How to give good party
I give good parties. I’m not ashamed to toot my own horn. I think I may have a mild form of OCD when it comes to throwing a bash. I obsess over every detail, and every scenario, and have a thousand ideas and can’t decide on which one to use. I’m done with one birthday party and already have the next year’s theme chosen. I buy things on sale before I even have a party for it. I mean I just bought watermelon-shaped invites for .50 because I never know when I could use them, and for pete’s sake, they were a pack of 10!
When Party City’s stuff go on clearance, I may be having a mini-orgasm just going through their stuff. Firefighter stuff for a $1? Check. Superman cupcake toppers for a $1? Got em. A foam kit of 30 animal masks for $2? Hell ya. It’s an illness, and I’m in therapy, but I can’t help it. Especially for themed items, party goods can run a pretty penny. So what if I just bought Zoe napkins for a quarter and I have no girls, I couldn’t not buy them. Because you never know.
Maybe I’m just a dollar junkie. I can’t pass the Dollar Store or Target’s Dollar Spot without salivating. Hannah Montana notepads, pencils and buckets? Damn it, once again, no girls. The party ideas are constantly rolling around in my head. As I’ve mentioned before, I throw just-because parties to quiet the roaring beast of creativity, and try new things out on people. So, the key here to a good party is plan, plan, plan. Yes, you could whip out a fab party for 10 in 2 days for $20, that is the sign of a true party girl. I’m not there yet, I need time to obsess and find stuff on sale and such. Plus I send my invites 3 weeks before the shindig so I can stalk you and talk evil about you when you don’t RSVP a week before.
I finally got my hands on a copy of PartyMap, and 
it’s nice to have a book that validates your need to find new places to have a party, and not have the same location twice. It was written by moms who ” ‘…would make Martha Stewart weep with shame. [They] have literally elevated birthday parties to an art form.’ ” Now those are my kind of people. The magazine is chock full of party locations, entertainment, party rentals, the works. See, there are other people out there who want to throw their party at a museum/pottery place/ice rink/salmon hatchery/zoo, rent a bouncy house/pony/dunk tank and bring a Tumblebus/clown/knight to their home. It’s not just me, this is a billion dollar industry and even in hard times, people wanna party!
Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t coughing up the big dollars for a gianormous bouncy house, or Katy the Klown, even though I don’t have the parties at my house, we’ve got to save money with location party costs. Must be where my dollar-purchase obsession and staying up to the wee hours making stuff (see Hollywood Dance Party 2008) comes from. But there are others worse than me. This magazine proved it. And I’m glad because for awhile I thought I was going insane. Hmm….I wonder if I could talk the boys into a party with the Mariners?