Girls! Girls! Girls!

You want material for a 5001st entry? I'll give you something: We're hosting a slumber party tonight in celebration of the eldest Llama-ette's eighth birthday. I am informed that, including her sisters, there will be a total of twelve little girls haunting the place.

Mind you, this is on top of the fact that I had to get up at five ack emma to go down to the National Cathedral for an all-day vestry retreat for my church. Even as I type, I'm debating the propriety of breaking into the adult beverages before the magician shows up, as opposed to waiting until the mob is being fed......

Since we're tossing them all in the basement this evening for movies n' popcorn, I'll pretty much be confined to the top floor of the house. Since the computer is up here, I may very well decide to live-blog the thing as well.

Stand by.

UPDATE: 4:35. And so it begins. As the first guests are being dropped off, I can hear that peculiar light-hearted laugh receding down the front walk that is the sound of a parent ditching their child for the night.

Oops, looks like Magician Guy just appeared. I need to go help him unload his stuff....

UPDATE DEUX: Just for clarification, you don't really think I had any say in coming up with this idea, do you?

UPDATE TROIS: Jay the Magician politely declined the offer of assistance. (We had a one-man-band guy here one time who was practically dumbstruck that I would even offer to lend him a hand moving his things in. That tells you something about how a lot of people in these parts treat the help.) When he opened the basement door, the sudden intake of breath of the kiddies downstairs was enough to cause a noticable sudden drop in atmospheric pressure. I expect this is what it must be like just before a tornado hits.

UPDATE QUATR: Apparently, the centerpiece of Jay's magic show involves birds. The six year old Llama-ette just gave me detailed instructions about making sure the cats don't eat them.

YIPS FROM AGENT BEDHEAD: Something smells really sooper bad in here.

UPDATE CINQ: The magic show was pretty good, if for no other reason than that the magician made the Missus put on a chicken mask and a cape. (Don't ask.)

YIPS from Steve: Tell you have pictures of the missus in that getup (puhleeze Jeebus, puleeze!)

YIPS DEUX from Steve Who wants to take bets on exactly when Robbo gets to do the post about dead forgotten magician hamster removal from somewhere in the house?

I've got "soffets and August 21."

UPDATE HUIT: Balloons...Why did the guy have to give the kids balloons? I hate balloons the way Indiana Jones hates snakes.

Never mind - it's cake in a few minutes followed by tonight's feature presentation: Disney's Hercules. The eldest Llama-ette has been pontificating on how Disney screwed everything up. That's my gel!

Once the kids are deposited in front of the movie, it's Big Ol' Ribeye Time for Dad and don't think I haven't earned it today!

UPDATE 8:20 PM: Let me just point out that I was a fan of Phillip Seymour Hoffman before it was cool. Who can forget his Dusty's line from Twister, "Red meat! We crave sustenance!"?

Actually, things are going pretty well (touching wood). Everybody's in the basement watching Hercules and, so far, apart from the four year old Llama-ette getting head-butted by somebody by accident, all is well. I've known most of these girls for a few years now and it never ceases to fascinate me to watch them grow up. Of course, half of them are in the Missus' class at school, so there's no question that they at least have a top quality education, but really, they are a good set of kids. Let's hope things hold.

SOOPER SEKRIT EDITORIAL YIPS from Steve: The above laudatory comments about the edumahkaytional ideas of St. Maria of the Blessed Fingerpaints has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Robbo has already sent me the aforementioned chicken mask pics, and I'm currently uploading them onto T-shirts at Cafepress. Never to early to think of those stocking stuffers. LLama out.

UPDATE 8:50: Garn! I've got DVD's of both John Wayne's The Searchers and Cary Grant's Only Angels Have Wings, either of which would have been perfect to watch this evening, but I'm totally shut out. Guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, I suppose I'll go back to Tolkien's Unfinished Tales, although I caught myself the other evening not really giving a damn whether Amroth was related to Galadriel and Celeborn or not....

UPDATE NEXT MORNING: Well, that wasn't so bad at all. Of course, I conked out at about 9:30, but everyone seemed to have gone to bed quite easily. Certainly there were no alarums in the middle of the night, which is the main thing. Of course, they were up at 6:00 this morning and are currently being stuffed with pancakes, but hey....