50 in Las Vegas

I turned 50 last April. Since January, more or less, I began to plan a nice Saturday to enjoy with my friends. I would invite them to a BBQ that would take place at my parent's small cottage in Valsequillo, a tiny rural village 40 minutes away from the capital of the island. 

It was my 50th birthday, so it had to be "the one".

Music was granted thanks to my small PA System, powerful enough to face these kind of parties. Spanish music from the 70's to the 90's during the meal. Disco music from 70's and the 80's for the rest of the night.

Wife, me and friends.......more or less 20 people, so I asked my little brother for help because he is used to make BBQs with his friends, so he knows how to deal with the "how much food or drinks do I need?" thing.

Following his advices we bought different types of meat and sausages, plus several starters. Even when my Mum came with us to buy the meat, she didn't tell me she had already cooked 3 special dishes for my BBQ.

I had also prepared a 40 minutes video session, featuring pictures of most of my friends when we were in our twenties and almost 120 minutes of Karaoke tracks.

Finally, I had planned a small jam session. One of my friends on electric guitar and me on bass and vocals.

The BBQ took place last Saturday, July 25th. 

My friends began to show up at 14:00 while my Dad and my younger brother were leaving. They two both got there very early, as we ussually do every Saturday, so they lighted up the BBQ in advance at 10:45 as we were gonna use wood instead of charcoal. 

Altough the PA system left channel broke down completely half an hour before the begginign of the party, it was a complete success. The right channel did its job perfectly with one speaker. 

I swear that the meat we bought was absolutely delicious, I mean, it was not cheap at all, but the whole of my friends and their wives, only had words for the three dishes my Mum had cooked for us. One of them, the foodie one, told me: "look, if your Mum decide to run a restaurant offering only just one of these three dishes.........,there will be queue at the door. Tell her this is the best I've ever tasted"

After the meal, they sang happy birthday......twice and I was given my presents: a very nice sunglasses, a very useful pocket radio, a leather wallet, a trendy (too trendy IMO) T-shirt and a Samsung cell phone: "This is for you to throw away your disgusting 25 year old prepaid phone card. Sign a new phone contract asap. We want you to be avalaible on whatsapp on the fly!" 

Video time was next, so while I was plugging the TV and a sound bar with a pendrive in the USB port, everybody got a chair and sat in front of the television. For the most of them it was the first time they had seen those pictures since those pictures were shot, back in the 80's. Others pics were more recent but.....the most of them got amazed. Some of the girls even thrilled.

As soon as my iPod started off playing Disco music, people didn't stop dancing 'till right around 23:00. Later on, I began to plug a couple of microphones and some of them came to me saying: "But? Karaoke too?........man.......your are setting the bar too high. It is gonna be way difficult to repeat a succes like this"

At 00:00 they were hungry again, so we lighted up the BBQ again.

It was 02:15 when they left. There was no time for live music. 

Wife and I ended absolutely tired after 14 hours dealing with the party, but I swear it was worth.

We all had a really good time.