1001 Arabian Ideas

This party idea didn't start, as you might believe, with a trip to see Princess Jasmine.  She had yet to be created.  I had many middle eastern friends, and very happy memories of fooling around in a Parisian atelier with a very handsome Greek boyfriend, listening to Warda and Fairuz.  That may have given me confidence in my ability to interpret an entire culture in a two hour time slot, but that wasn't the reason.

The trigger for my #1 favorite party was listening to a friend describe the shock on the face of her 7 year old son when a belly dancer shimmied in front of him.  That image had been percolating in my brain for a while.  Pinky's first birthday after changing schools again (she transferred from Greenwich Academy to Convent of the Sacred Heart) needed to be a memorable one.  I had to invite the entire new class, old class, and old friends from Chapin, riding, and anything else.  The purpose was to reassure the old friends that they weren't forgotten, and show the new ones that we didn't live that far away (we did) to be included in playdates, and reassure the new mothers that I was one of them (I wasn't).  You already know from the foreshadowing that I hired a belly dancer.  But in my typical way, I lost my mind creating the atmosphere to make this act logical.

First, I found a great dancer (she was a kindergarten teacher in real life); she had a wonderful warm personality and while still in a caftan helped with the games and food management.  This paid off when she revealed herself to the children as a dervish of exotic dance and allure.  They only lost it times 100 - it could have been 1001.

I made a sensible plan to have low middle eastern tray tables, carpets and pillows on the floor, and food that only needed fingers: crudités, chicken nuggets, stuffed grape leaves, chips and juice boxes.  

Then I pondered the cake.  I must have been thinking like a pharaoh, a very big plan.  I decided to make an interpretation of middle eastern architecture, and considering my ambition vs. my equipment and skill, I did a pretty great job.  I ended up with a very large simulation of the Blue Mosque, sort of.  I made the main building by cooking the cake in a medium stainless steel bowl, then inverting it on top of a square cake chunk to create a dome shaped building.  Iced simply. It was good.  I then took it over the top by creating four Very Tall minarets from rickety stacks of oreos stuck together with icing, capped by pointy mallomars.  They were highly successful visually until you moved them.  I used tall skinny candles, and it took three of us to get the cake to the birthday girl without incident.  Fortunately it was devoured instantly leaving no time for negative commentary.  This creation only took me an entire day.

Necessity, The Mother of Invention

The morning of the party the scene was already set with the tables, etc. but somehow it didn't seem enough (are you surprised?)  We got out the ladder and I suspended colored votives from the chandelier.  Still needed more.  I rummaged around and found a 20 ft long piece of crimson scarf cotton.  It looked fabulous pulled across the walls, dropping the ceiling and adding a rosy glow.  To me, it still looked like Connecticut.  Here comes the genius idea.  I would use white tempera paint and create a lattice pattern into the French doors using a moorish design.  There were eight of these windows.  And I painted those suckers until the first car came down the drive.  Hours of labor.  Not a single person noticed.  I am certain that the experience had more romantic impact because of this, but I live in a Fool's Paradise.

Note Votives

You Can Just Make Out the Moorish Design in the Windows

Eventually I was satisfied.

BEARab Greeter

Princess Adelaide

The party guests were wonderfully costumed, though some left me scratching my head.  As always I took a portrait photo as they arrived, and then we began.  This time no pass the parcel.  First we played the game where you show an object they couldn't recognize and ask them to write down what they think it is.  Lemon zesters, melon ballers, old timey egg beaters, for example.  

Then we brought out a tray of 10 things and asked them to memorize them, then covered it up and saw who had guessed the most, adding another object each round.  Prizes were handed out and suddenly Egyptian music issued from the library around the corner where the dancer had de-caftaned and waited for her cue.  

 

As the music crescendoed she shot from her hiding place all spangles and hair and scarves.  She was beautiful, and her dancing was so unexpected that rather than fainting, the children broke into hysterical laughter.  After her amazing performance she taught all of us a version of a Bedouin dance, and, as you can see, they loved it.

The party broke up when one of the mothers arrived with a cute older brother in tow.  All the girls ran screaming into the library, afraid that they would be mocked for their dancing.  Little did they know what a valuable skill this could be in their adult lives.

Grandmother and Aunt Elizabeth

Ever Game Aunt Elizabeth and Pinky

*

Fairfield County, Genius Idea

While Pinky was thriving at her first K - 12 school (possibly the best of all of them), I started thinking about a move.  I thought I was thinking about a move to Connecticut in order for her to see more of at least one set of grandparents.  The truth was that, which I only truly understood recently, we were in the middle of the AIDS epidemic and I was beside myself with grief.  This was before there were really good drugs that could actually give you HOPE.  I had already lost at least ten of my friends, one of them my closest and oldest man friend.

