laps, I started up the Portugal scene again.  Which lead to a discussion in which we all agreed, “sex fixes everything!  Just do it already!”

(Do it do it do it!  Sex fixes everything!)

And then we watched through to the end, which comes much sooner after that scene than I remembered.  There was, of course, whoops and excitement over the kiss.  And then the evening wound done with some pleasant gossip and stories and talk about people who disappeared from the group and where they went, baby stories, dog stories, and so on.  It was really nice.

(Baby story: her Dad usually does 40 minutes on the guitar to put her to sleep.  Her Mom doesn’t play guitar, tried just sort of randomly strumming a note and it seemed to make her just as happy.  And then they discovered they could just put a little keyboard in the crib and she could play herself to sleep)

And then I loaded 4 people into my car because they still haven’t caught the serial killer so no one is on public transit, drove around for an hour taking everyone home, and came home again.  And now I am writing this.  It was such a wonderful evening, and I am so happy with it, and now I have to somehow wind down and go to sleep so I can have another wonderful day tomorrow with my one closest friend coming over because she couldn’t come tonight, and a third wonderful day on Sunday hanging out with all of you, my Internet Friends, and talking about JHMS.

(Hashtags #JHMS and #DCIB starting at 2pm Chicago time, don’t forget about the time change Sunday night)

 

 

Anyway, how was your Shahrukh Day celebration?  And do you think Shahrukh is possibly having a better time at his party today than I had last night?