I’ll leave you to your own devices to guess what type of convention.  Star Trek may or may not be involved.  There may or may not be a pig roast.  It’s likely that I’m dressed like an American Apparel ad – minus the nudity, which basically means I’m wearing fluorescent colors and giving the camera ‘dead eyes.’

I’m staying in a cute rowhouse in a strange neighborhood, sharing a bedroom with my friend and work buddy, Jessie.

We have a little dinner party at the rowhouse.  Friends and business colleagues are over, toasting to good health and prosperous businesses and tagless underwear.  Part of the party moves out to the front of the house.  People are gathered on the stoop and on the sidewalk, chatting, when we see truck headlights at the end of the street.  And hear music.

I look down at my watch – it’s 10:30pm.  It’s an ice cream truck.  An ice cream truck peddling its wares at 10:30 at night.  This street is dead.  We haven’t seen any forms of human life since we first arrived, so it would seem that this wouldn’t be a lucrative area to sell toasted almond eclairs, right?

It was as if I warped into a crazy sci-fi movie.  People started coming out of nowhere… like in that movie where people are trapped under some building, and when they start to remove the rubble, everyone is shielding their eyes because they haven’t seen the sun in 12 days and some of them have already resorted to cannibalism.  It was like that.

They were pajama-clad.  They were barefoot.  They were emerging from homes and dark alleys.  They were smoking cigarettes.  I would have bet the remainder of my Paypal account balance that they were zombies and I was going to be eaten or sacrificed or tossed into an unmarked white van.

The woman in the rowhouse next to us came out with cash in her hand, and we felt daring enough to ask her what was going on.

Apparently?  This ice cream truck comes out every night after ten, and people swarm to her for all their confectionary needs.  Is it good ice cream?  Is it safe?  Is it pasteurized?  She couldn’t confirm the latter two.

We walked (in a group – safety in numbers, people) to the ice cream truck (with the words “MISS TWIST” painted on the side) and ordered chocolate-vanilla twists and a few sundaes from a strung out woman with feathered bangs and a purple scrunchie.  Three cones and two sundaes added up to $9, which is crazy cheap.  That’s how much Laura Ingalls paid her strung out ice cream truck driver after the government forced them to move because they were setting up shop on Native American land.

Miss Twist drove down the street and we watched as more humans appeared seemingly out of nowhere to buy ice cream.

Turns out?  There are about three trucks that drive around late at night and serve ice cream like this.  Oh, and two of them?  Also sell crack.

Which – while I completely discourage the use of illicit drugs – impressed me a little bit.  Mini drug cartels operating as ice cream trucks.  Kind of clever, right?  But now that I’m home and I’m back into the swing of things, I’m sort of suspicious of every business I encounter.  I’m pretty sure the old ladies who measure and cut cloth at Jo-Ann Fabrics also sell meth.  I’m calling them out on it today, and I encourage you to call out YOUR local undercover drug ops.  Because drugs are resulting in the degradation of our society.  That and the Jersey Shore.

“I’ll take three yards of this gingham… and some meth.”

Report back.

Is that possible?  My kids are no longer babies? Hmm.*

So anyway, the twins are turning two in a month, and I guess we’re supposed to have a party.  That seems to be the thing that people do when their kids have birthdays.  We did it last year, and it wasn’t too terrible.  Had about twenty people over, drank some beers, ate some cake, took some pictures.  No big deal.  Some dishes to wash, a few presents to return.  Not too bad.

But this year, there is an ominous party cloud lurking on the horizon.  A big, scary, fluffy, pink cloud, ready to rain buckets of dollies and My Little Ponies down from the heavens.  A cloud that shoots sparkling bolts of Disney Princess lightning at otherwise sensible grownups, rendering them unable to recall the feminist convictions they cultivated in college, and the common sense they developed over a lifetime of harsh realities.  A cloud that drops globs of cupcake frosting into the mouths of emotionally unstable toddlers, turning them into tiny gibbering tweakers with no respect for the property of their elders.

There’s just so much I’m dreading about this.

Don’t get me wrong–I love a party.  Especially the grownup kind.  I’ll be the first guy to dig into the appetizer tray while everyone else is pussyfooting around waiting for some kind of signal, and the last one to leave once the liquor cabinet is empty and the dregs of the abandoned wine glasses have been drained.  Nor do I mind a kids’ birthday party, as long as the food and beverage needs of adults are taken into consideration.

I even used to like throwing parties back in the day.  Like, in college.  Twenty years ago.

Nowadays, it exhausts me just to think about it.

Much of this has to do with the fact that the guests at these kid parties are so particular.  With a grownup party, you can be pretty sure it’ll be a success as long as there’s plenty of free booze and a mixtape with “Groove is in the Heart” on it.  Throw in some turkey wraps from Costco and it becomes a sophisticated soiree.  Add a theme and a specialty cocktail, and your guests will be reminiscing about your gala for decades.

C’mon over for my Guy Fawkes Day party!  We’re having fried cod and flaming shots of Everclear!

See?  You got excited there for a minute.  You already felt like that was the best party you’ve ever been to, and it never even happened.

But these kids.  They have all kinds of special requirements.  Naptimes must not be disrupted.  Food choices have to be carefully considered.  Activities should be available for children of different ages. Minimum safety standards must be observed.

