The ugly the bad the good

Highlights of the day we hosted Chiyaa's first birthday party.

Chiyaa got up right on time in a fresh vibrant mood. This lead to the lazy parents also waking up on time without needing an alarm . Good.

We were able to finish her morning chores without breaking sweat. She was showered, fed and dressed up and looked like a shiny new penny :) Good.

I wore a saree without a mirror and to my satisfaction in the very first attempt. Good.

Dad and his friend made plans to buy some decoration stuff en route to the party venue. They did find a shop which sold just the right things! Good.

We reached the venue in a cab with the baby and the return gifts . Dad and friend carried the decoration stuff and the big heavy cake. Two families had already reached by the time we arrived . Not so good. And from here kick in the bad and ugly :(

The cake had been kept over night in a refrigerator (thanks to mummy's dummy-ness) It had turned rock solid. Needed total brute force to cut. Dad's colleagues in fact took turns to cut it. It was so hard! Bad.

Due to the 'toughness' of the cake the cutting took forever :( kids who come to birthday parties for the cake and the return gifts were getting tad restless. Bad.( thankfully once served the cake was delicious though badly mutilated)

The stewardess was taking forever getting things onto the tables . She was a slow coach . For some reason on top of it she wanted to do everything - no delegation at all . As if this party was going to be the single most important thing she would put on her resume. She did not have the common sense to serve the dishes on each table . Rather she went on asking if the dish had been 'ordered'( much to the confusion of the guests . We could not also micro manage each table) Things were going a bit helter skelter there. Bad.

She spoke Tamil - since most of the guests also spoke the language- she went about bad mouthing her boss on some tables. It led to a bit of dampening of the atmosphere . Outright ugly.

We had selected ice cream as the dessert . But the owner had forgotten to stock up enough ! Rather there was none!!!! It was VERY embarrassing to tell the guests the same and ask if they would want some more juice! Ugly.

Since the damage was already done we thought it would be pointless to argue with the owner. We paid the full fare, heard his lame excuses and came out. Bad.

--since I am the eternal optimist I choose to stick to the good no matter how morbid the bad and ugly . So some more goods :)

We looked and felt very nice end of day.

We have a 100 pictures to commemorate the first birthday of our first born. Thanks to Dino.

It was wonderful to have him around - it was like a dash of home. Made us feel unspeakably comfortable!

The atmosphere overall was very friendly . People were chatting, mingling , and generally having fun. People who do not frequent many of the social events had made it! The guests in fact pitched in to blow balloons , decorate the place and participate .

Though we were tired at the end of the day and Dino's departure made us feel sad - it was a special day we enjoyed . I would have preferred some things to have happened in some other ways - but in end it reminded me of our wedding day. A special day but not a perfect day. As I said in my last post- maybe we do not do perfect after all .