Eat The Dog!

My Dear Princess and Dear Friends,
 
It is Loulou's birthday on Tuesday, but she decided to celebrate it today. 
 
It was a dual celebration for us in a way, because Loulou and Tiger have been isolating for ages while omicron rages. So this is their "coming out of isolation" party too.
 
A lot of prep went into it. For a start, Tiger asked us to name some of our favourite songs from the 90's. It was a varied selection. I added, The Beautiful Ones, The Day We Caught The Train and I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That). 
 
Moses added, Rockafeller Skank, Born Slippy and Red Alert.
 
And Caro added in Disappear, I'm Outta Love and Sexual Revolution.
 
As for Loulou and Tiger - they had Hey Boy Hey Girl, Ride on Time and 9pm (Till I Come) in there. That last song in particular had us all running around in their garden, singing along:

BOO-DOO-OO-OO-OOP
DOO-DOO-DOOOOEY-OO
BOO-DOO-OO-OO-OOP
DOOP-DOOP-DOOOOOOEY-OO

"I love the lyrics to this song," said Tiger.
 
Loulou clearly had an evening of singing along and dancing in mind. And she got it. Which is odd. Because while the five of us always have fun when we get together we usually end up having cups of tea and making rude jokes. And in my experience, if you try to make an evening of singing and dancing happen, you can't. 

But it turns out that you can. And Loulou did.  

Mo, Tiger and Loulou all reminisced about grungy flats, wild parties and drunken debauchery from back in their backpacker days and I listened attentively.

I love these stories. 

After this, I helped to build the fire in the fire pit. Which I am terrible at by the way. I killed it twice because I do not know what I am doing. So it was ironic that Loulou had (coincidentally) cued up this song at the same time and I ended up dancing around the fire pit waving my poker around* while joined by Caro. 

MEANWHILE - in developments on the other side of Wellington, Corrie's partner Siu was taking part in a hotdog eating competition! See the extras. You'll see Corrie comparing the hotdog to the length of her arm on the "Wall of Fame".

"People have died doing this," she added. 

My hotdog collage also includes a picture of the actual hotdog WITH FRIES, the terms of the competition and a bunch of drunken arseholes chanting EAT THE DOG EAT THE DOG EAT THE DOG which I videoed and sent to Siu to keep his spirits up.

Sadly, the last photo in that little collage is of Siu tapping out after 32 minutes. Still, it was a brave effort but failing to finish meant that he had to cough up the $50 price instead of getting it for free. Corrie reported that this wasn't ALL he coughed up later that evening. Oh dear.

Ellie was a part of this group chat about Loulou's party and Siu's hotdog adventure and she sent a question to the group that went like this:

ELLIE: Does anyone grow plants?
ELLIE: Wait. That came out wrong. Like does anyone grow indoor plants?
ELLIE: Wait.
ELLIE: F**k.
ELLIE: DOES ANYONE HAVE A GREEN THUMB AND KNOWS HOW NOT TO KILL PERFECTLY LEGAL PLANTS.

I replied thus:
ME: I asked the group.
ME: Answers: "Who gives an eff?", "You lost us at legal" and "You can eff off with your perfectly legal plants."
ME: Sorry Ellie. It's a tough group.

She took it well. 

Back at Loulou's party, she had us all wearing wigs and bantering away. To be clear, that last part was hardly difficult. We have not all been together for about 2 months so this was us picking up where we left off and catching up at the same time.

I had a really good chat with Tiger. As usual it veered all over the place but we got onto writing and podcasting and maybe even collaborating. That would be fun. 

And I reached that Zen state of inebriation. Where you are drunk enough to be very happy with yourself thank you, but not so drunk you need to spew in a bucket. 

It is a fine line.

So a wonderful evening and a lot of love to everyone. Even those of you who grow legal plants indoors. 

Oh, and groove IS in the heart.

S.

* I didn't put the innuendo there. Your filthy FILTHY minds did.