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Last year, when I turned forty, my husband, as a complete surprise, had a party for me. He had three bands there. One was Crow Greenspun, who is a quirky folk(?) singer I love. He also had two local bands, one, Raisinhill, is on the rise in the jam band circuit.
He invited friends from my past, who came. He invited my other groupie friends, who came. His friends. My kids(and provided a back room and air mattresses with sleeping bags, even though my son sat in the front row all night.)
It was catered. Some of the best food I have ever had. Alcohol flowed.
I was, in short, blown away.
He turns forty in November. I have told him that there is no way I can even try to meet what he did.
For those of you I have sent or will send music to(and I have them all ready to go-finally), he is responsible. He is a stellar guy, a mostly stay-at-home dad and bartender, and a great athlete who can kick my well-trained tennis playing beehind with his squash wrist-shots. Ooh, that makes me mad! He has no form at all. But I digress.
What can I do? I am pretty creative about these things, but I am drawing a blank.
Sara??? Bob? Dag? Tom? Christy? Kat? Alucard? Mack? Punwit? You are ALL so creative...
Here is what he likes: Red Sox Pats Celtics Bruins UMass Basketball Music Music Music Music
My son is going to learn his favorite Grateful Dead song for him: "Loser." My husband's favorite song of all time is "Wish You Were Here," but he can't handle that guitar riff yet.
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All of the sports related ideas I have will probably be quite expensive. I'll cogitate a bit and see if something that isn't cost prohibitive springs to mind.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I don't know if this would be fun or not, since I'm not a sports fan. But how about organizing some kind of basketball tournament with a sports themed party? The guests could divide into teams, and you could give goofy awards.
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Sox playoff tickets if they make it? If you have a party, have all his friends bring a remembrance of him, funny, poignant, emotive stories about him in written form. This is pretty cool. My wife did this for my fortieth and I treasure them.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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A wiffle ball party would be very cool. I'm thinking tailgate/Superbowl party style. Divide the guests into teams and make patches or armbands for them to wear. I like the idea of goofy prizes, too.
Concerns: Weather Is your yard big enough to play? How many guests? Enough for 2 teams?
Also could do volleyball, badmitton, softball etc.
Renting out a gym? -- may not be feasible.
Tailgate a basketball game. See if you can get a signed basketball? (not sure how likely this is, but for a University team it might be possible) Make everyone dress up in team colors or in costume.
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Well, we like to do scavenger hunts with fiendishly difficult clues... for my birthday on Sunday, Mark got me up at 8am to start working away at a puzzle he'd created on the iPod. When I solved it, I got another word game puzzle that led to a number arrangement puzzle. That one led me to someone's house, where I had to use their phone to navigate a phone tree puzzle Mark had programmed into our phone computer. That led me to a website that had more puzzles on it, and finally back to the iPod, which all along had had the answer in it as an anagram. I decoded the anagram, and got the name of the place he was taking me to brunch (though by then it was past noon!).
I've got plans to do something similar to him for his birthday, though less puzzle-oriented and more searching-oriented. I'm thinking I'll buy 12 bottles of 6 different beers from that awesome Belgian website, and put pairs of them in 6 different locations around town. Every time he solves a clue, he'll get two more bottles of beer that he's never had before! And I'll take him out to dinner or something.
So yeah, if you're into the time-consuming birthday thing, clues and puzzles are fun. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Also, if you have the money for it, I've always thought it would be awesome to be blindfolded, taken to the airport, and flown to a fun mystery destination.
Edit: I think the surprise mystery flight thing would work especially well ON his birthday, and even better if you pretend all day that you forgot.
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Zeugma, Tom did that for me, too on my iPaq. *laugh* He even recorded himself singing "Your Song" as one of the clues, which was on the rooftop It was my most memorable birthday ever.
That got me thinking!! Tom's 30th is this April. I'd better do some planning soon myself. *puts on thinking cap*
Posts: 1777 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Mack, Hmm. Red Sox play-off tickets. Know any local mobsters?
I LOVE the scavenger hunt idea. As for money, there really isn't a lot. He had secretly saved all last summer, the bum. Now, I am broke and have a more time consuming job. I was going to send him to a music festival, but now HE has a new job.
Our yard is huge, but his birthday is in November, and it could be 10 below or 90 above, so I would be afraid to schedule something outside.
Red Sox tickets. I should check Ebay, just in case...
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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PS Thanks for the links, Christy. Maybe, instead of a surprise party, I could have people just sort of dribble in over a period of time. Sowe would be sitting there watching football, and I would be pretending to do all my planning, and then in would walk one friend, then his mom, etc. Hmm.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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