Party Hardy

Well my housemate had his 30th on the weekend, and the house was all decked out - beautiful flowers, tea lights at dusk, chinese lanterns strung across the courtyard. We had the extended family of my other housemate here, pitching in to help cook and prep, like some big extended family getting ready for a huge fiesta. It was family ahoy, none of them mine, and quite lovely to see someone have a significant milestone shared with people they care about. I drank a little too much later in the night after having been a model of gracious hostieness complete with carrying dips plates through clusters of other people's work mates and nannas before that. Mostly. Didn't help that we discovered a few bottles of moet in the esky at the end of the night. Knew I was tipsy when I held up a bromeliad and emphatically explained to friends who have recently moved to the area just how wonderfully they grow, just how little water you need to give them, how versatile they are in low light areas. I insisted they stick their finger into the nub of the leaves and stroke the damp softness of new buds clustered furrily together. Which they did. Uh huh. As you do. (Horticultural advice is emerging as one of my favourite drunken topics, a month ago I went out on a Friday night and ended up walking arm in arm with a nice young gay man, waxing lyrical about the joys of perennial Greek basil compared with the big leaf annual kind. Want to know more? Just ply me with alcohol and I will reveal all sorts of plant secrets). Also went out Friday night and stayed out till dawn, mingleicious, loungeroom-dancing-licious. Met some nice folk from a certain environmental activist organisation, including some people off an anti-whaling boat that had swung into our lovely harbour that day. Watched cute little yearnings and couplings, heard about people's life epiphanies, discussed hair cuts. Was a little surprised to have an activist type comment on my hairy armpits (you work for a climate campaign for a big greenie organisation for goodness sake - are you tellling me you've never seen a hairy armpitted woman before?? Really.).