springtime in Silver Spring

I have a confession to make: I have never planned a successful birthday party. The last true "birthday party" I had involved pre-pubescent girls (and our one token guy friend) wearing gobs of glitter and dancing to Nsync and Backstreet Boys on my deck. I remember seeing 14 candles on the cake and knowing that I would have to heave in gobs of air to blow that many candles out.

Fast forward to 2010. For the first time since I could legally buy lottery tickets, I am in the throes of trying to gather a group together for my birthday. I have tried doing this in years past, but previous attempts have been thwarted by life's little details. Consider 2008, when a botched Facebook invite got sent out the DAY of my party. Ooops. Or 2009, when the invite got sent out three days before the big day.

My ADD and dislike of decision making has also traditionally slowed the party planning process. There are so many CONSIDERATIONS to make, like:
a) where to go
b) what to do
c) **most importantly** who to invite

After spending a solid week perusing Yelp, I have finally made invitations, sent out said invitations, and picked both a restaurant and a bar. This might seem really miniscule and not important to some of you, but to me this is a giant leap forward in becoming a real, competent person who can do real, competent things like get a bunch of people to a restaurant on a certain day for a certain birthday. This is the first birthday party to not involve goodie bags.

Second issue: the non-responders. The nonresponders seem to be comprised of a variety of people. The non-interested, the Facebook averse, and the unsure all seem to fall into this category. I think I will lurch them later on in the week. I could send them an email that says "Respond, non-responders!" or I could sit here and count them as "not coming." Hmmmph. From now on I am responding to all of my Facebook invites- be it "yay" or "nay." "Not responded" is the trickiest category yet.


Maybe this is people's passive aggressive way of telling me that they don't want to come. Or, maybe, some people are just Facebook averse. Or maybe it's both. Either way, I will deal kindly with the non-responders until mid-week next week. No need for quick assumptions or judgments. Hate and anger will only turn around to bite a chunk out of my behind. And, as many of you know, despite being Italian, I need all the behind I can get.

To sum up:
I have oodles of gratitude towards the respondants, and
I am working on my unWashingtonian patience skills by being kind to the responders, and
this party may be me and my boyfriend eating cheesecake in bethesda, or
it may be amazing.

Only time will tell.