Clareified

The Birthday Season: Part I. Start here or don’t blame me if this doesn’t make any sense.

The following weekend, it was off to Montana for a weekend with the Jakes. I had stayed up all night, Karol pretended to stay up all night, Ari went to bed early and Pretty Numbers…well, I’m not sure, she has a bit of a magical quality about her, such that I never imagine that she either sleeps or wakes, she just is. Like magic.
We met up at the airport. I was in charge of picking up the Jake’s anniversary present–which was glass and delicate and so it was right away decided that I was to hand it over to a more responsible party. To wit: anybody else.
Pretty Numbers took over. And then we laughed about whether security would let her on board with it, since 1) It was wrapped and 2) it really wasn’t hers.
We passed the time with my “interesting stories of stuff I saw on youtube this week.”
Jake met us at the airport in Montana, looking very much the cowboy. And by that I mean he was wearing a cowboy hat. But he was wearing it very plausibly!
We stopped off for lunch at a diner at the side of a road and about twenty minutes later, I noticed Ari’s eyes darting and she was whispering.
“NO, the guy from Lost!”
I turned to look and there was Sawyer from Lost eating at the back of the restaurant.
He looked really small and I wasn’t sure it was him, till the other patrons also started whispering.
Pretty Numbers told me and Ari (because the rest of our party didn’t watch Lost and really couldn’t care less) to go ask him to take a picture with us. And well, since my inability to form words or sentences around famous people is damn well legendary…I begged off.
PN and Ari followed him out to the parking lot though, and snapped a shot.
We thanked Jake profusely, lunch AND a celebrity and we hadn’t even unpacked yet.
We got to Jake’s house in Big Sky a little before dinner.
WOW. WOW. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW.
I MEAN WOW.
DUDE.
Even if I were a better writer, I couldn’t describe this place.

IT HAD AN ELEVATOR.
Ari summed it up best when she said “I’m never going to be happy in my apartment ever again.”
We each got our own rooms, except for PN and Karol, who shared the Dawn Summers suite.
Each of our rooms had its own bathroom and shower. AND PLASMA.
Wait…why on earth did I leave there?
We had dinner at a lodge up in the mountains, and Karol and I tried to guess how much the musicians made. We decided not much, but guessed that they were happy enough.
I had my first drinks in two months since I was ordered not to drink anymore — you know, first Paris, then Lindsay, then Dawn. That night the girls sat in the hottub.
I took pictures.
“Don’t take pictures of my ass,” Ari said as she climbed in.
Click.
Don’t people know me well enough by now, to know better than to tell me not to do something?
I went downstairs to get my internet fix and I got a text from Fisch saying that I had made the Scrabble report for second most bingoes in a night! Which, let me tell you, is pretty darn good. Did I mention that I have a Scrabble blog?
But, for the most part, cellphone wireless was rather spotty, so I shut off the phone and spent the night taking in the natural beauty of the Montana mountains. Ok, fine. I spent the night watching the Dreamgirls movie on my plasma. Sue me.
The next day, we set out early for Yellowstone. (After a delicious breakfast of waffles and huckleberry. Turns out huckleberry is a real thing and not just somethingHigh On Poker says at the poker table when he’s donkey calling.) Karol rode up front with Jake in the Jeep, while the rest of us rode with Mrs. Jake in air conditioning. Suckers.
When we reached the first geyser…Ari said something like “God lives here.”
And then I said “no way…God totally lives in New York.”
Which then triggered the “is God here or in an internet cafe in Soho” debate of 2007. (Leave your thoughts in the comment section.)
We had a picnic lunch in the great outdoors, surrounded by squirrels and birds and trees and fresh air. But don’t worry. I made it out safely.
We were all trying to take the most adorable pictures for our myspace pages, I won. Hands down. No question about it.
Is there anyone cuter than Dawn?

