That's what everyone hollered when my sister Dina returned home last night.
Of course she already knew we were there. All the cars in the driveway and the front yard would have given it away, even if she hadn't already seen the party noted on someone's calendar.
But when she and Kenny pulled into the driveway, we turned off all the lights anyway. And we all hid in the kitchen anyway. And we all hollered surprise anyway.
It's the thought that counts, right?
The occasion was Dina's birthday party. The actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, but nobody wanted to get plastered on Thanksgiving eve, so the party was last night.
Most of the usual suspects were there, with the notable exceptions of my cousin Jeff, who apparently hasn't figured out how to use his voicemail, and BadPickleGirl, who was stuck at home with a sick child.
Yes, I was very disappointed that BadPickleGirl wasn't going to be there. I'd been looking forward to seeing her and talking with her. I'd also planned to introduce her to The Reverend.
Speaking of The Reverend, that's what my first beer was (202). I'd originally thought that it would be my only beer, but I drank it fairly quickly and surprised myself by wanting more.
I spent the first couple of hours inside the house watching Nick at Nite with some kids. The other adults were outside either freezing to death or huddled in front of Dina's fancy new outdoor fireplace.
Then my friend Eric's wife Teri came in, so I had someone to talk to. SpoonsGirl joined us inside for a while too. I got the number for SpoonsGirl's brother, VegasDude. Since I'll be there next week I may look him up.
Since Eric hadn't shown up yet, Teri was out of beer. And since I'd finished mine, I was out of beer. So we went on a beer run to this little store in Greenville. They actually had a few beers that looked interesting. I chose one that was new to me:
(bottle) Clear bronze. Good head and lacing. I got hints of several spices and unusual flavors, most notably of vanilla. Very easy to drink. Very good.So I liked that a lot. I know that most of the PBDs I know would sneer at it because of who makes it, but that's their loss. More for me.
By the time we got back to Dina's, Eric had shown up. So I had someone else to talk to.
Then at one point everybody went inside the house to play some game but Teri and I stayed out by the fireplace and talked for a couple of hours. I had a second bottle of the Blue Moon Winter Ale (24).
Oh yeah, I got to talk to HatGirl early in the evening. They were going to Buckhead's and she wanted to know if there were any good beers there. I told her that I hadn't been there in months, but that they'd always had at least one or two beers that weren't swill.
Then later on I texted HatGirl to see which beer(s) she'd chosen but she texted me back saying that they hadn't gone after all. They'd gone to Rich O's.
At around midnight or so the last of the party guests started leaving, and I came home.