Bah.

And then there’s the matter of the guest list.  The girls’ Grandparents are coming from D.C. and Oregon.  That’s great.  Honestly–no snark intended.  Then we have a growing troupe of local aunts, uncles, and cousins who will be driving here.  Also wonderful. That’s getting pretty close to a full house already.

But the thing is that somehow, even though we’ve alienated or at least lost touch with a lot of our child-free friends, we’ve  also gained a lot of new friends through our children.

There are friends from my Asian Mommies group.

There are friends from my stay-at-home dad group.

There are friends from our twins group, and the singleton parent groupies that follow us around.

All these people have kids.

Our house isn’t big, and it’s not really laid out for entertaining.  The floorplan is a variation on the shotgun house: long and narrow with a passage down the center through which you could stand at the front door and blow the backdoor off with a shotgun.  (Thus the name of the architectural style, in case you ever wondered.)

Based on my calculations, an average toddler starting at the front of our house can attain a velocity of 9 mph by the time she gets to the back door.  A 30-pound child running at that speed generates enough force to: a) tear at least two ligaments in the knee of an average 40-year-old; b) pulverize any piece of Ikea furniture except those constructed of high-impact molded plastic; c) propel the running child through the back door, off the end of the deck, and into the rosebush by the garage; or, d) cause mutual concussions, bone fractures, and other blunt force trauma with any other toddlers in her path.  And that’s just one kid.  The destructive force multiplies exponentially as more juvenile projectiles are added to the equation.

And then there’s the matter of the gifts.  If we had any sense, we would ask people to donate money or toys to some cause, if they feel like they need to bring gifts.  Because our house is already packed to the gills with brightly colored plastic crap and a toxic waste dump’s worth of dead AA batteries.  Even if we do get it together and find some organization to funnel our friends’ generosity into, I’m sure some bulky, high-decibel, princess-themed eyesores will slip past security.

And after we put the overstimulated, hyperglycemic children to bed, the cleanup efforts will commence.  We’ll set up our FEMA trailers in the bombed-out ruins of the vegetable garden, and begin the arduous process of restoring order to our home.

And perhaps by this time next year, we’ll be back to normal.

Just in time for their third birthday.

Do people have birthday parties for their three-year-olds?

*denotes mild surprise; not weepy girly feelings.

Eight of our best friends.  An open bar.  The newest techie gadgets.  Lobster ravioli.  The most fantastic people on the planet.  Open bar.  Swag bags.  Trains.  Planes.  Taxis.   Super Secret Pizza Parties.  Open bar.   Hello Kitty rainboots.  Pictures and videos that can never EVER hit the interwebs.   Laptop and printer giveaways.  An open bar.

Am I forgetting something?

Probably.

My ears are still all poppy from the plane, and it inhibits me from focusing on anything besides OMG MY EARS ARE BROKEN AND MY BRAIN IS DYING.

But, besides that, I can say, with absolute authority, our time in Boston and New York City were beyond compare.   The things we saw, the people we met?  Life changing.

And now?  We are all, OMG, we simply must do it again, let’s get a giant bus, and tour the country, and hang out with all our bloggy friends, and give away amazing gifts, and make ourselves laugh, and eat lobster ravioli, with our open bar, and oh, I don’t know, end the war and institute a working health care system because, yeah, we are fucking brilliant. 

So anyways, until that happens, we just wanted to thank you all again, for letting us hang out with you in your amazing cities, it was legendary.

Don’t believe us?

We have photographic evidence!

Plus, we aren’t the only ones talking about it, see what some of our newest best friends have to say about it!

Momisodes

Twitarded

Arbitrary Babble

The Drafts Folder

jen + tommy

My Messy Paradise

Pop Discourse

The Wannabe WAHM

The Other Boufs

…Just Over The River

The Fence

New England Through Yummy Mommy’s Eyes

Spawnocalypse

P.S. Did you come chill with us in Boston or NYC and then blog about it?  Leave us a comment, so we can add it to our post!

~Brittany

Then do we have an event for you!

Now, I am sure by now, you’ve heard.  We’re coming.  Boston.  New York.  Aiming Low.  In the house.

Fabulous drinks, amazing food, super fun techie things to fondle (computers, and printers, and touchsmart, oh my!) , and prizes.  OMG the prizes.  The sheer awesomeness of the prizes?  Ridiculous.  I would tell you about them, but where’s the fun in that?!  Nowhere.  That’s where.

But, after all the planning, and organizing, and preparing, we still need one thing.  One awesome thing.

You.

Men.  Women.  Bloggers.  Non-bloggers.

We want to meet you all!

Here’s the catch.  We’ll feed you, water you, let you ogle our goodies, but you must, MUST, RSVP.  Because space?  She is limited.

So, here are the dirty details.

Boston
October 26th, 7-11pm
Sheraton Boston
RSVP Here for Boston

New York
October 28th, 7-11pm
Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers
RSVP Here for New York

And when you see me, say hi.  I’ll be the one with the frizzy hair shoving shrimp into my purse.

If you’re planning on coming, grab a button for your blog!

Just highlight the code below, copy and paste into your sidebar

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*These events are sponsored by HP*