December 14, 1990: Mom’s top secret surprise party at The Countryside Inn. Fact – Mom hated The Countryside Inn. That detail still irks me. Why would Dad have the party at an establishment she truly detested? But, at ten, all I cared about was my side ponytail. Dad said I could take my time adding Suave gel and hairspray to my arched bangs because we had to be casually late, ensuring that all guests arrived before us. I wore a dress with three floral ruffles, not realizing that the 80’s were, indeed, over.
Mom had intercepted an invitation and knew about the surprise for weeks; however, I still remember how genuinely surprised she was – green eyes wide, smile stretching from ear to ear – to see friends and family fill the dining room. Her mother Gert from Florida. Her best friend Toni from Hofstra. The Kindercare staff where she worked. David, my seven year old brother, clung to her thigh as she weaved through a sea of love, hugging everyone in attendance. Her voice, an octave higher to show her astonishment as well as her gratitude.
For me, the real party was in the bar of The Countryside Inn where Dad had hired a DJ. My side ponytail and I performed the Roger Rabbit, the Running Man, and every other 90’s dance move that still haunts us. I closed down the bar that night (again, at age ten).
Six months later, Mom and Dad were invited to Sam Felicia’s 40th shindig – the theme being the 1960’s. Mom bought a tie-dyed t-shirt from a kiosk in the Moorestown Mall and then tied one of Dad’s blue handkerchiefs around her forehead, becoming the hippie she never was in her youth (apologies – she did attend one “demonstration” at Hofstra protesting the Vietnam War). Dad, praising his ingenuity, dressed as a 60 year old with a grey wig, cardigan, and a cane. Every guest was to bring a gag gift, and Mom and I found a hideous felt Elvis picture and bought it off a guy selling junk on Rt. 206. The night of the party, the other neighborhood kids and I, feeling grown, got to stay at our house without a babysitter and eat Riviera pizza. My parents weren’t ones to regularly go out without me and David, so I remember feeling salty that they didn’t come home until 11:00 PM (just in time for Jim Gardener on Action News).
These are my two distinct childhood memories – Mom’s surprise party and Sam Felicia’s throwback – and are what resonate with me as I approach my own 40th birthday. Perhaps it’s because I did the math. Maybe as Mom joined me on the dance floor at The Countryside Inn, I thought about our thirty year age gap. “If I’m ten when she’s 40, then when I’m 40 she’ll be…” – math that seemed so foreign and futuristic that it could never be a reality. Maybe as Dad put on that stupid wig and dressed as an old man, I wondered what he would look like when 60 and (now) 70.
I’m not sad that I can’t have a 40th birthday party because of the pandemic/quarantine. I’ve never had any fun at a party that I have hosted, and I can cite countless examples: my eighth birthday/sleepover, my 13th birthday/sleepover (I may have to write a whole separate piece on how sleepover parties are terrible.), New Year’s Eve ’98 and ’99 (it’s never good when your friends pass out on the toilet), the 2011 work winter holiday party at Bilbo Baggins (15 of us got food poisoning). But, thanks to my creative theater friends in high school, I did have my very own surprise party for my 18th birthday. Instead of everyone shouting and cheering upon my arrival, the drama nerds played an operatic dirge and all pretended to be dead. It was epic yet absurd.
This is all a long-winded way of saying how the fuck am I forty! Time seems to pass by more quickly with each year, and there’s so much more I want to accomplish. I feel greedy. I want more time for everything, and I want to go back in time and watch it all in slow motion so as to maybe appreciate all those little moments, like when Dad threw Mom a surprise party at The Countryside Inn, and I wore a lot of gel in my ponytail.
Cheers to us 1980’s babies and our 40th year of life. Remember, we’re not over the hill just yet.
