A Masqued Adventure

The Time: New Year’s Eve, 2007.
The Place: Washington D.C.
The Cast of Characters: Diana, Sailor Boy, and Five of their Closest Friends
The Event: It’s a Mad, Mad, Masquerade Ball, presented by Scythian, at the Carnegie Library.

Diana took a break from stressing over her impending journey out of the country for a New Year’s Eve celebration. Diana and SB are usually quite leery about NYE events, and they agree with the character of Ted on How I Met Your Mother that there is a generally a lot of build up for events that subsequently let you down. (Someday, Diana will tell you the story of the mythical Ibiza-like New Year’s Eve party that was supposed to take place on an Island in New Zealand that was populated primarily by sheep. Of course, that New Year was particularly memorable because it introduced Diana and SB to the wonder that is eating green lip mussels within minutes of their harvest.)

But a Masquerade Ball! Their favorite band! An open bar! How could they resist. So they costumed up and headed off. Because many of their friends had crazy holiday schedules, and Diana refused to be the only one in their party dressed in costume, she and her best friend (the swashbuckling marauder), took the liberty of getting everyone else masks. Sailor Boy rose to the occasion and dressed up like Westley, from The Princess Bride, which is one of their favorite books. Diana’s outfit was Buttercuppy. They made quite the pair.

(Yes, that’s a picture of Sailor Boy. We figured masked was okay.)

Next up was a fabulous steak dinner, cooked by Sailor Boy, at a friend’s house, Champagne was provided by yet another friend. Then they masked up!

Doesn’t everyone look snazzy?

Presently, they arrived at the Masquerade Ball. This is what it looked like from the outside:

Which doesn’t really do it justice, since Diana didn’t capture the spotlights swinging around, nor the bursts of flame which occasionally arced up over everyone’s head. But it was massively gorgeous.

The first thing they saw was a man standing out front in another Westley costume. Uh-oh! Who knew that it would be such a popular costume? This dampened everyone’s spirits somewhat as they moved through the coat check, where the coat check people instructed Sailor Boy that he was, also, to check his rapier. Of course, he felt as if he couldn’t properly dance and drink while holding a four foot plastic sword, so he complied. We wondered how many Westleys we would come across as the night progressed.

By that time, three people had already asked him if he was dressed up as Zorro. Guys: Zorro has a cape and a hat.

Zorro: __________________________The Man in Black:

Clear now?

And then, to the party!

But wait, what is this? By the Dread Pirate Roberts, it turns out that the other Westley was, in fact, the fiddler in the band!

Suddenly, they all felt much better, and were able to dance the night away.

This guy on the left actually is with the band. The guy on the right? Not so much. (The guy in the middle would be awesome in a band.)

They also made a host of new friends, such as some Holly Black-esque fairies, and a few classical masquerade types.

Sailor Boy made more friends than anyone, since folks kept coming up to him and asking for a picture, mistaking him for the Westley in the band.

Sailor Boy and his new friends:

Our intrepid heroes discovered something the Venetians (and comic book superheroes) have known for centuries: you don’t get embarrassed in a mask. Though initially concerned about impersonating the band members for fun and profit, when one is masked, they can’t ACTUALLY track you down. Also, even though the majority of revelers were wearing regular evening clothes and not costumes, you don’t notice sticking out when you are in a mask and no one sees you.

There was also an eighties band playing in another room of the library, and at some point Diana lost her gold veil, and at some point, they all lost track of one another in the crush, but, as we all know, true love is the most powerful force in the universe, and eventually, Buttercup and Westley found one another.

At least, Diana thinks it was the correct Westley.

Or was this Sailor Boy up on stage?

Aren’t they amazing? Even in a topsy-turvy, Diana-doesn’t-know-how-to-use-the-video-function-on-her-camera, bad acoustic tape?

It occurred to Diana last night that though she often recommends novelists on the blog, she has rarely done the same with musicians. Which is why she’s glad to be giving away two copies of their most recent CD, Immigrant Roadshow, on the blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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And now, in first person:

I know I won’t be around much for the next two weeks, but leave your name in the comments section of this post to enter, and I’ll do the drawing when I return from Europe.

Ciao and Cheerio!