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By Carmine Santa Maria
Brooklyn Daily
I’m madder than bride who spent two years of her life planning the perfect wedding then got violently ill on her wedding day thanks to bad oysters — the only think she let her good-for-nothing husband handle — over the fact that parties nowadays take weigh to long to plan, and most of them aren’t worth the effort.
Look, you all know the ol’Screecher knows how to have a good time, and nobody know how to plan a shin-dig like yours truly. But I’ve been to my share of clunkers, and most of those wasted the time of the people who planned them, the people who attended them, and, most importantly, me.
Now, I don’t need to tell you that you won’t be wasting your time reading this week’s column because I’ve got some advice for anyone that wants to plan a spectacular party post haste: take the advice of my pals Linda and Lou Petrosino, who somehow pulled off the greatest 30th birthday bash of all time — with just two days planning!
“How did they do it?” you ask?
Well, for one thing, the Petrosini (that’s the plural of Petrosino, for those of you who don’t understand the mother tongue) is a large and close-knit family, so actually it wasn’t surprising that within 48 hours a hundred of the clan and mishbucca (that’s Jewish for in-laws) from far and near attended this instant party for their eldest daughter, who, by the way, gave them two beautiful grandsons (so it was definitely worth it). Oh, and let me add that my great nephew, Anthony, is the birthday girl’s husband, so that’s how I ended up stuffing my big fat face at this extravaganza. Man, it was a good thing I didn’t drown in the bathtub last week!
The next thing I know, me, my lovely wife Sharon, and Tornado are on the Access-A-Ride over to Buckley’s on Notrand Avenue and E. 26th Street, which, for those of you who are unfamiliar with my shameless plug of the week, is the only restaurant I know where the service is equal to the excellent, delightful, and bountiful cuisine — and that’s not an easy statement to make. The prime rib I ordered was the best in town, and even though I was able to eat my way through multiples levels of bread and butter, tomato and mozzarella, fried calamari, baked clams followed by arugula and green salad, penne marinara, the younger folks or those that couldn’t eat meat or, like my wife, have gout, were offered shrimp scampi, eggplant parmigiano, chicken marsala, and salmon.
Anthony thanked the 75–85 guests (75 percent of which were at least 75 years old!) for coming despite the spontaneous invitation, and then, because most of them were octogenarians, he thanked them again! Then, with a mike in hand, he sang holding his son, Anthony.
Sharon and I had to leave before the serving of the thee-tiered birthday cake, pastry, and Italian cookies that were to be served with the coffee.
By now you must realize that because of my weight, I can only travel on Tornado, and the both of us are at the mercy of Access-A-Ride schedulers. Access-A-Ride is a fantastic service for the handicapped, ill and aged, and when it is good, it is very good, but when its bad, well, enough said. We had to charge out with a seven-minute telephone notice, which was better than the six-minute notice given coming, in which I had to bring my socks, shirt, and whatever else I needed to get dressed on the bus. Thankfully, we rode solo!
We got home in time to see the MegaBall results, and even though we lost, the evening was a total winner! Happy Birthday to the birthday girl, and tell your parents we are available on a day’s notice to attend any of their parties!
Screech at you next week!
Read Carmine's screech every Saturday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail him at diegovega@aol.com.