Cupcakes and Karaoke

I couldn't help but have a flashback.

I wrote about this before, when I had a birthday party and decided to pick up a microphone and sing while friends danced around me. But that party was 52 years ago.

A couple of days ago, I celebrated turning 60. It wasn't my actual birthday: that's this coming Wednesday. Like in 1973, because my birthday is on a weekday, we held the celebration the weekend before.

DW asked me what I wanted to do to mark the end of my sixth decade and I said that I wanted to be surrounded by family and friends, to be with the people who mattered so much to me. We talked about reserving space at a favourite brewery, as it would have the space to accommodate everyone, and I liked that idea.

Secretly, she had already contacted Conspiracy Theory Brewery, as I had been frequenting the place, as of late, but when she told me, I was reluctant. While I liked going to Conspiracy Theory for karaoke, it wasn't a favourite brewery, nor even in my top 10 for Ottawa. Sure, they had the space but it wasn't quite the spot I had in mind.

Luckily, she hadn't made any solid plans and had only had a brief conversation with Paul Card, the owner. As it turned out, Conspiracy Theory, itself, wouldn't be around for my birthday celebration, anyway.

We did look at actual breweries that I love, and one didn't seem to have any event planned for March 1, so we reached out. DW had me compose the e-mail message, since they knew me and had once done something really nice for my birthday, a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately, when Melissa responded to me, she told me that they did, in fact, have a live show scheduled for March 1, and that it hadn't yet been added to their Web site. She said that the band was interactive with its audience and was a lot of fun, but I didn't really want to have a live band at my party, especially since I didn't know them, and so I thanked her but said I'd look elsewhere.

(I ordered some beer from them the next day.)

I had only been to Hummingbird Hall once, before we started discussing my party, and I already liked it. When we considered it as a party venue, I was practically sold.

Again, DW had me reach out to Dan, the manager of Hummingbird Hall, since we had already met, though only once, and he'd only remember me if he recognized Brown Knowser in my e-mail address and associate it with the person known as Brown Knowser at the previous karaoke night.

While I didn't want a live band at my party, I thought it might be fun to have karaoke. Lots of my friends like to sing and have done karaoke before. I'd be able to mingle with my friends between getting up on stage to sing, myself.

I put in the request, including lining up a KJ, and waited. Dan got back to me fairly quickly, gave me a quote for renting the room, with him running the bar, and for the KJ and the sound person.

And that was it. We were booked.

There were cupcakes. There were nibblies. There was singing. There was dancing. There was mingling and catching up with friends. Some family and friends came all the way from Toronto to help me celebrate. Kid 2 and my younger sister, who live in Toronto, made the trip to be here.

I'm so lucky. I was surrounded by love.

Photo credit: Marc Dufour

Photo credit: Marc Dufour

This was the first birthday party I had since my 50th, where we did gather for a live show, featuring my music idol, Midge Ure. It'll likely be the last one until my 70th birthday, should I make it that far.

But this party will go down as one of the best, far exceeding my eighth party (where some of my friends from 1973 were back to celebrate again).

This time, the mic was plugged in.

Photo credit: Mom