Party Karma

My calender for this weekend was blissfully empty. Given that it is bracketed by day trips to San Diego on Friday and Monday I was grateful. I've nothing against San Diego, indeed it is very pleasant down there, but it is rather a long commute.

I had the ability to be spontaneous, but was lacking in inspiration, so I just I took the kids to a new playground near our house. This was, until recently, one of the shabbiest little spots in the neighbourhood, a dirty sand pit with a flaky metal climber and a couple of hazardous swings. Back in my pre-kid days it was the spot where I would meet up with a rag tag bunch of dog owners on a Friday night. We would share wine in paper cups, and let our dogs wrestle in the sand pit. Now it is full of serenely beautiful couples toting gorgeous children with the kind of complex Bay Area ethnicity that will render them unlikely to ever be checking a single box on the census forms.

We were heading home, enjoying the January sun, when we saw a bouncy house being inflated. Though I recognize that having a party at a local park is a fun and economical way to celebrate,  I always get a sinking feeling when our chosen play spot happens to have a party going on.  My kids love bounce houses. Ordinarily quite satisfied with the slides and swings, they will mope and whine and ignore everything on the playground, itching to bounce with the party kids.

As I walked past it I noticed a few kids I knew flying down the inflatable slide, Then a few more. Then I spied several families who I know really well, who waved and beckoned as if they were expecting to see me. I realized I was looking at most of the parents and children in Geekygirl's class.

Geekygirl tugged at my sleeve. "Mommy, Jasmine gave me an invitation last week, to her birthday!" she said. I didn't recall digging any such item out of her backpack, though on reflection I haven't actually emptied the backpack for several days. I then vaguely recollected an email, and a face book invitation to this exact occasion. Such serendipity on the back of such scheduling failure! Still, I was un-made up, barely respectably dressed, and of course without a gift for the birthday girl. I confessed to the hosts that I had totally forgotten about the party, and they of course insisted that we stay. Geekygirl had set out that morning in a tutu and tights, and was quite appropriately attired. Perhaps that is a good strategy to adopt. Always dress as if you might unexpectedly find yourself at a birthday party.

Or perhaps a better strategy would be to get important social events into my calender. This faux pas falls on the back of two recent "booking the babysitter for the wrong night" mistakes, and one "showing up for a party on the wrong day" disaster. I am really quite well organized in the workplace, but haven't seemed to translate that over to my social calender. Do you think my friends will think it strange if I ask them to send me outlook calender invitations for anything they expect me to show up at?!