Holy...

I'm still recovering from Saturday night... It probably doesn't help that I'm a caffiend, and haven't had a lot, but still... Holy...!

You see, apparently I can miss people's deviousness, much to my chagrin and (in this case) pleasure.

As I'd blogged earlier, my birthday was on the 20th, and we went out to Mandarin Palace so I could have my free birthday drink and hang out. I then decided that it would probably be a good idea to have those who weren't able to join me on Tuesday due to work to come by on Saturday night, as it was the 1 year anniversary of the Palace, and would be a pretty grand time all around anyway.

Unbeknownst to me, Mishu already had plans... 3 weeks earlier, she'd gotten a list of all my friends that I'd like to have invited to such things as my wedding shower and bachelorette party. From me. Unwittingly, I'd handed her the golden key to create a surprise birthday party for me.

She called everyone on the list, and had everything set up - only to panic when I posted about the 1 year anniversary of the Palace and going. Fred (who normally cannot keep a secret to save his soul when it comes to birthdays) calmed her down, saying that everything was fine, that since I was planning on being there, to simply go ahead as planned.

Fred had insisted on going late to dinner, around 8-ish. I didn't think anything of it. In fact, it made some sense in my brain - get dinner, then go into the bar and immediately start singing. Lil and Kyla showed up and had dinner with us as well, and brought pressies. Apparently, I chose exactly the *right* chair, as I completely missed Mishu coming in and out of the bar looking for Lil no less than 3 times. LOL.

I was momentarily stalled in the foyer of the restaurant asking whether Kyla and Lil were going to join Fred and I, and then Fred popped his head in and said that Mishu was there. I walked in, along with Lil and Kyla, and was completely floored.

They'd sectioned off a corner for the group, and had brought a cake, and a tiara for me, and presents... It was totally awesome, and I was completely surprised. Even Ang' and Slasher showed up, which was awesome. Slasher's one of my friends from the "bad old days", and is a great guy. I'm glad I got to see his spiky-ness.

I got lots of pressies as well, something again, I wasn't really expecting. Lil got me a beautiful pair of silver filagree earrings, and a dreamcatcher keyring. Geoffrey (who unfortunatly couldn't make it due to a cold) drew me a hedgie bursting out of a cake, and Kyla got me bath stuffs. Yay!

Mishu got me a copy of "Love Actually", a beautiful silver wedding photo album, and a set of 4 scented candles (I can make everyone hungry without cooking!). I had totally forgotten to mention in my last birthday post that Fred had also gotten me two beautiful hair clips - one a silver and leather knotwork clip, and the other a silver knotwork hair bun thingie.

I also entered the Karaoke contest and got 2nd place, which earned me a $25 gift certificate to the Palace. There were t-shirts and stuff galore to be had as well - Fred and I made out like bandits.

I also ended up getting a LOT of drinks... Some guy decided to buy me a shot of whatever - so I shotgunned Irish Cream. I'd already had a cosmo and was working on a vodka-7... then another cosmo showed up, and I had been doing half-shots of rum as well... I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, so I was pretty fashnikered.

We ended up closing the bar and taking ourselves home. Luckily for Fred and I, we live within staggering distance of the Palace, so in the immortal words of Yellowbeard, we "Staggered LEFT! Staggered RIGHT!" all the way home. Thankfully we did not have to do the crawling part.

I had a slight hangover the morning after... Fred had a decent hangover the morning after (he'd had 3 hefe's, an Irish carbomb, and some rum). We both gave Speedboy some of the cake we brought home and gave him the day off from restriction, provided that he went away and was sugar-high elsewhere. *chuckle*

So, yes - this was definitely a birthday to remember, and a really good one at that. Thank you Mishu, who planned the whole thing, and to everyone else who joined in on the party and planning and showed. I had TONS of fun!

~M