Saturday, January 29, 2005

Happy Birthday mmmmMikaela!

I left the house of fever and grout for a few hours Friday evening. Went over to my friend's house. We'll call her Mikaela (she has asked that her real name not be used). We were joined by our good friend Kkkkk-Katya. Yup, we'll call her Katya. We three have birthday suppers together, usually at Casa Mikaela. This time it's Mikaela's birthday. She turns 44 first and sets the pace for Katya and me. Katya's birthday is in May, mine in November. (That is not a clue). By the way, if you're getting into this pseudonym thing you may call me ssss-Sabrina.

Anyway, we had some wine. Warning. You could put your head inside of one of Mikaela's wine glasses. So we have to be careful. We cooked supper together, which we like to do. Katya made yummy appies while Mikaela set up her thrift shop find: a real Vietnamese broth fondue cooker. It looks kind of like an angel food cake pan with extra pieces. You burn charcoal in a chamber in the middle, which heats broth to boiling with amazing speed. We cooked a bunch of different things in the broth: chicken, vietnamese meatballs, bbq duck and pork, tofu, and a whole bunch of veggies. We sat around and talked and stirred and ate and added more food, like you do with fondue. At the end we cooked shanghai noodles and had the soup with noodles. It was good. I made a peach crisp for dessert. We managed the mega-glasses fine too. Just 1.5 bottles of wine all night for three women.

I gave Mikaela Damien Rice O, which she doesn't have already (good!) Katya gave her an amazing metal-sculpture planter. Part of the tradition is that the birthday woman gives presents too. Mikaela gave us chenille socks, which are very cozy. We wore them right away. Also, she bought false eyelashes. So after supper we turned up the lights and sat at the table, trying to put on these eyelashes. Katya got a really fluffy pair. She was also very good at putting them on. She had watched her mom do it many times. You have to put this glue on them and carefully squeeze them onto your eyelid just abover your real lashes. Katya had a magnifying compact mirror and a steady hand. She looked very fluffy and dramatic, like Barbie. Then Mikaela put hers on. She got into it, which is very funny because she hardly ever wears makeup. She tried to use this awful "applicator" that came with the lashes, but looked more like something for plucking a chicken than getting up close to your eyeball. She got her lashes on and proceeded to do full makeup to find out what the whole effect would be. I had no mirror so I waited and stuck my lashes onto my wineglass and my forehead and my chin and upper lip for practice and basically laughed my head off for a long time while they worked at their beauty. My turn. I was awful at it. I looked like I just woke up, way too much, and you could see the gap between the fakes and my real lashes but I left them on to be a good sport. Then the glue started to dry and it felt horrible as it shrank like when you paint your face with watercolours and it starts to dry and crack. I put on my glasses and the lashes went bang bang bang like a moth trying to escape. Mikaela insisted we take them home and practice. I took mine home. I don't plan to practice. Once is enough.

Mikaela always wants us to try something that we have not done before. I think the eyelashes were pretty good. I think I'll probably get more use out of the socks, though.

question: how much glue can a lashline endure?

mompoet - natural-lashed


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