Japanese Nica Party

Well color me impressed. I've been to my first Japanese Nicaraguan 4-Year Old Twins' Birthday Party. You live long enough in this strange world, and you will see just about all you could care to see. Today was no exception. You know you've had a great day, when you reflect on it and lament the fact that you forgot the camera.

It started out harmless enough...I worked on my Blues presentation for the 28th, I surfed the internet, drank my morning cup of coffee, the usual. I didn't get to work out, or go running, which was a bummer. But, what the heck....one day isn't going to make a difference. So, I 'took it easy' in the morning. At noon, I was prepared to pick up Brodie, buy a birthday present for 'Nica Party', and go smash pinatas for a couple of hours. After picking up some gifts for the Japanese twins (Mai and Kaoru) with a friend, and fellow preschool parent, we all headed to the bash.

Luckily, this affair turned out to be a lot more reasonable, which was good and bad. Good, because there was no arrogance, unnecessary flair and display of wealth....Bad, because there was no single malt scotch, fully stocked bar, nor any pony rides, golf carts escorting guests, etc... Oh well, I guess this would turn out to be a normal party after all, despite it being a 'Japanese Nicaraguan Twins' 4-Year Old Birthday Party'. The food was sort of normal. There was Pizza Hut, sushi rolls, potato cakes and all the standard fare...Sodas of all colors and flavors. Depressingly, at least to my friend Luis and I, there didn't appear to be any cervezas. Luckily, Japanese dad recognized the universal 30-something dude look for 'I'm thirsty', and soon produced a semi-cold Corona for both of us. It was one of those, 'Oh my, I didn't realize men were going to show up!'

Normally, it would've just been 'man' (singular), but Luis's wife, Arantxa, (my usual Nica party companion) had been in 'Nica car accident' earlier in the morning, and was receiving 'Nica medical attention/pharmaceuticals'.....So, the party must go on. Luis and I sat back like wolves in a pasture, admiring the sheep and lambs, sipping our beers in the sweltering heat. John Wayne would've been proud... At any rate, we wore smiles, watched our kids, and made the normal Japanese Nica 4-Year Old Twins' Birthday Party small talk with the parents. Of minor note, the empleadas (nannies) all congregated over in the shade like they knew about the brutal sun, while the two caucasian wolves basked in the sun.....until it was pinata time!

Pinata time is the climax of Nica party...Any Nica party worth its weight has a professional pinata handler (similar to a snake handler, sans anti-venom on hand). This party was no different. But, this pinata was different....It wouldn't succomb to the kids' collective violence. Paper mache Winnie the Pooh withstood a barrage of body blows. Even after seeing the new Rocky movie, the barbarism made me cringe. That is, until Ichiro put on his batting gloves. After literally breaking pinata stick in half over the cast iron hind quarters of Paper mache Winnie, Ichiro brought out the broom handle....After an agonizing struggle, Winnie succombed to stick-wielding Japanese dad.

Then it happened......In what turned out to be the 'anti-climatic' moment of the party....just as all of the children were poised to claim their loot, una empleada elefante Nica (fat Nica nanny) blocked Brodie from sugarland delight like Charles Barkley, actually falling to all fours, stuffing candies with both fat hands, with alarming grace and dexterity. It's like when you watch the nature shows and they show alligators laying around for hours on end, and they warn, you should know, alligators can run faster than dogs and small horses....that sort of thing. And you say, 'c'mon! that can't be.... Well, it can. I saw it. Had the congregation of children seeking candy been a pie chart, her butt would've taken up at least a third of the surface area. In the end, she had successfully filled her backpack to the brim....while my dejected Brodie came away with one piece of candy....one piece. I saw the price he had to pay for that one as well...After the fracus, there was one of those little pathetic cinnamon candies that you get at the doctor's office, and Brodie stuck his little digits out there bravely, only to get stepped on, before finally cashing in....

In the end, another empleada saw the whole thing unfold, and eventually coerced her kid to share the wealth, which reinforced my theory about the world being a simple place really. There are two kinds of people (irregardless of religion, class, nationality, skin color, etc...) 'nice people', and, well, let's just call them, 'not-so-nice people'. So, that was Japanese 4-Year Old Twins' Birthday Party. It was a good party. Luis and I ended up scoring two more Tonas apiece. He reminded me that if he didn't have cold cervezas at his son's party, I need to punch him in the face....Of course, I told him I'd comply with that reasonable demand....On On to the next soiree....Ciao!