The Pink Shoe Diaries

What I learned this weekend:

1)You're never too old for drunk drama
2)Honesty really IS the best policy
3)Just because a knife can't cut bread, doesn't mean it can't cut through your fingernail
4) Trivial Pursuit 80s edition is addictive.

Lucky for me I learned all these life lessons in the span of one night!!

On Sunday night Adam and I hosted an indoor bbq/housewarming party. Earlier in the afternoon I was cutting up a loaf of whole wheat sourdough to make a bread bowl and was having a bastard of a time. Word to the wise: Miracle Blades ain't no miracle. Of course dull knife + impenetrable bread crust = slicing the top of my pointer finger so badly that I cut all the way through my fingernail. It hurt horribly, but what hurt more was the fact that I bled all over the bread I had just so nicely cubed. Thank god the veggies at least were out of the way or the whole bread bowl idea would have been a wash.

The party itself was a success. Our guests arrived atround 7 and we drank wine and listened to music, and caught up on the Fancher's honeymoon details (they recently returned from a Carribean cruise). Dinner was served (hamburgers, chicken satay and potato salad folliowed by Jeanne's DIVINE cupcakes). We spent the last half of the night playing Trivial Pursuit, 80s edition (LOVE IT). All in all, a great night.

Now, let me ask you. Does a group of 9 adults sitting around sipping wine and playing a board game sound like a crazy party? I didn't think so. But apparently we sounded wild and out of control because soon after we bid our guests goodnight around midnight, my enraged downstairs neighbor appeared at my back door screaming at me. Apparently Adam had gone into the bedroom and noticed the guy below us had his techno music up SUPER LOUD (as he usually does late at night, usually prompting Adam and I to go down there at 1AM on weeknights and ask him to turn it down). Anyway Adam had banged on the floor as a sort of "STFU" to the guy below and within seconds he was at our door, screaming at me because apparently we were SO LOUD having a CRAZY PARTY and he couldn't sleep AT ALL and how dare we tell him his music is too loud when we are much louder.

I was all "Sir I am confused". Because I didn't think we were loud at all, and no one had said anything to us to contradict that. In my mind, if he thought we were being SO LOUD AND CRAZY with all that outrageous wine sipping and tumultous board game playing than he should have come up and said something instead of bitching at us after the fact. Furthermore I don't think that having a party on a non weeknight that ends before midnight is so CRAZY. To me, it is CRAZY to be our age and still listening to so much techno all the time.

Anyway after he pretty much screamed and left, Adam came into the kitchen and I was all "You just missed a show" and while I was explaining that our new downstairs neighbor is both an idiot and in hate with us, he stormed downstairs to yell at him for yelling at me. I didn't want him to go down because nothing ever got resolved after midnight when half of the people in the argument are half in the bag. But Adam could not be stopped. Soon I heard yelling and arguing downstairs and was not sure what to do. It sounded BAD. I was afraid it would come to fisticuffs since Adam does not like people yelling at me and was in DEFENSE mode, and Techno Boy I think was on drugs of some kind. When Adam returned and told me nothing (obviously) had been resolved I decided enough was enough. So even though I was in my nightgown and leopard bathrobe, and had already taken my hair down and it was a total nest of a mess I stomped down those stairs and knocked on his door. When I heard his furious "WHAT NOW!" I faltered for a minute, but I love my new apartment and no testy neighbor was going to ruin it for me by making me hate the building we live in.

When he answered, I told him that this was dumb. We all lived together and we shouldn't have to fight like this when really it's just a breakdown in comunication. I explained to him that almost every night last week we had to ask him to turn his music down late at night on WEEKNIGHTS but we know he is not used to having people live above him so we were trying to cut him some slack. He told us that he walls are so thin that when we walk around he can hear every move we make. I know how annoying that is, in our last apartment we lived below bowling elephants. And I told him as much. I then paused to introduce myself since I didn't even know his name and we shook hands and he actually thanked me for coming down. We agreed that in the future it is best to just nip the problem in the bud and if he thinks we are too loud, the TV is too loud, whatever then he should feel free to come on up and ask us to turn it down and we will always be HAPPY to do so, if we can do the same in return.

So we left it as friends. I told him we should all hang out sometime and he said next time he is outside smoking a cigarette I should stop and have one with him.

So there we have it people: I can cut my finger in half, throw a party, play a reasonable game of TP AND mend relationships between men in ONE NIGHT, armed only with a bottle of Chardonnay.

Damn, I'm good.