PARTY!

I LOVE PARTIES!

It’s 3am right now, and I can’t sleep. Last night, I hosted my son’s 7^th grade Holiday Palooza with forty children running between my living room and greenhouse, sloshing snow and ice all over because there was a constant snowball fight going on outside with kids in and out all night.

Why am I awake?

Because I became so overtired from the stress of this week, that in the middle of the night, my little cat was sleeping above my head on my pillow and I touched her paw and for some reason thought it was a dead mouse. I leaped out of bed and ran around turning on lights, but never found a dead mouse, only fluffy paws. But I’m having trouble falling asleep again.

So… what was I thinking? Oh right, I love parties!

My sister is the opposite—she hates parties… and people…and anything associated with parties.

And planning parties and even attending parties stresses some people out.

But for me, parties light up the dark.

Even at 8-years-old, I remember going to the library and checking out books on party planning. I would spend hours carefully reading about quiet games and loud games, indoor and outdoor, taking notes on my favorite ideas for quiet indoor parties or loud outdoor parties.  I frequently had parties in elementary school and high school, and when I moved to LA and lived in the Royal Palace, our parties were legendary.

Some people get stressed out planning parties, but for me, party planning de-stresses me.

I love throwing out last minute invitations and whoever shows up shows up.

For example, when I lived at the Royal Palace with Kim, we had a rose garden and one day, pesky aphids appeared.  I couldn’t believe it when the garden store told me the solution to aphids is ladybugs. REALLY? LADYBUGS? Those adorable little red and black bugs covered in polka dots, bringing good luck with them?

Also, I thought Ladybugs were wild, but apparently you can buy containers of them at gardening stores!!??? WTF??  I can just march right out and buy good luck for $5? Give me a thousand!!

Just like a fairy tale story, the best time to release them is twilight, coincidentally twilight is well known among fairies as “Magic Hour”, the time between light and dark when everything looks soft pink and purple and it’s a good time to look for miracles.

When I came home from the garden shop with a jumpy container full of ladybugs, it didn’t seem right to release them with no fanfare, so I had an impromptu “Releasing of the Ladybugs Party”.

I put on my antennas and ladybug tutu in honor of our new garden guests, and got the rose garden ready by cleaning off the post-bloom roses and making a path from my door to the garden with their petals.

By twilight, the sky was bright pink, the air was warm and smelled of jasmine and honeysuckle, which we had growing all over our house. Friends started showing up  and we went out on the back porch. I held up the ladybugs like they were a torch in the darkness and said, “Welcome Ladybugs, to the Royal Palace rose garden! We release you to your new home, and wish you many happy hours. I took off the lid and thought they would flutter out like butterflies, but they didn’t. They stayed where they were. I set the container on the wooden planks and allowed the Ladybugs to find their way to the rose garden on their own time.

And since Ladybugs are lucky, that particular party was a win-win.

On my 26^th birthday, I had a Breakfast at Tiffany’s party and had everyone dress in Black Tie with gloves and long cigarette holders and boas. One of our friends was a professional piano player and he played on the battered red piano I had found for free at some old club that was going out of business.

And then there was the Bar Mitzvah/ Coming of Age party I had for my cat Coco.

My dear friend and Hollywood legend, Chuck E. Weiss gave me a kitten. I told him I couldn’t have any pets as I was allergic and traveled too much, but he insisted a cat would change my life for the better and he was right. He had me over to see a litter of kittens being fostered by his neighbor. The tiny runt of the litter, (of course, I always take in the runt, the hurt, the different) climbed right up on my chest and touched his tiny pink nose, about the size of a ladybug, to mine, and the choice was clear—he had picked me.

If ever a cat was a soul mate, Coco Bojangles was mine. He was the snuggliest cat and would lay in my arms for hours, staring into my eyes with his big blue eyes.

When I had dance rehearsals at my house, I would hold him in my arms while spinning, turning and jumping, and he bunch himself up like a stuffed animal and happily purr the entire time. Everyone marveled at this extraordinary cat, even people who professed to hate cats. I can’t even tell you how many animals he saved, because people would meet Coco and then run to a shelter to adopt two cats for themselves.

I named him Coco because he was the color of hot cocoa, and Bojangles because when he stretched out his perfect little paws, he would cross them at the toes like a dancer. So when Coco turned one, and he was graduating from kitten food to cat food, I wanted to honor his transition to cathood, so I threw him a Birthday party/Bar Mitzvah. In those days you couldn’t run out to your nearest pet store and find a yamika for your cat, so I made him one out of the wrapper for a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup which was the perfect size for his head. I made invitations with his photo on the front and passed them out to all who knew and loved him. I invited the neighbor children who loved him to come for the beginning, and I made a large poster covered in his kitten photos.

Because no party (or day really) is complete without me wearing something totally crazy, or performing something totally crazy, I created a dance to honor the occasion. I put on the invitation: “Come see Coco’s Mom do the “Coco is no longer a kitten” dance!” This dance entailed me dancing in one of my costumes from Eating Raoul, wearing a hat with cat ears.

Guests showed up with royal gifts: catnip, cat toys, scratching posts… Coco laid on the back of the couch with his eyes half closed, looking lazy and bored like gluttonous royalty, (which he most definitely was), while me and all of my friends performed for him. The show included opera, poetry, acrobatics, contortions, and dances wearing different costumes and wigs.

