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When you throw an 80′s throwback party, you best be throwin’ it right. Therefore, I present to you the Recipe for a Rockin’ 80′s Bash.
Ingredients: Dessert table complete with LiteBrite, old school candies, and cartoon plates from childhood (My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Hello Kitty, and Care Bears).
Mix in: Treat Bags. Every party guest we ever had while growing up went away with a sweet swag bag. These included the following: Blow Pops, Pop Rocks, Ring Pops (lots of popping went on), Candy Lipstick, Candy Dots, Those Plastic Bottle Thingys That You Bite & Weird Liquid Comes Out Of (I bet that’s the official name of them), Now&Laters, Sixlets, various 80′s cartoon Curly Straws/Pencils/Sharpeners/Notepads/etc, AND get ready for this……SLAP BRACELETS. Amazon sells an assorted pack of 50. You bet your ASS I ordered them. They were quite a hit; just ask Gipper the dog who rocked one on her tookus.
Garnish with: curly straws for all, bright hanging lights for the patio, and a sweet 80′s playlist. (No Photos Available)
Bake for 30 minutes in an Easy Bake Oven, sprinkle on an 80′s child birthday girl, and PARTY ON!
Fic D
Yo all you rad dudes and tubular dudettes! For those of you that have been following for awhile, you know that every year I do a special birthday post for my big sister Candiballs. Well the post started getting gnarly hard since I like lists based off of the age she’s turning, and she’s getting super sonic old. However, this is a special birthday since Candiballs is now an official member of the dirty thirty club, so the special birthday post tradition must continue.
The year of Candi’s descent down the one way street also known as my mom’s birth canal was 1981. This is epic when you think of the awesomeness that was the 80′s, and how she got to witness 9 totally bodacious years of it in her childhood. So in the typical Fic D birthday post fashion, I present to you a list of thirty things that Candi got to witness that no one under 30 did since we/you were a) in utero, b) still a seed in the sac waiting to commence the ultimate swim for your life.
Candi was there when:
1. The first time the word “internet” was used (and shockingly, it was not by Al Gore)
2. The nuptials of Princess Diana & Prince Charles took place when she was 8 days old (first an ugly prince wed, and now a prematurely balding one did)
3. Researchers found the wreck of the Titanic (and frozen Jack on his door was nowhere to be found, nor was the Heart of the Ocean, nor was Celine Dion singing ballads in the background…sads)
4. The first American test-tube baby was born (and then later came me!…oh wait, that was in a petri dish…)
5. The invention of Post-Its! (Who knew Romy & Michelle were that young when they came up with that special glue?!)
6. MTV was launched. Candi lived 11 days without MTV existing. I bet she cried in her crib the first time Video Killed the Radio Star came blaring through the old Magnavox. Then came Carson Daly and his douchebaggery and all was right with the world.
7. Adam and the Ants was a popular band. Ummm…who?
8. Gas was at $1.25 per gallon. No wonder Candi calls BS at the BP; she remembers the good ol’ days.
9. A woman (gasp!) was seated as a Supreme Court justice. Shit finally started getting done.
10. Tom Cruise made his acting debut. He was soo excited that he went home and jumped on the couch for hours.
11. Fashion changed from tight on top and loose on bottom, to loose on top and tight on bottom. Hellooooo stirrup stretch pants!
12. My Little Ponies, Sprinkles and Applejack, were all the rage (giving children unrealistic expectations of one day owning a purple horse with pink hair since 1981)
13. Babies didn’t play with rattles; they had rubiks cubes.
14. The U.S. Army started the catchy jingle that you should “Be all that you can be in the army”. Candi decided she would BE as bodacious as she could BE in her scrunchy.
15. Things were ON like DONKEY KONG. Oh, and eventually Frogger…
16. “9 to 5″ by Dolly Parton was a hit. Now Candi works 9 to 5 and wants to hit someone.
17. George and Weezy began their climb up to the East side, to a DEE-LUX apartment in the sky. This show made naive white people feel culturally aware.
18. The first IBM-PC was released and that shit was hi-tech. Candi typed her papers on a typewriter until prices came down. Translation for young people: it’s kinda like how we held on to the Motorola Razr until we could afford a smartphone.
19. Miss Ohio won Miss USA. I bet that was the last time anything associated with Ohio was viewed as anything other than shitty.
20. The wedding of Luke and Laura on General Hospital was the second most watched wedding next to the royals. Looks like this was the beginning of wedding-obsessed television junkies. Hello TLC, you now have a network concept.
21. Nutrasweet hits the market. Looks like Candi ate real sugar for a little while, so that means she has seen this market go full circle: real sugar, to fake crap, back to everyone should eat/drink real sugar. It’s been a confusing time for all of us.
22. The farewell CBS newscast from Walter Cronkite took place and Dan Rather took over. Candi and I will both shed tears of agony when it’s Mark Suppelsa’s time to step down. Truth.
23. “You Can’t Do That On Television” was launched on Nickelodeon, and Candi probably saw the first contestant slimed in history.
24. Disney released “The Fox and the Hound”. Candi was among the first to sing along to “When We’re the Best of Friends”.
25. There was an ark that was lost, and alot of people went to see it raided. Alot of people.
26. The Sony Walkman was a hot find because damn those kids, they had to have their music wherever they went! Candi probably carried her extra cassette tapes in her nylon fanny pack that was probably shaped like a strawberry.
27. A world existed without mobile phones for the first 2 years of her life. Even then, she didn’t get her own for at least another 16 years after that. She had to physically write notes to friends instead of texting, AND she had to use (get ready for this) a LANDLINE. The shame!
28. A world also existed where CD players were too expensive for most, VCR’s were considered pretty advanced, and microwaves were not common in kitchens. Candi lived before Britney CD’s and Easy Mac, aka, before civilization.
