Tattoo.

328. "sings, 'All my friends are gettin' ma-rried...", reads a Facebooker's status, which sums up perfectly the recent shift in the Facebook contents of your friends. One blink, and instead of posting "Last night was so wicked we should totally hit da club again!!" and "NO MORE VODKA!!", your friends are now uploading wedding photos and, in some cases, videos of their toddlers crawling on the floor, nose dripping, face smeared with baby food in a way that is completely hilarious to the parents but awfully gross to everyone else. After the first one or two videos, you learn to stop watching, and politely coo, "aww", when the parents ask if you have seen the videos, then, without waiting for your reply, describe to you something else, also completely hilarious, that their children did today.

And then, once in a while, a friend shows you a picture of her children -- or monsters, as she lovingly calls them -- and you find yourself asking her, sincerely, if you could steal one of her monsters. Reasonably enough, she turns you down, so you settle for staring dreamily at the photograph, wondering where you can kidnap monsters like hers.  

329. On the way back from lunch. "So what did your parents get you?" I ask the birthday girl. Without missing a beat, Zoe replies, "a tattoo", and both of us dissolve into laughter. "This would be such a great line, in many decades to come. Remember that year, when I turned thirty... " I paint the picture. "And I got so many tattoos," Zoe continues. "The one on the left arm is from my parents..." I point at an imaginary tattoo on my own left arm. "And the one on the right arm is from my friends..." Zoe smiles, and I am relieved at how well she has been reacting to the full-service Body & Piercing voucher, a birthday present that the collective twenty of her friends have lovingly chosen and prepared. 

In the two weeks since my initial email, fifty emails have accumulated (and this is only counting the ones that included myself) and numerous hours of debates in person have passed (admittedly almost a third of it was more or less along the same line of, "This will be an AWESOME present! Make sure you take photos!"), during which, among other remarkable things, the usually controversial Bowser demonstrated a hitherto hidden sweet side and the timid Pierre actively participated in the contribution of gift ideas. Earlier today, even the elusive FL came out of hibernation to join us at lunch. Unbeknown to me at the time, he also brought to work his fancy camera, which was left behind in the office due to miscommunication with me about when exactly the present would be given. As it was, we only had my toy-like Nikon during lunch, and the few photos that I took of the momentous moment when Zoe received her present speak more about the reactions of everyone else (trying, and failing, not to laugh) than of Zoe, who hid from my camera behind the birthday card. This probably says it all about the present selection, especially when five of us voters were at the dinner where Zoe, asked if she would ever get a tattoo and in an attempt of appearing brave and life-embracing, feebly suggested that she might one day.

In all likelihood, she probably will not, but I hope that this memory will stay with her like an indelible tattoo. And, just in case Zoe gets a personality transplant between now and the end of her life and decides that she wants a dragon tattoo after all, there will always be that 200-something-euro voucher that she received for her thirtieth birthday. Her parents are probably cursing themselves for not having thought of such a genius present.

330. By Professor E. Gadd and Rosalina.

Alternate reality

Everything started with Toadette trying to arrange «her Mario party», we happily embarked ourself in this adventure, but little did we know about the fact that it was going to be a "real" Mario party.

The astute Toadette asked Rosalina and me if we wanted to join Princess Peach to play Super Mario Party on Tuesday evening. The location was already set: the castle of Princess Peach, the invitees also: Rosalina and me, Toadette, Princess Peach and Yoshi, and of course Catherine. Toadette was so enthusiastic of having all these Super Mario characters under the same roof, that she immediately called Catherine to press her to borrow a copy of Mario Party from the local library for that evening.

Only later we discovered that it was a real party and that we were celebrating Princess Peach's birthday. Toadette cunningly sat us down in our predetermined seats, the play started, and we were all unwitting pawns in the hands of a concealed puppeteer, oblivious of the fact that we would never play Super Mario, at least not with the Wii-motes.