When Kim and I moved to the Royal Palace, we hosted so many parties I can’t even remember most of them. My favorite was probably our first holiday party where we asked everyone to bring “Something to perform involving marabou.” We put a sign out front that said: “Welcome to the land of Ho-Ho-Ho’s (they are everywhere).”

As all our friends were professional actors, musicians, poets, dancers, circus performers, the talent show was incredible. We welcomed anyone and everyone into our small palace, even the police, who showed up on our doorstep when a neighbor called them. When I heard the doorbell ring between numbers, and I opened the door to find adorable cops on my porch, I cheered and jumped up and down, opening the door wider to let them in. They laughingly told us to just keep it down and kindly turned their flashing red lights on for us do we could take some photos on their festive car. 

We opened the talent show with Hollywood punk legend, Pleasant Gehman, dressed as the Sugar Plum Fairy—she came prancing out wearing a rainbow ribbon tutu and throwing candy to everyone in a tutu to the Sugar Plum Fairy song by Tchaikovsky.

Beautiful Gabrielle was our MC and introduced each number wearing a huge feathered headdress.

Gorgeous Belly Dance Superstar Sonya performed a beautiful chair dance; Miss Exotic World Burlesque dancer, Kina, did a surf gogo set wearing black fringe;

The Flying Morgans, our circus friends, did comedic spoofs of all the other dances.  My own performance, a duet with my dear bestie Dolphina, ended early with both of holding ice packs on our heads and lying under the Christmas tree—we had knocked heads so hard in our dance that we almost knocked each other out. But at least the ice packs matched our outfits.

I remember lying in my big pink bed after the party at 5am, the floor covered in so many feathers that Pleasant said it looked “like the day after Thanksgiving on a psychedelic turkey farm.” The Flying Morgans stood at the end of my bed and ended up improvising an entire slow-motion silent movie era fight with each other, before quietly letting themselves out as the sun rose. I have many wonderful memories of those parties.

A few snippets:

1) Famous Persian dancer, Mohammed Khordadian came to our housewarming party and fell asleep at midnight. I put on a crazy record album of greek music that sounded like the chipmunks on speed, and Kim put his bright orange shoes on her hands and did a hilarious dance, pretending the shoes were making her dance when she didn’t want to. The shoes dragged her all over the house and we followed her from room to room laughing at her antics. I still remember the ache in my stomach and my face going numb from laughing so hard for so long.

2) The Flying Morgans pretended our hallway was an airplane with an open window and they were getting sucked out and fighting to stay in the plane.

3) Belly Dance Superstar Jillina would try out her earth-shattering new drum solos in my living room! Talk about raising the roof!! She is a mind-blowing dancer!!

4) We all sat in a circle in the “library”, passing around Kim’s John Denver album. We took turns holding the album over our faces and pretending we were John Denver talking.

5) When people fell asleep, we would call their home answering machine and record them snoring—this brought us endless entertainment.

Even now, all these years later, when I plan a party, it feels like I’m yelling “Expecto Patronus!” and here comes a party, galloping with all its light and laughter, blasting out all darkness.

And so now my kids are planning their own parties and calling in the light. Last night Henry had his Holiday-Palooza.

This was his plan:

1. Sparkling cider poured by Bartender Annabelle while Sinatra Holiday music plays.
2. Hot Cocoa Bar with whipped cream and sprinkles.
3. 80’s Music Dance Party (apparently no one else in 7^th grade listens to Sinatra OR 80’s music, so Henry, Annabelle, and I were the only ones who knew the songs, so we mixed it up with current music.
4. Pizza.
5. Snowball Fight.
6. More dancing and a G-rated version of Seven Minutes of Heaven
7. Hot Fudge Sundae Bar

I didn’t have any money to decorate, (I’m out of funds until this brutal divorce settles), so I bought silver, black and white balloons and they floated along the ceiling and that was the décor. I raided my teaching pantry for edible glitter and sprinkles, and though I longed for some gorgeous William Sonoma hot cocoa accessories, I just bought marshmallows and whipped cream at a regular store and my friend, Coco came over to make it all look colorful and enchanting.

And it was perfect.

And as luck would have it, I have a bestie here in New England named Coco! Coincidence? Maybe. I met her when I first moved back here feeling sad about leaving the sparkle and glamour and whimsy of New Orleans, and we were both walking the runway in the Stephen Jones Hat Show at PEM. This show had some powerful magical moments. For example, I was asked to model the purple fedora Mr. Jones designed for Dita Von Teese, my style icon and fellow burlesque dancer. And another magical moment of the hat show, I met the ever-glamorous Coco.

Did we become friends because she shared the same name as my beloved Coco? Do they share pieces of the same soul because they are both named Coco? Or do I have some secret invisible signal attached to me that attracts souls named Coco? Or am I destined to always have a Coco next to me on this journey through life?

I don’t know. All I do know if that Coco is walking right next to me through life’s trials and tribulations, always stepping up to help me make our parties beautiful, with beauty, grace and elegance. And maybe even bringing me good luck, like a ladybug.

If Coco was a bug, she would DEFINITELY be a lady.

And I love the holidays because I feel like the world is joining me in my view of the world—as a place where light and sparkles and beauty blast out the darkness and there are a million reasons to celebrate at any given moment.

So it’s obviously time to start planning our next party.