Lilipalooza

Lili, the fearless leader of our book club (and the lovely redhead in the pink and black dress above) is leaving us to return to Austin, Texas. Though we love her, we feel a little tiny prick of hatred at being deserted. We may not be as big as Texas, but we are certainly as loud as Texas. Isn't that worth something? We've given her three good years and this is how she repays us?

Last night was her going-away party, aptly named Lilipalooza. Another good name would have been Lambda Iota Lambda Iota frat night, since towards the end it started to somewhat resemble a frat party, with the main differences being 1) the spankings were not administered with a paddle (they were barehanded) and 2) instead of a run-down frat house, the party was hosted at a gorgeous, fancy-schmancy house in North Scottsdale. (Thanks, Mari!)

The night did not have a good start, as the directions provided on the evite weren't really the directions to the party. Despite arguing for a good long time with the security guards at Silver Leaf, I was not allowed into that neighborhood to search for the house Google wanted me to go to. After a few frustrated calls, I finally got directions to a neighborhood that doesn't even share major cross streets with the neighborhood to which I had been directed. The correct neighborhood had a nice security guard, though one with no sense of direction, and she sent me on another wild goose chase. ERGH! If I didn't think so highly of Lili, I would have given up and gone home. Luckily I finally found the party (and I was LATE! LATE! "Jill" and "late" are two words that are not usually mentioned together without the word "never" separating them). The company of the book club girls and their spouses was enough to buoy my foul mood, and those foul moods of the other drivers who experienced my same fate. I think alcohol might have helped a lot of them and while I wasn't partaking in the mood-enhancing elixirs, I was eating a lot of fresh raspberries. Mmmmm, raspberries.

The party was a huge success. I think it was fun enough that Lili has decided that her friends and family in Austin have nothing on us here in Phoenix. (Right, Lili? You have decided to stay, right? Right??) We all gave Lili gifts of our favorite childhood books in honor of her upcoming adoption from China. I think Wayne might have been a little confused about the gift theme since he gave her a book of "You Might Be a Redneck" jokes or something like that. Or perhaps that really is what his parents read to him at bedtime.

The frat party started when the jello shots came out. And like real shots, they came in a syringe. And yes, as mentioned before, there really was spanking. I will expound on that just enough to say that my only involvement was as photographer.

Lili, we will miss you!




Here is the food table before I devoured the raspberries. I may have eaten more than my fair share of the shrimp, too.