Poshdeluxe

in honor of dessiree’s recent birthday, a group of her biggest fans took my homegirl out on the town to embarrass her, i mean, to celebrate her sweet sixteen.

sweet sixteen! can you believe it?

honestly, i can’t remember what i did for my sweet sixteen. but i’m pretty sure it didn’t involve helicopter rides or hot guys carrying me on a chair.

and although i couldn’t surprise dessiree with a brand new BMW, i think we managed to show her a pretty good time (in spite of the number of moments she almost died from embarrassment). seriously, though, it is SO easy to embarrass a teenager. and also? kinda fun. i want to take this opportunity to publicly thank my parents for practicing an amazing amount of restraint thirteen years ago.

anyway

first, we met up at EZ’s for some dinner and presents. of course, we forced dessiree to listen as we sang her the birthday song. she LOVED that.

note the super cool candles with different colored flames, courtesy of josh and erica. and then, note the candles placed on the cheeseburger, idea courtesy of josh and erica.

my friends happen to be awesome gift-givers, so dessiree collected some excellent new loot. of course, i made her take a picture with her presents, because that’s what my mom did to me, and that is what i will do to my future children, god help them.

here’s an easy tip for embarrassing the pants off of a teenager: show the *slightest* amount of affection for yr significant other, in front of the teen, in a public place.

for example:

you may see this as a nod to the innocent puppy love of the 50s, but to dessiree, it’s like we are engaging in some kind of perverse sexual activity.

next up, everyone’s favorite, austin park and pizza! except… “and pizza” has been kicked to the curb, so now it’s “austin’s park,” which is lame. which means i will still call it AP&P, kind of like how old people still say “kentucky fried chicken” instead of KFC.

john met up with us at the park and gave dessiree a card and this cute little snowman monkey thing. i tried to imagine what was going on in john’s head when he was shopping, “so… 16 year old girls like… cute stuff. and look, there’s a strange snowman monkey figure! that’s cute! perfect! and i’m DONE.” but really, john, you did good, cos dessiree loved it.

we immediately hit up the go-cart track, but i’m going to save that part for the end of this post, cos it was basically the climax of the whole night.

our other activities included laster tag, which means i force everyone to take “fierce” pictures:

at this point, dessiree had resigned herself to the fact that i was going to take a billion pictures of her, usually including some sort of instruction, like “look excited!” or “hold that up!” or “where’s yr game face?” the end result was that her face displayed a mix of “why are you doing this to me?” and “if i make the face, this will all be over soon.”

props to john, though, for following directions! he has certainly been well trained by many, many pants world outings involving flossie.

i did manage to get a few “natural” shots, esp. when we were playing video games. john and i found this one game where you get to shoot zombies, and it actually WORKED* (*this is rare for AP&P). it turns out that dessiree has a secret talent for shooting the heads off of dead people. happy sweet sixteen!

henri mostly stuck to his life long mission of mastering ski ball, i.e. earning 8,000 tickets in less than ten minutes in order to win a four foot long care bear. for dessiree, of course.

check out the ferocity on homegirl’s face as she rides the pants out of that motorcyle:

so laser tag and video games are always a blast, but the REAL reason we go to AP&P is to drive go-carts. and the real reason *dessiree* likes to go to AP&P is to beat henri on the go-carts. which, as documented on this blog, she has done before.

go-carts are pretty popular (obvs), so you always have to wait in line for a while. henri and dessiree utilize this time to celebrate their famous rivalry by insulting each other, and, you know, bringing it ON.

sometimes, things get BROUGHTEN a little too hard.

by the time we slid into our go-carts, the tension between these two rivals was PALATABLE. dessiree, however, is totally a cool customer, her face revealing only 100% steely confidence.

you have to admire her bold spirit, especially when dealing with this kind of game face:

“rules are, there ARE no rules! we’re racin’ for PINK SLIPS!”

meanwhile, erica was secretly plotting a daredevil victory of her own!

while john remained sweetly innocent, oblivious to the fact that this race wasn’t for fun, it was FOR KEEPS.

finally, the referee (i.e. moody teenage AP&P staff guy) gave us the signal, and we were off!!

dessiree fought to maintain her lead, in spite of numerous maneuvers (and dirty tricks!) by henri.

lap after lap, our two main competitors remained neck and neck, with the pressure building to an excruciating intensity until… BANG! THIS HAPPENED! RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!

COLLISION!! CALL THE MEDICS!

ok, wait, no medics. just call the AP&P dude over so he can turn dessiree’s go-cart around and EMBARRASS HER HUGELY. in front of EVERYONE.

dessiree ended up passing the finish line first, but there was a heated debate (ok, throwdown) afterwards involving the actual cause of the accident.

but you know, what’s a sweet sixteen without a little outburst?

even with her frequent moments of sheer, “please kill me right now” embarrassment, i have the feeling that dessiree enjoyed herself immensely, esp. when she beat henri (twice) on the go-carts. maybe it’s possible that (gasp) teenagers actually LIKE being teased?

i’ll leave you with this picture, which pretty much says it all.

LINKS

jezebel put together some great clips of the late, great estelle getty doing her thang on “golden girls.”

squee of the day: a french bulldog puppy!! oh hai, puppy!

an injured baby dolphin got his own life jacket so he could swim!! squee!! ok, but, uh, PICTURES? PLEASE?