29. A world also existed, for only one year on the dot, without the awesomeness of Candi’s tubular friend Shannon Haas! How Candi made it without her trusty sidekick I will never know. Thankfully all of us who are under 30 have had a fulfilling life of her constant presence. Happy birthday to Shannapantz!
30. Unlike all of us youngins, Candi and Shannon were on the cutting edge of 80′s expressions. They pioneered the movement, and definitely/probably said all of the following things:
- Barf me out!
- Take a chill pill
- Don’t have a cow
- You’re such a dweeb
- No duh
- Psyche! or Sike!
- To the max
- Upchuck
- I’m stoked
- Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun
Happy 30th Candi and happy 29th Shan! You’re both two totally bitchin’ bodacious babes.
Sprinkles, Candles, and Kool-Aid,
Fic D
photo from le Bakery Sensual
I don’t get it.
I see why drinking a nice glass of wine is viewed as more civilized than pounding back a slippery nipple shot with a Jack and Coke chaser.
I also see why sipping something slowly is more socially acceptable than performing a keg stand or being crowned beer pong champion of the world (or at least of America…the world champ probably resides in China. Let’s be honest.)
What I do not get is the whole production behind the wine drinking/tasting/etc. First there are travels to various vineyards that all boast of special grape growing technologies and fertile soils. Then there are trips into elaborate cellars where ceremonious uncorkings of “rare vintages” take place. Then the wine needs to breathe as if it’s a living organism. You can tell me all you want about special grape growing technology, but no modern science has developed a strain of grapes with lungs and capillaries and crap. No. Way.
So the wine “breathes” courtesy of a really fancy and expensive decanter of some kind. Then it’s poured very gingerly into the special goblet/globe glass/stemless crystal made from the tears of baby seahorses/etc. Oh yeah, and don’t even THINK about filling it past where the widest part of the glass is. You heathen.
Then there’s the swirling and the wafting. Or is it the wafting and then the swirling? Oh crap I forgot and now I’m going to have to start over!
So riddle me this: does the swirling really aid in the intake of oxygen that your tiny grape lungs get? Also, how far does one stick their schnoz into the stemware in order to really smell the grapes/woody accents/chocolate hints/ambrosia and nectars from the teet of the gods?
That leads me to another point. Does any normal alcohol-drinking, non-wine connoisseur really taste all of those things? I’ll tell you what, I have sipped a two-buck chuck from good ol’ Trader Joe’s as well as a $200 bottle of something that my uncle will be disappointed in me forgetting the name of, and you know what? It all tastes the same. (GASP!)
I know everyone is different, but to me, red wine tastes like the drinking fountains in the Rock. If you ever sipped from the faucets of the Knute Rockne Memorial Gymnasium at ND, you know what I’m talking about. The water tastes like Iron (or blood). I should drive to South Bend right now, fill up some bottles, dye it red, slap a label on that shit, and start a business.
Back to being real here, there is no nutty accent, no chocolately remnants, and no scent of the live oaks whose roots shared the same soil as your precious grapes. Is a complex state-of-the-art irrigation/filtration/sprinking system really that much better than a big garden hose? Do they fertilize with the toenail clippings of mere babes, or do they dump a little MiracleGro on those bitches? Who’s to say?
I’m not trying to be a hater, but while all of you winos sniff and swirl, I’m quite content over here unattractively sucking mint leaves up the straw of my mojito and throwing back a couple redheaded sluts.
Cheers!
Fic D
I didn’t die. I have been lost in a sea of taffeta, tulle, and tulips. This is also known as the whirlwind wedding season.
So I’m writing to you from the trenches, because you see, this whirlwind is not quite over. I am happy to say though that I have joyously witnessed the wedding of a cousin, had the honor of standing up in the weddings of three of my best friends (in three different states), and travelled to the Carolinas with the bf as he stood up in his long-time friend’s wedding. Now tonight I will attend the wedding of a co-worker, I will be doing the same next Friday as well, and then the weekend after that I will be attending the wedding of a hometown friend. You heard it people: EIGHT weddings this summer.
I’m pretty professional at this point. I have mastered the clinking of the glass to get the bride and groom to kiss. Hell, I even have perfect pitch. I have also sampled so many wedding cake varieties I believe I could identify them in a blind taste test or host a show on TLC. I can feign enthusiasm over the Cupid Shuffle and Cha Cha Slide like no other, and I am an awesome letter C in the YMCA. I’m getting eerily good at predicting first dance songs, I can expertly identify which MOH’s and Best Men will give great speeches, and which will fall flat on their faces before they even get the mic, and I have collected an impressive array of wedding favors that include embroidered hankies, shot glasses, stemless wine glasses, chocolates, candy-filled Chinese take-out boxes, soaps, etc. I also caught the bouquet at one of my bff’s weddings (event hough I had to wrestle a child for it). I have to admit that it was the only time I actually tried for it (and it didn’t hurt that my friend was aiming it right at me!).
I have actually had tons of fun at at all of these weddings and related festivities. Many people ask if it’s getting old, but really, how can you not get at least a little caught up in the excitement of weddings, no matter how many you’ve been to? It’s all about happiness, love, dancing, drinking, and spending time with friends and family. Yes, it gets somewhat repetitive, but that’s where the couples’ personal touches and small details make it special.
The one thing I AM sick of though, is the constant questioning of “When are you and Josh getting married?!” While I’m glad people are eager for our future nuptials, I have heard this question so many times that I’m afraid the next person that asks me is going to get a quick junk punch when he least expects it and when he slumps down in agony saying, “WHYYYYY?!” I can reply, “You know why!”
(One of the best movie lines ever)
Cheers to champagne and wedding cake!
Fic D
