(Revised and Updated!) …You saucy little minx, you.

The big story the family tells about the day my brother was born was that Cher was in the next room giving birth to Chastity.  The big story the family tells about the day I was born was that it was a record heat wave, the fancy chocolates my aunt had purchased were completely melted, and my mother (in a hallucinatory fog, apparently) burst into tears when she thought the doctor said I was a boy…recovering only to realize that she’d given birth to an ugly baby, albeit female.  My mother has since denied she ever said anything about my unfortunate greenish, misshapen appearance, and it’s possible my brother made that part up. 

So here we are some years later all grown up.  Well, grownupish, anyway.  And some lovely friends in the city joined me for a little party at Shalel Lounge.  Thanks to Marianne for setting it all up!  I’m still waiting for photos to come in from other cameras, but here are the best from mine.

Elizabeth Mahon, Liz Maverick, Hope Tarr looking like we’re modeling from the We Look Good AND Can Kick Your Ass collection.

 

LM & Alisa Kwitney, LM & Jody Novins, LM & Stacey Agdern, LM & Leanna Renee Hieber.  I should point out that with Jody being former-CIA and Alisa bringing her Mysterious Foreign Secret Agent cousin, the party was in good hands.  If only MI-5 had been there, it would have been like my very own (very special?) episode of Spooks.  The one about the novelist who gets mixed up in a terrorist scheme because she thought she was picking up a copy of the galleys for her latest book, but it was actually a dead-drop meant for a really hot international spy…you know the plot already, I’m sure.

Bouts of adorableness did transpire:  Scott and Megan Frampton and The Connected Blob Known As Jacob and Marianne…

Leanna, wearing the steampunk goggles she bought for me but that she secretly–or not so secretly–did not want to actually give up…

Arty, self-indulgent picture of me with great shot of my eye makeup.  (It’s my birthday.  I get to be self-indulgent)…

 

“I see your steampunk goggles, Leanna, and I raise them a tiara.”

Elizabeth and Leanna, later in the evening…

Marcos, sans Infamous Unitard.  We want proof, Marcos. 

Marianne and Leanna adorableness

Jacob and Marianne adorableness.  Sheesh, Marianne, what’s with the Excessive Adorableness?!

This is Bonni.  It’s come to my attention that I only seem to take pictures of Bonni with drinks in her hand.  And…here’s another one…

 

Megan and yours truly.

At the end of the evening, Megan, Scott and I (thank you, Megan and Scott for making sure I got home safely and did not accidentally wander down onto subway tracks just because there was something glittery there that looked interesting) stopped in at Gray’s Papaya for the traditional 3am post-party hotdog.  I kid you not when I tell you that two men walked in, one in completely normal clothes…the other man in full, authentic lederhosen.  And for some reason, in my post-party state, I thought it would be rude to ask a man at a hotdog shop wearing full lederhosen at 3am for a picture.  I only snapped his back.  Which, of course, doesn’t even begin to do his attire justice.  What was I thinking?  He was AMAZING from the front.

But there you have it.  Where in the world are you going to have a birthday celebration in an underground Moroccan lounge then walk home at 3am and stop in the hot dog shop to find a man in lederhosen?  New York City.  That’s where.  Thanks to all the wonderful people who joined me to help celebrate!!

Liz