The LazyAssGeek’s

So now, the big event! The timing of the trip was based around Biggi’s birthday and having a big party. In Germany it’s the birthday boy or girl’s job to put on the party, vice-versa from the US. A friend of theirs (another Andy) 40th was also right around the same day as Biggi’s so they teamed up to have a party and share the expense. The party was held at TSV Sportheim Schwabbach. There are soccer fields in Germany the same way there are baseball fields in the US, though they’re not usually associated with schools. Also instead of a snackbar they have restaurant/pubs. A friend of thiers (Monica) owns the one in Schwabbach and let them use the place for the party for the price of the drinks and a very reasonable per head charge for some very good food.

Now we’ve all been to parties where we didn’t know a lot of folks so take that and add in that most of the guests don’t speak a word of English…. this is not a complaint, simply an explanation of how very little I’ll be able to share relative to what happened in the evening! I met a LOT of people and I quickly realized that suddenly there were faces to go with the names in the drinking stories I’ve been hearing for nearly 4 years now. That was very entertaining in and of itself though right now the names are all again blurred in my brain. Two gentlemen who were hard to forget (it helped that I saw them again the next day) were Jimmy & Reddy. Jimmy is a BIG man, when he came into the pub he literally picked up both Biggi & Andy. While not at the same time I wouldn’t doubt for a moment he COULD! He’s a great guy, as nice as he is large and was wearing this cape-like leather coat and a floppy leather hat to match… I couldn’t help but think GANDALF! Reddy is a very different kind of guy. His real name is Dirk, but they call him Reddy because of his red hair. I suspect from the stories I’ve heard that in addition to that it’s because you have to be ready for him to show up at any moment. At this particular moment when he showed up, it was with his radio controlled helicopter. The man is damned good at flying the thing.

The birthday party proceeded as you would expect – eating lots of food, drinking lots of beer, etc. Our friends Danni and Joerg who I’ve gotten to know quite well over the last couple of years were there and did an excellent job entertaining the American. They introduced me to a friend of theirs, Tina, who had to endure my company as well. If I got the story straight, Danni broke Tina’s shoulder so she could ride her horse while Tina recovered. Did I get that right Danni?

It was getting late and the non-party crowd was getting antsy, so things moved on to the happy birthday portion of the evening. One of their many friends had gotten extremely creative with ways to present monetary gifts to the birthday boy & girl. For Biggi they had taken a small window box, surrounded it with dirt, added some plants, etc and placed the money folks had gifted inside her “greenhouse” to help fund the real one in New Hampshire. Andy and his wife are remodeling their kitchen, so for him it was a miniature kitchen. Kudos to Birgit and her daughters for an outstanding effort!

Just before these presents were presented Birgit’s daughters sang a couple of songs for us. The first one they did was called “Denglish” and was hysterical, even if you only knew English. It’s a song about how English words are creeping into German (Deutsch, hence Denglish). I took a video of them singing the whole thing, but it weighs in at 340MB so I’ll have to wait until I’m home to get that in some presentable format.

*UPDATE 4-25-2008* The video is now in a presentable format!

After that and dessert the parents and other family members headed home and the partying got serious. Around midnight I took a look at Andy and decided that I’d let the guy who was paying for a bunch of the party enjoy himself so I stopped drinking. I was reminded far too late in the evening that cabs are REALLY quick & easy to get in Germany (damn US thinking) and I could have kept at it too, but considering the amount of drinking we’ve been doing on this trip it wasn’t an awful idea to take it easy for one evening. Especially since the evening didn’t end until 4:00am and we were having lunch with Biggi’s mom and Peter the next day and they’re early risers! The music got loud, the beer, sparkling wine and schnapps were flowing and it was a great party.

A great party for great friend, as it should be. And yes, I drove us home sober & safe. Though I’m not sure Cristel’s neighbors will ever forgive us the laughter at 4:00am when Andy realized the last spoon of dessert he grabbed on the way out the door landed more on the top of his shoe than in his mouth.

Happy Birthday Biggi!!