Time for a quick check-in and a Chucky Report for the occasion of my 45th birthday. I’d like to say these things are settling down and becoming more sensible, serious and mature over time, but … actually no, you know what? I don’t think I would like to say that. It’d be boring. I guess the old adage “you have to grow old, but you don’t have to grow up” is going to apply here.
Also I have a lot of very silly friends and I mostly blame them.
These are actually a couple of the more mature ones. And I might as well include my nephew Walder in that.
I should backtrack a little, by explaining that living in Bar Äijä’s at this time and for about a week leading up to the party, we had none other than esteemed Hatstander Aaron “The Patriot” Sanders. Anyone who has spent more than a casual few minutes on the Hatstand will know him and his legendary opinions. He’d come for a lightning tour of Finland, and was very pleased to find that Bar Äijä’s doubled as a bed and breakfast. And when I say “doubled”, I mean “and make it a double.”
We welcomed our USian pal with a special celebratory sign (I mean the one on the left; I am aware there are several in this picture). I will not be taking further questions at this time.
So, the true hero of this Report, for the party itself and the days leading up to it while I was at work, is Mrs. Hatboy. Not only did she take care of a lot of the excellent dips and munchies and a huge amount of the planning for the party, but in between all that she put on her teacher, historian, and tour guide hats all at once and showed Aaron around, forcing him to walk many, many miles and see a lot of museums – including an exhibit of Tom of Finland.
I am reliably informed this was Aaron’s face on the metro on the way home from that trip. But that was more to do with the walking than the large throbbing slabs of leather-clad man-flesh.
Special thanks and kudos also go to Mr. BRKN even though he did not attend the party itself for the sake of his pure unblemished soul (and I can’t even argue with that at this stage). He did, however, provide a new barbecue for us (which we didn’t use yet but that’s not the point), and an excellent beer-bottle-shaped thingamajig that we upcycled into an ice box. His relentless scrounging at building sites is a source of great and constant joy to us all.
Anyway, he was there in spirit even if ironically it was the spirit that was keeping him away, also there were spirits at the party. But I digress.
The Level Up, found in a nerdy role-players’ cocktail recipe book, was coconut water and pineapple juice mixed with sparkling wine. It was also supposed to have a glass rimmed with honey and coconut flakes, but darn it, we didn’t want to make a mess.
Discourse was … also present.
Also attending the party were the regulars: my esteemed cousin-in-law Chris; the roleplayers Mikko, Elias, Saila (with her +1 Andre, that was a roleplay joke as well as a party joke), Kristiina and Linza; the Scots Daryl (and Skye, easily the most charming of them all), Wee Man and Chairman Dave; the Paloki Bella, Vuta and Wally; and additional guest appearances by Lionbride-in-retirement and long-time party attendee Jarmo, another cousin-in-law Wille (who I’m pretty sure showed up at around 2 or 3 in the morning), and Lili (who spent most of the evening inside doing a jigsaw puzzle and planning to buy a cult house with Linza).
Special kudos also to Linza for her generous but ultimately (I think?) unneeded car ferrying service to and from near-Hakunila regions in case of car parking spaces running out. And to Wille for his gift of a pocketful of Rammstein concert confetti, Chairman Dave for his almost-as-valuable magnet game that he found at a 1€ store, Vuta for his exceedingly generous gift of Laphroaig Lore, and Kristiina for putting in an appearance despite living like five hours’ drive away. Also to Jarmo for bringing me an actual 45 record as well as a vitally important piece of official translation for our up-coming trip to Australia, and a bottle of limoncello. So – look, it’s not a competition, but (with the obvious exception of Mr. The Patriot crossing the globe and Lore being very fucking nice) Jarmo secured a win for that one.
I knew it was going to be a fun and exciting blending of synergies when I saw Vuta and Aaron sit down and start talking guns, and when debate turned to what things Scots had invented and were said Scots in or near America when they invented them, it all started getting out of hand.
I know it doesn’t look like it’s getting out of hand, but these images cannot adequately capture how many people Chairman Dave was calling cunts. 75% of those people were Aaron, but as I explained to him afterwards, if the Scots are calling you a cunt to your face, it means they like you. If they’re being polite to you, you can be relatively assured they’re saying really bad things behind your back.
The cultural highbrowity reached its blistering zenith when Vuta demanded to know a) whether the Scots were wearing underwear under their kilts; b) if so, why they were; c) why they weren’t taking said underwear off when he, Vuta, was certainly not wearing any underwear; and d) who they thought they were anyway. When his very obvious lie was revealed, he took a knife to his own underpants and cut them loose. Not very efficiently, but the point is, Mrs. Hatboy shouted at him and he decided to go for a piss and not come back not long after that.
Revels continued unabated.
There were some breakages, including a glass of jaffa belonging to Wally that I unfortunately knocked off a chair, and our giant glass bottle of bottle-caps that was underneath a falling extension-cord roll and absolutely exploded. I had a wheelbarrow of wreckage to carry down to the bin the next morning.
Wump didn’t really notice.
We continued in this idiom until quite early in the morning, when Wille turned up and then (I believe) the last men standing – Chris, Wille, Aaron and myself – agreed to call it a night and shuffled off to bed.
I’m probably forgetting something, but now I have to run.
Hatty birthday to me.