New Years 7 (I Slept In)

Man. Now that was a party. I've read my friends blogs for their wrap ups about New Years and only found Charlie doing it justice. The only kid who refuses to link my blog to his.
So I'll give my own run down. This will require me to pause my Tivo. That means it's serious.

There were so many people at my house. Probably about 40 at one point. Most of them I knew, but some were what I dubbed "randoms." My parents were surprisingly cool about all the crazy people.

It felt like a friekin fun house. On one part of our patio there was a hookah going, on another there was a keg, another there was an ice luge to take shots off, absynthe shots in the corner, the hot tub which went all night (props to our propane tank and James and Drew's determination with a hairdryer to get the furnace to light) and James's eight hour I-Pod New Years playlist made the night complete.

James pulled the annual prank, and we pulled the annual falling for it. Claire mastered the blackberry mojitos and even though all the boys taunted "Those are going to make you sick!", all the girls managed to hold their own. The boys definitely won out on number of people barfing the next morning.

We drained the keg of 150 cups of Newcastle by about one in the morning. One of my favorite points in the night was when my raucous friends and I were in the hot tub and my dad wandered by and found a red cup sitting by the pool, picked it up, and threw it into the pool. We found it at the bottom the next morning and he instisted he would never have thrown a full cup of beer into the pool. It was great.

The evening was then topped off by the Great Salsa Fight of 2005, or by that point I guess it was 2006. All I know is Drew had to get a ladder to wipe salsa off the cieling of our guest house. And a lot of it ended up on James's face and he didn't even wake up.

Then there was the fire alarm going off, which Charlie quickly and deftly disarmed from its perch ten feet above the floor, without spilling a drop of his beer. Then there was me getting hit on by one of the randoms. What a night.

There was the inevitable post-party trauma, but I managed to keep clear from it, mostly by being one of the only people who didn't throw up in the morning. I woke up to a beautiful 2006 morning, with a crisp morning fog rolling down the mountain, the sounds of birds chirping, and then of someone throwing up in the bathroom. I went outside and realized what the world really smelled like, and vowed never to go back into the guest house dungeon of stinky boys, salsa, and post-party puke.

Claire made a great quotable New Years quote when she started heading to the bathroom. "Someone's in there!" someone said. Claire's response was "OK. I'll throw up over the balcony then."

The other ever-present quote of the night was Drew validating everything with "Guys, I know because I go to SLO." Apparently an education at SLO makes you both an expert in kegs and everything else you might come accross. How do you get salsa off the cieling? "Guys, trust me. I know how. I go to SLO."

On New Years Day, Alex, Patrick, Drew, Justin and I went up to the main house and started cleaning up. I'm convinced Drew was still drunk at this point. He'd brought Gatorade as his hang-over cureall and bragged about it all night, how he would drink it right before bed and would feel fine in the morning. I guess that was all shot to hell when he started mixing it with Vodka and created a new drink with Adam called "Gatorka."

We thought we cleaned everything up, until I discovered a red bra draped over a patio chair. What the...? Someone made the obligatory "Wow, this was a great party!" comment until we discovered it was Alex's and it had gotten there by very innocent means.

I found red party cups all over my house and I'm sure my parents will for years to come. Besides the one still at the bottom of the pool that my dad threw, there was one on my mom's sewing machine in her office, one in my bedroom closet, a few on the back of the toilet, a few in random potted plants, and one up a tree.

The next evening a kid even drove back to my house at like nine at night and said he lost his cell phone. I actually couldn't even remember this kid being at the party, and told him politely that everyone has to experience losing a cell phone on a drunk night out once in their lives, and sent him on his way. Whoever he was.

The next morning my friends were all convinced my parents would not let me have another party for at least ten years, considering the sheer amount of throwing up and debauchery that went on. I sort of began to think the same thing, and Newcastle being my Dad's favorite beer could only count for so much.

When the last party-goers finally sobered up enough to leave (around 5 in the evening on New Years Day), I tiptoed up to see my parents. "So, guys..." i said... "Did you have fun?" There were quiet for a minute. Then my Dad said "We should do that every year!" My parents are awesome.