Seriously. How do I do it?
Anyway, sorry, got distracted by my own adorableness. It happens. Just one of the many burdens the beautiful have to bear.
We leave the big geyser that goes off faithfully since times of Old…I can’t remember the name, and it suddenly starts to HAIL. IN THE MIDDLE OF JULY! We pull over and lose track of the Jeep. So, we start to call them on the car phone (that’s right…not a cell phone, like you common people. A PHONE. BUILT INTO THE CAR. Why oh why did I leave there?) No answer from Karol or Jake.
The Jeep is not to be seen.
After twenty minutes, I come to the only logical conclusion.
They are dead.
The jeep couldn’t handle the hail and they went off the side of the mountain to their fiery deaths.
Karol had borrowed my camera and Jake was a terrific person, so I was understandably upset over the loss of him and the camera.
I decided I’d have lunch with Ronnie every week just to make sure he was okay.
I made my peace with having to buy a new camera.
Having lost the Jeep, the rest of us headed back to town and went to see a movie.
After the movie, who should come sauntering up, but Karol.
“You guys missed the BEST part of Yellowstone!! We saw buffalo and waterfalls and unicorns and mermaids and we each got a pot of gold coins to take home. It was awesome.”
Dude.
What was I thinking? This is Karol. I think she’s dead, but no, she’s swimming in gold coins with mermaids.
Everything always works out for Karol. Life Rule #9.
That night we went to the rodeo and I decided that I was going to write a hit TV show for NBC about a rodeo. I’m going to call it “7 seconds” and it’ll be packaged with Friday Night Lights.
I am going to make 30 million dollars.
And then, I’m going to buy the Angels and move them to Montana.
The rodeo was a little less…um…polished than the one I went to with Nora in Texas. In this one, none of the cowboys stayed on the bull for 7 seconds, none of them could lasso the calf and the clown was terrible.
At one point he was all “hey, would any of the ladies out there date me” and then he was all “I’d like to put my mother in law on that horse.”
“Wait,” I asked Ari all puzzled, “wasn’t he just asking for dates?”
“He’s a rodeo clown, dude. Just go with it.”
“Oohhh… yeeaaahhh.”
That night Mrs. Jake told us we had to clean up our rooms, and make our beds in the morning. Panic set in.
“Bed making?”
I don’t have any tools…or carpentry experience! What would Jesus do, indeed!
“Oh…changing sheets? And pillow cases?” Huh…yeah, I don’t know how to do that either.
Mercifully, it turns out she didn’t have any new sheets for my room, so all I had to do was take off the old ones. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I didn’t want to be banned from Montana!
Seeing as how no one wanted to play poker with me, even though I brought chips AND a button with a built in clock!!!! I retreated back to the world where Beyonce is considered the weak singer in a group that includes a girl that lost on American Idol.
I was up very early the next morning and at breakfast, ordered up some pancakes…while PN had troutcakes or something.
“I so knew you were going to order that,” Karol said to PN, “and I knew Dawn was going to get regular pancakes.”
We made one last stop before the airport to buy some knick knacks for the folks back home and then made our way to the plane.
Goodbye Montana. See you again next year.

