Drag queens, marching bands, fingernails and farm life

(*Advance apologies for the poor quality of the following (iPhone) photos... I'd like to hope that they add a little something to the overall silly atmosphere of this post. *)

Scenes from a festive weekend

Time: Friday night, March 4th, 2011
Location: A Thai restaurant, Oasisba, in downtown Portland, Oregon
Claim to fame: Good food. Oh, and all the servers are drag queens:

The servers take your order, serve your drinks, jump up on stage to sing a quick number and then run to the kitchen to pick up your meal:

My son and his girlfriend received lots of attention:

This may or may not be me...:

... on a stage with three new friends:


Time: Later that same Friday night
Location: The Crystal Ballroom, downtown Portland, Oregon
Claim to fame: March Fourth Marching Band. They are a Portland-based band that travels the world but comes home to Portland to play a birthday/anniversary concert every March 4th:

And, wow, what a show...they sing, they play incredible music, they walk on stilts, they perform daring acts with hula hoops and long poles:

Towards the end of the night, hundreds of balloons fell from the ceiling and the band sang Happy Birthday...to the world, which of course, included me. This was very cool, especially since March 4th had now turned into March 5th:


Time: Saturday, March 5th, 2011
Location: My mom's house
Claim to fame: Well, she's my wonderful mom. And she wanted to throw me a party. I don't think it's possible to laugh more than I did on this night.

Look at the beautiful chocolate cake my son's girlfriend, Alana, baked me:

Oh, and the fingernails? I got quite a few remarks on my last donkey post about my painted fingernails, all of which made me giggle. Why are they painted? Well, in case you haven't figured it out yet, it was my birthday on Saturday and I felt quite festive about the whole event. :-)
Just as an FYI: this is a combo-color of two different shades, "High Def" (blue) and "Virtual Violet" (purple). I also *love* to paint other people's nails, so if you'd like a home visit from me, chime in any time:

I haven't had polish on my nails in probably over two years - it just doesn't really go with farm work or farm animals, does it?
Hard to imagine that I used to be that girl who not only wore polish, but wore acrylic (gel) nails shaped just so to lend that professional look to my business attire:

Anyway, hopefully this explains why the heck I was mucking out the donkey/llama paddock with pretty-purple-painted fingernails:

I really had a wonderfully fun weekend.
I ♥ ♥ ♥ my family and friends.
:-)