Alex & Geoff St Paddy's Day

I still cry when I think about him and his partner.  All these brave, funny, creative people had vanished and the streets of New York looked like what they were; headquarters of a terrible plague.  I awoke every morning with a sense of panic.  Fear for my remaining vulnerable friends, and fear for Pinky.  She had spent three months in the hospital as a premie and had received numerous transfusions, all before they started testing the blood supply and letting you donate.  A more courageous person would have had her tested, but because there was no cure, and because we had already been through so many other stressful events in a mere six years, I couldn't bring myself to find out.  I also didn't want to condemn my sweet child to ostracism, a  common reaction to AIDS sufferers at the time.  I kept all that fear to myself and did both of us a disservice.  I waited until she was eight years old to get a medical opinion and the answer was, "Oh Mrs. Guest, you would have seen it by now.  She's perfectly healthy."  That was a colossal relief, but it didn't come in time to stop my move to Fairfield County.  
Because I didn't let myself see the real reason for moving, I would toy with the idea of a rustic country life "for the benefit of the family".  Each time we would spend the weekend in New Canaan with my husband's parents we would leave Pinky with them* and get realtors to show us houses.  I wasn't worried about being swept away because I had a peculiar requirement: an antique house but the walls had to be very big with no windows in order to accommodate the gigantic modern art we owned.  Where I loved the beauty of the antique houses, they almost always had rooms that were low ceilinged and walls that were taken up by pretty mullioned windows.  I failed to anticipate an antique with a modern profile.  And There It Was.  An incredibly romantic 19th century Mill House,

the sycamore is not dead

renovated by a stylish architect in the nineteen twenties.  It had two story French windows, oak paneled library, goat roasting fireplace, a second story formal dining room with views of the pond and enormous waterfall, office, maid's room, four giant bedrooms on the third floor and a staircase to help you make an Entrance.  I could find nothing to criticize.  Per my house kachina it was cheap because of an iffy location.

Irresistible

 So I made us move.  I was sure we'd have cozy weekends around the fire with friends from the city.  We would become their playground and every Sunday would be a pajama breakfast.  I was sooo wrong.  Nobody who was hip and child free (everyone we knew) wanted to spend the weekend watching the grass grow.  It might have been different if we'd had a pool, but probably not.  We got Pinky installed in the new school and tried to fit in.  Pinky and I were both a little too different, and her problems were compounded by still being way ahead academically.

Admired by All

  I made it worse for her by picking her up in our 1974 baby blue Cadillac ($250) with Fairuz of Lebanon or Los Lobos pounding out of the radio.  These were not my people, and I spent the rest of the year getting the lay of the land.  That meant I discovered hair bands and even tried very briefly to play golf, a sport I loathed thanks to my parents' obsession with it.  Pinky's birthday party became the locus of my alienation and I started worrying too much about it. 
I was terrified that I wouldn't impress the unknown parents and children.  Money grows on trees there and I discovered there was an intense competition for best of anything.  I also had to create an event that would include NYC friends who could stay for dinner or spend the night.  I assumed that they would have similar interests then found out differently.  I can no longer remember why I made a Come as a Bride Party.  I think it was a riff on a new friend's idea, but the origin is lost to me.   I was so worried that I went way overboard. 

I decided the Brides needed Grooms so I asked some of my husband's friends to appear in their tuxedos to pose for the arrival photos, they also were pressed into dancing with the brides as my insecurity grew and I hired a cocktail hour pianist.  

His was the first name in the yellow pages under musician (it wasn't Adam Ant) and he was cheap and cheerful.  I found out later that he was cheerful because he was an alcoholic.  This helped him get past his confusion about our party not being a wedding but having brides.  He played his four song repertoire of Noel Coward ballads and ate salty peanuts during the breaks, surreptitiously taking a pull at his pocket flask.

  That wasn't enough for me!  I ordered a four tiered sugary wedding cake from the ornate portfolio of the local Italian bakery. Except I had them make it PINK.  I controlled myself and didn't order the bridges and waterfalls that were tempting me like hell.  Then I decided we needed unique party favors and Pinky and I spent an entire day hand crafting charming little photo albums into which the bride photo would go. 
But wait, it's not over yet - what were the games?  I'd already had a bad experience with dancing so knew I couldn't rely solely on Noel Coward. 

I set up big tables laden with Modern Bride Magazines and scissors, glitter, glue and parchment paper and set the brides to making artistic masterpieces.  This only worked for the New Yorkers.  They were used to their indoor lives.  The Ct kids barely glanced at the art project and just ran out the door. Holy Smokes, this was a new problem for me, two disparate groups in two separate places, only one me, and as ever, other beveraging adults benevolently leaving it for me to take care of.  I decided that the indoor group were safe and ran out to find the runaways.  As I jumped through the front door I saw the most beautiful sight;  in the early bright spring light a cluster of gauzy sweet little girls leaned into the pond at the edge of the waterfall and two swans came up to greet them.  Amazing.  

Contemplation lasted a nano second as I screamed to them to get back in to play Pass the Parcel, the linchpin of behavior modification.
All went well thereafter, except that the new mom friends hated me for making such a lavish display.  I later discovered that the norm was to take the crew to the local indoor funland and stick them to the velcro wall.  That's where I wanted to be too, and I stopped the madness for a little bit, at least until the next party.....
I Forgot 
to follow the rule I learned in England - that it's the spirit in which something's done, not the reality
to think of more games
to trust myself
BUT
 if you want a stunning, delicious, over the top cake, call the Italians!
 

*There will be a chapter on leaving Pinky with her Grandparents - there is really that much to say about it