Friday, we received a last-minute invite to ¡Club TropiCaliente! from Brett and Emily. The non-profit marketing firm where Emily works purchased a table for this Hurley School fundraiser, but didn't have enough people to fill the seats. Emily said free food. We said yes.
Agreeing to meet at Copley gave Ian and I a little time to kill after work, so we people-watched and were fascinated by this little boy playing in the fountain. His parents kept reminding him not to drink the water.
His laps around the edges kept us entertained until Brett and Emily arrived, then we headed to the venue.
At the check-in table, we discovered we were not appropriately dressed for the theme. There were several cross dressers and a lady who looked like Angela from The Office wearing a costume similar to the Chaquita Banana lady.
We also discovered we didn't have the cash to win anything at the silent auction — our $40 bids were very quickly overtaken. But we did enjoy the very believable Cuba-circa-1950s feel, the sweet band, and the incredible latin-style passed hors d'oeuvres, particularly the sliders with manchego cheese and the yuca fries. We may or may not have followed the servers around for a good portion of the night.
With the outfits, the music, the Latin dancing, and the food, the whole thing felt like prom for grown-ups. Which seemed fitting since there was also a prom that night at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. We already had seen large clusters of teenagers dressed up and in crazy vehicles (ex.: "the party bus" and stretch hummers) hanging out the windows screaming things like, "whoo prom!"
But back to TropiCaliente. Most of the people there were parents of elementary kids, and we laughed about the reactions we imagined their kids would have if they saw their parents at "the club" dancing the samba in a prom dress with a hairy man in drag.
The next day, we wandered around our neighborhood and caught a little kids' soccer tournament. My favorite moment is the little girl playing in the dirt while her daddy coaches the team.
Also notable — the little boy who got excited when a ladybug landed on his arm, only to look crestfallen when it flew away in time for him to focus on the start of the second quarter.
Little kids are fascinating. Their sense of wonder. Their imagination. Their drive to learn and explore. Their unabashed fearlessness. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, never worried about tact or the "proper" response.
When do we learn to be guarded? Why does it take something like an elaborate fundraiser for us to be silly and transparent? To play dress up, to pretend?
This weekend, you can find me in the park on a swing blowing bubbles.