Mario was the most notable absentee, he was probably busy fighting against evil enemies, and Bowser had carte blanche to handily conquer Peach’s castle. When he arrived to the party, he quickly monopolised our attention stealing all the spotlight from the birthday girl. He knowingly lost a bet he could never win. Of course he did not put money on it. Instead he smartly managed to make TPC to beg him to remove his clothes. He never removed them, he just kept amusing himself with TPC asking for his furry torso the whole evening. He is such an old sea dog…

But the real objective of Bowser was to conquer the heart of Princess Peach, that’s the reason why he always kidnaps her in the game, isn’t it? [Moreover Yoshi was gone, and] all this continuous arguing between them has to be rooted somewhere...

He was trying to make her jealous by peeving Catherine, or by cooing with Toadette romantically enshrouded by the dim warm light behind the table. When he started to sing «On s'en fout, on n'y va pas, on n'a qu'à se cacher sous les draps…», Princess Peach glanced at him with a sly look, she joined him in the song and we all thought it was in the bag. But then something unexpected happened. After the song, he stood up, he walked offhand towards Toadette, he swiftly took her hand in his, with such nonchalance as it was completely normal, as it was the only very thing to do in that moment… Toadette couldn’t believe it, she was visibly thrilled, radiant with a smile no one before us ever witnessed; one hand in his, and the other adjusting the hairs behind her ear, in a typical female quirk that revealed all her delight.

In the end there was just an unanswered question, why did we not play with the Wii?

オヤ・マー博士

Because.

190. Zoe showing us a secret message to her father, a sentiment shared by all children who have computer-challenged parents. 

191. Night time. In a back garden, lit up by little orange light balls stringed from one tree to another. "You should have more tequila," Luigi tries to further corrupt Princess Peach, who, unexpectedly, was the initial force behind the tequila movement. "Why should I?" Princess Peach replies, a valid question considering she has fulfilled the requirement of three shots for Luigi to become the sixth victim who will go to see a crappy movie this weekend. "For the company?" Luigi offers. "I have the company anyway." Correct as she is, Princess Peach later does take another shot, and, if my memory does not fail me, the fourth one is also her last. 

My recollections of the remainder of the night are a little hazy. Guitar duets. Melancholic saxophone notes. Wall of beautiful, deep red roses. Cozy table overfilled with plates of delicious Italian food and mismatched glasses. Mario's polite description, to me, of the home-baked bread being served "It's like your bread, but... different." The offhanded declaration "I am an ass-man." Stolen kisses between the hostess and her boyfriend -- visual reminders of love and friendship tonight, here in this small garden. The good thing about having company is that they can remind you of whatever else you forget about the night, as Luigi and Princess Peach have kindly agreed to do. One of them has been slightly concerned about whether the writing might be a little mean. Maybe, maybe not. But, regardless of what they write, I know they themselves cannot be mean if they are the same people who persuaded me to come to the evening, who asked me to text to let them know I arrived home safe and sound even if I got off the taxi only a few minutes later, who exclaimed "You made it!" when I got online afterwards and then proceeded to continue the conversation about boobs and asses.

So, without further ado...

192. The night according to Luigi.

A Trieste-Dinner.

For some time the Super Mario group had talked about having a dinner. Daisy promised several specialties from her hometown, causing ridiculously high expectations. Finally the big day arrived! C. and I arrived early after an efficient trip to Ikea (stupid bed frame). After enjoying a couple of our brought along Belgian beers, the usual suspects began to arrive. We had some olives, white wine and delicious onion bread. The main course consisted of a potato/onion/bacon dish, tomatoes stuffed with breadcrumbs and garlic, fried zucchinis with garlic, eggplant Milanese and bread encrusted ham with sweet mustard. It was superb! If you ever open a restaurant I will definitely become a regular! Dessert was gnocchi, a fruit omelet pie (?) and chocolate mousse with in sweet dough. All very good, although gnocchi was a bit heavy at this point!

