Today is my 18th wedding anniversary.

Here we were back in 1991. Hard to believe in just two short years it will be our 20th. I would hereby like to post a warning to my husband that our gift/card-free broke anniversary is fine this year, but in two years I want to be on an airplane to somewhere fabulous where I’ll be receiving continuous spa treatments given by a gaggle of hot men bearing booze.

The years have flown by- we’ve actually been together almost 25 years– we waited until after we’d both graduated from (the same) college to get married. Our first kid was born three years later. We had originally planned weekend bed and breakfast trips for our wedding anniversaries- I even bought a journal so I could record all these lovely trips over the years. It’s in a drawer somewhere, with three entries in it. And such is marriage and kids.

We do actually celebrate each year by holding a huge Halloween party. Since we were married the Saturday before my favorite holiday, I wanted to have a masquerade ball wedding reception, and he nixed the idea, so now I torture him by having one every year instead! I remember arriving at the hotel on our wedding night and there WAS  a huge Halloween party and people told us they loved our costumes. Ha!

So this past Saturday was our big grown-up Halloween party, attended by about 60 or so friends (the complete downpour kept a few people away, a few others just didn’t show WITHOUT CALLING (rude!) and still others had lame or no excuse (or have reached my ‘three strikes of blowing me off and you’re out’ rule) and will thusly be removed from my invite list because I am a psycho like that. I already bitched about that in last year’s party post, so, moving on…

I used to think having a bigger party (with like 100 people) made the party successful. But that’s not true. I’d rather have 50 COOL people (because obviously all the cool people come) who are genuinely here because they love getting dressed up, having fun, and doing Halloween-colored Jello shooters with gummy worms in them. And the karaoke (and this year, Beatles Rock Band and the arcade Ms. Pac Man machine!).

The party die-hards, those who have been to all 9 or most of them, are so. much. fun. The competition is, as my friends like to say, ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. Unfortunately, due to my own camera breaking, I still don’t have pictures today. I borrowed my friend’s camera and hopefully she’ll post pix today and I will cull through them and try to find ones that don’t include me ‘ice skating on brain Jello on the kitchen floor’ or going off the diving board onto the pool cover- which ’bounced’  just enough to get me soaked in ice cold water. Friend me on Facebook if we aren’t already- there will be some up later on. My husband and I were a caveman and cavewoman- I believe there were a few Geico references, but we were just supposed to be ‘generic’- though his beard/wig/hair did look very Geico-esque. And I got to wear a bone in my hair (or the big hair of my wig), which is always fun.

The winners in the costume contest? Here ya go:

Funniest- Dick in a Box

Sexiest- The Dominatrix

Scariest- the guy with the mask that made you pee your pants

Best Couple- Alice in Wonderland/Mat Hatter

Funniest Group- The Aging Hooters Girls (the sagging ‘boobs’ hanging out of the cut-off t-shirts- especially on the men- were a riot)

Most Original Group- The Jackson 4 (they came up the street bearing a full sized gold coffin and wearing Afros, sunglasses and single sequined gloves. And they each knew their names- Jermaine, Tito, etc…hilarious!! Cool them to figure out how to ‘do Michael Jackson’ without BEING MJ)

Best Overall- Willy Wonka Group (they arrived on a candy-decorated float complete with music, acting, Oompah Loompah dancing, etc- it was like a Broadway production. They gave out ‘Golden Tickets’ encouraging votes for Best Overall, which they would have won even without the political campaign!)

and saving the last costume category since it relates to the blog:

Most Original: Pajayjay, the Pajamas and Coffee avatar.

This cracked me up for several reasons. One, “KATE” had the exact orange pajamas, her hair in a slightly sideways bun, fake eyelashes, slippers, and the funniest part: around her neck hung an “F Bomb” and yes, an actual douche bag. Hilarious!! Also, she’s a marathon runner and thus appropriately skinny.  (I could never dress as my own blog logo because I am way too fat!) She even had a copy of the Pajayjay post on her back, which was like a screen shot of the blog. Also I believe the mug (which looked exactly like the one on the logo) came in quite convenient for her to FILL UP at the party. Way to win prize at marymac’s Halloween party? Be her blog’s  mascot. Ha! I am sure you will be able to buy these costumes at your local Halloween store next year. (Note: I will post this pic here on the blog when I get it!)

I would like to apologize for throwing a complete cake into my husband’s face around 1 a.m. on Saturday night (or, um, Sunday morning). And then for, um, dancing in it on the floor. No idea how that little ‘rave’ got started (shots of Patron may or may have not been held accountable) but wasn’t it fun, honey?

Thanks for putting up with me for 18 years. I look forward to the next 18, and however many more we get to hang out together. I love you!