I readied myself for my final trip of the season. The annual surprise party at Pearatty’s.
Mr. Pearatty picked me up from the airport and took me to see the Long Beach marina where the Trans Pacific boat race leaves from. As he was walking me past all the sights, he suddenly says “has there been something that you love talking about, but no one else cares?” I don’t know what prompted that, I thought I had been looking very interested up until that point, but I went with it. “Yeah, Scrabble. Nobody else cares about my tile problems.” “Ha! Yeah, well I think talking about the Trans Pacific boat race is like…I’m just talking Scrabble.”
We went out to dinner and I told her of my birthday season woes. “Yeah, so this girl totally invited some weird guy to my house and then didn’t even show up, AND Kaz didn’t come because she had to go to a stupid funeral and then I was sooo scared I wouldn’t be invited back because I didn’t know how to make a bed and then I thought Karol was dead, but then she wasn’t.”
“Don’t worry Dawn! Your luck is changing, I can feel it! Hey, Fisch was going to surprise you by coming, but then he had something at work and now he’s not coming…huh…ok…I guess that wasn’t the best example of your luck changing.”
I laughed.
And then the waitress brought me a free cake with a candle in it and sang me happy birthday.
“There! See! It’s turning!” Pearatty said triumphantly.
Yes, indeed. It was turning.
That morning we had breakfast at Roscoe’s “Chicken N Waffles.” I had been giving the pearattys the business all weekend because I’ve been visiting them for five years and they never once took me to Roscoe’s. And come on, who doesn’t want Chicken N Waffles? Who?
Roscoe’s is located in the Pasadena ghetto.
I only mention that because when I ordered a “caffe latte,” pearatty laughed so hard, she snorted. And the waiter looked at me like I had two heads.
“See, Dawn? That is why we never brought you here. Latte. HAHAHAHAHAHHA”
When it was time to order, I said “I’d like a waffle, three chicken wings and cornbread.”
The waiter was like “You mean a number six?”
And sure enough, there, on the menu, was a pre-printed number six, with not two chicken wings or four chicken wings…but exactly three!
What a country.
We went shopping for the party at Vons and I asked pearatty where Paris Hilton lived. “Um…I dunno…Beverly Hills, probably.”
“Oh, so we probably won’t see her here?”
“Dude, we probably wouldn’t see her in Beverly Hills’ Vons either.”
I laughed.
At partytime, the air was cool, much better than last year’s record 116 degree heat.
The beer bottles were in the tubs AND pearatty bought me my very first box of wine.
I very excitedly tapped the spigot and poured myself a glass of pink blush zinfandel. I took a deep drink and promptly spit it out.
THAT WAS GROSSSSS.
Mr. Pearatty brought out an old Christmas tree for us to burn and we sat around the fire eating burgers and corn, when I looked up and saw Kaz walking down the stairs from pearatty’s house.OHMYGOD!
“What are you doing here??!?!?!”
“Surprise!”
Kaz flew allllll the way to California for my birthday party. Which is way cooler than F-train’s just happening to be in California because he was taking the bar.
AND TITO –the piemaker– was there. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, last January, I tasted the very best pie, I have ever tasted. And I am generally not a pie person (fat kids, they love the cake.) and so as soon as I saw him I was all…maybe he has pie! I mean, I don’t see any pie…but he might have it in his pocket or something.
So, then Kaz started to say how she tried to find a Harry Potter cake, but they were out, so they got a different ice cream cake. So, I dared to blurt out what was in my head:
“AND PIE? IS THERE KEY LIME PIE?”
And she looked crestfallen and she said to Tito “I told you, you should have made the key lime.”
And he shrugged his shoulders as if to say “well, too bad…it’s cherry and there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
I felt all bad.
“Oh, it’s ok…I was just kidding…I’m very happy with whatever inferior pie you happen to have with you.” I was totally lying. But I don’t think they noticed. I am very stoic when I want to be.
I hung out with them for a little while, before getting into a political conversation with George and Mr. Pearatty (who amusingly are at polar extremes on the spectrum). (Funny sidenote: I was talking with Mr. Pearatty about who he likes for President in ‘08 and when he said “Giuliani” I was like, come on, guy, he seems good for a muncipality…don’t you want someone for President who has big ideas? And he looked at me and said “Dawn, I don’t want a guy with big ideas. Big ideas are never good. That’s why they have that phrase ‘what’s the big idea?” And not in a positive way.”)
Kaz and Pearatty disappeared into the house and when they emerged, they had two pastries in their hands, one of which was alit with candles.
As they got closer, I saw….KEY LIME PIE!
HOORAY!!!
I blew out the candles and served the ice cream cake. I gave myself the biggest piece of key lime pie ever ever.
“So are you happy,” pearatty asked as I was stuffing my face.
“YES! DUDE! It’s key lime pie! THE PIE! I am very easy to please.”
Pearatty thought about this for a moment and replied.
“Actually…Kaz had to fly here from New York and Tito had to bake a pie from scratch and not just any pie, it had to be key lime…so actually, you’re pretty hard to please.”
I laughed.
Yeah, I really am.
We spent the rest of the night drinking wine and beer…I believe pearatty actually got drunk enough to drink the wine in a box.
After the coals in the grill died down, we took to grilling hot dogs on a hanger over the christmas tree flame.
I got tired after like two minutes of holding it, and the hanger got too hot, so I gave up.
Pearatty declared that I would not survive not one hour in the wilderness.
She then got up to grill her hot dog.
It was so plump and juicy and dark and grilled to perfection that I called “Birthday Season!” And snatched it off her plate, just as she was about to eat it.
Mmm…stealing the hot dog made it taste even better.
We stayed up talking and giggling through the night and when morning came, we met up with Tito and Kaz and had brunch aboard the Queen Mary.
I returned to New York convinced that my luck had changed.
I had the annual Dawn Summers poker tournament at my house, where I didn’t lose money playing poker for the first time in July and Fisch even managed to make it back to New York for the final day of the Dawn Summers birthday season, which was chock full of Scrabble and drinks at the diner.

That’s right eight drinks, six entrees, two people. NG.
So, alls well that ends well.
Five states, four cakes, countless good friends and good times.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under THE Birthday Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.