Rock the Casbah

Last night my cell phone rang at 6:30. Our friend Kamy was calling to talk us into going to an 80's dance party that started at 8. "I don't have anything to wear, Kamy," I protested.
"Yes you do! Wear what you wore to my birthday party two years ago!"
"When I wasn't 7 months pregnant?"
"Oh yeah."
This isn't the first time Kamy has conveniently forgotten about my baby bump when trying to persuade me to do something in her best interest. For example, before we hopped into the van to go to Mexico together, she wanted an estimate of how many margaritas and Tecates we'd drink each day. "Can't you just take a few days off?" she asked when I reminded her. You'd never guess she's also our midwife.

Anyway, before I had hung up with her, another friend, Carrie, stopped by on her way to the dance party. As one of the organizers, she was getting an early start. She wanted to show Zephyr her heavy makeup and Elmer glue'd mohawk so he wouldn't be frightened when he saw her at the party. That cinched it; we were going.

As you can see, we came up with some costumes, low-key as they were. I guess we were going with a break-dancing theme. I sent Jon out to the garage to spray-paint my sweatshirt while I hustled Zephyr into his Converse. (He was the only member of our family with appropriate footwear.) He was a little confused about why he couldn't wear his overall straps up on both shoulders, but didn't put up a fight. He was looking forward to the party.

We loaded up and headed to where I thought the party was, but the people in the parking lot really didn't seem... 80's. Jon eyed the cowboy hats and prom dresses and ventured a guess, "Maybe the 80's weren't the same everywhere?" A security guard came and told us it was a quincienera and that they were already full to capacity. I am so relieved we didn't actually walk in! We started off in the direction of the second most likely place where we thought it might be, but a survey of the parking lot indicated that we were again mistaken. Our event was a fundraiser to support sexual diversity, and there wasn't a single rainbow emblem or PFLAG sticker to be found.

As we made our way from club to club, Zephyr started to get a little impatient. "Where's the party?" he asked repeatedly. In our efforts to answer him good-naturedly, we managed to stay good-natured, despite my very full bladder. Another car quote from Zephyr, "We're wearing our...what are we wearing?" Good question.

Third try was a charm, and we had a great time dancing and eating snacks. I consented to entering the fashion-modeling contest, but I wasn't going to hit the runway without Zephyr. The chorus to Material Girl accompanied our catwalk debut, so I was in my element. It was a very friendly crowd.

We shut the dance down at 11 pm, feeling we had partied like rock stars. Zephyr got to bring home a helium balloon, so that kept him awake in the car. As we unlocked our front door, Zephyr summed up the evening. "We danced and danced. It was loud. I wanna go back again."