At some point here, we brought out the Tequila. A bold and dangerous move, which is the main reason why I tonight will go to the cinema (it is definitely not because ‘Source code’ sounds like the best movie ever). We had a couple of shots with salt and lemon and a ‘Tequila Boom Boom’. At some point in all of this I mentioned that the true way of drinking tequila is as a body tequila. Little did I know this would spark the big conversation of the evening. How, exactly we got from body tequila, to the following is a bit blurry to me, I blame overeating! 

The big question is, are you an ass-(wo)man or a boob-(wo)man? 

I announced myself in the former group. However, getting a straight answer out of most of the others was very hard. Mario gave in and chooses the other group, however I suspect he just wanted out of the discussion. In the end all, but one gave me an answer. You still owe me! Apparently, I will have my answer tonight. Surely we have discussed other stuff as well this wonderful evening in the small garden, but the details are lost to me. Well, except one thing. Toadette texting like crazy and, on the way home in the cab, demanding that we want out for more alcohol! The day after it seemed very wise that the reply was ‘NO!'

The night according to Princess Peach. 

Following Daisy's call to the Super Marios for an original Trieste dinner Princess Peach and Toadette take the ever so handy city bikes and start their journey to this evening's venue. Problems on the way:
- Toadette's apparent problem of staying at the right hand side of their lane which leads to Princess Peach worrying about her getting hit by a car for most of the route.
- Princess Peach's habit of not complying to standard traffic rules leading to Toadette almost getting hit by a car (again!).
- Toadette stopping to pedal at the sight of a small boy and then falling on top of him.
- Toadette screaming on Chaussée de Waterloo as a van tries to pull out of his parking spot just as she passes by.

Finally arrived, Toadette starts drinking wine to ease the tension of the stressful journey. Princess Peach is worrying about the abandoned tennis match (one of the greatest clay court matches played by Roger Federer ever, against Novak Djokovic who has not been beaten in this season upto now), receiving minutely text message updates and shares these with the slightly less interested crowd.

Starting the meal with deliciously freshly baked bread, followed by a variety of vegetables: Zucchine, egg plants, stuffed tomatoes. After the starters, Daisy brings out a grilled ham which was a generous gift of her grandma who must have been worried at the sight of Daisy's happiness when receiving it so she gave her a second one just to be sure that Daisy wouldn't miss her home too much.

Two hours later all wine bottles have been emptied, all food has been eaten, all Super Marios are feeling sufficiently stuffed. This is usually the moment of the night which decides if it will be a nice dinner after which everybody goes home or if it will be a great night in which people stay and talk until three in the morning. This question is settled quickly by Luigi reminding Princess Peach of her agreement to finally drink some alcohol with the group and the bottle of Tequila waiting in the fridge.

Bringing out the liqueur, salt and lemon, Mario, Luigi, Toadette and Princess Peach start the second part of the evening which subsequently leads to
- Toadette starting physically hitting Mario with her tiny fists.
- Mario teaching the others the Italian gesture of somebody behaving in a stupid way ("your brain is moving in a funny way")... often used during the remainder of the night when looking at Toadette.
- Luigi starting the discussion of whether people chose a girl because of her ass or her boobs.
- Princess Peach still thinking of taking the bike home... impolitely adding that she would not take Toadette along given her ability to bike in combination with the alcohol shared so far.

Having finished the Tequila, the only remaining drink is beer which Toadette is refusing to drink ("I cannot go down in percentage of alcohol... I CANNOT"). Her ranting is abruptly ended by Mario handing her his full glass and telling her to drink half of it. This ritual is repeated several times after each turn Toadette seems to be more willing to provoke the remaining Super Marios with random comments. Only ending in the cab with her screaming at them, "You are lame and boring if you do not come to party with me." In this moment Mario leans over to Princess Peach and tells her, "next time, we should stop giving her alcohol earlier..." "Much earlier," she thinks.