Day 112: Get Ready to Party!

I had a lovely birthday with my mom running around town setting up for my party tonight. We bought strands of paper lantern lights, tea lights, French country themed paper goods in colors of cornflower yellow and cobalt blue and enough booze to keep Serge Gainsbourg's thirst quenched for a year.
Coming home from our errands absolutely exhausted we stopped by my grandparent's house for the Italian Friday night tradition of fish and pasta. We're so roman catholic. We walked in to find my cousin Anthony fixing my grandfather's 'tv ears'. The radioactive device that my y grandfather wears in order to hear the t.v. Anthony who worked as a customer service representative for Apple 10 years ago has become the gadget and IT handy man. "I don't know why everyone thinks I can fix computers, tvs and the new one 'tv ears'. All I did was forward phone calls to the support department when I was at Apple!" he can often be found saying after he gets trapped into wiring speakers at my mom's house or installing new programs on to his mom's laptop. 
My grandfather was on the couch wearing said tv ears as Anthony was at the base moving wires around. "Static!" shouted my grandfather. "Statiiiiiiic!" he repeated. Anthony was trying to make the sound clearer but since he is not a trained technician he was just plugging and unplugging things. "I've been doing this for 20 minutes and nothing is happening. I think he just needs new tv ears. I hate those fucking things!" said Anthony with exasperation. "Call the 1-800 number." I offered. "No!" said Anthony defensively, "The last time, I called the customer service number Grandpa kept screaming in the background and I couldn't hear the person on the other end. Don't even suggest it!" My grandfather waved his hands in the air and started screaming "Static! Static! Static!" à la Redrum and saw a spark shoot out of the apparatus that was rested on my grandfather's head. Anthony quickly ran over to Grandpa and took the headset off his ears. "Grandpa, I'm just going to get you a new pair this weekend. I don't know what's wrong." said Anthony. "Nothing ever works in this goddamn world!" my grandfather said in thick Southern Italian accent as he shuffled in slow motion into the kitchen to sit down for dinner. 
My grandmother has prepared a delicious dinner of linguini with clam sauce and lightly fried whiting. The dinner was commenced with my grandfather's Italian dinner table prayer, luckily he was hungry and we got the abridged version instead of the dragged out "Padreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and his fingertips rested on his forehead for 30 seconds. He just did a mini "Padre". 
For my birthday, my grandmother gave me a vintage amethyst cocktail ring from 1925 that she bought in Greenwich Village in the 50's. It's absolutely gorgeous. This ring needs to be worn on manicured hands, my chipped polish and bitten nails were gravely insulting this exquisite piece of art. This is certainly not an everyday ring and will debut it at special occasion which is to be determined. I feel like Zsa Zsa when I wear it. 
My 30th birthday was everything I could have asked for. I spent time with my family, prepared for a party; one of my favorite things to do (Why I'm not a party planner is beyond me) and received flowers sent to me internationally by my new beau.
Tonight we're going to boogie on reggae woman at my garden birthday party. For everyone in The U.S, have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Enjoy the last brou-ha-ha and everyone in Paris Bonne Rentrée! Septembre est arrivé! A bientôt!