Photos by Jennifer Low Photography

Aww, I heart that above picture. It was taken while I was pulling names out of a jar for the giveaway prizes during my 3rd blogiversary party at Bar Lubitsch. Lots of friends and crackheads turned up for my little par-tay to help me celebrate and it was soo awesome. Sigh, I felt loved.

I don’t know what the final tally was for the turnout but the joint was packed. So packed that moving through the crowd from the back of the room to the front proved a feat in itself. Good thing I knew most everyone there cuz normally I don’t like getting that intimate with strangers.

What’s funny is that at first this wasn’t something I was going to celebrate, at least not this big. But thanks to Damian Windsor (my fave bartender and Partida ambassador) I was able to score the free Partida Tequila and Silamith Weir of Martin Miller’s Gin provided the free gin, so naturally I had to go big. Jared, the owner of Bar Lubitsch, sealed the deal by kindly providing the venue and the staff for this growing shindig.

We even had beautiful cupcakes thanks to Leyna’s Kitchen because it’s not a CoC party without cupcakes. Leyna very kindly brought over four dozen of her award-winning Strawberrilicious cupcakes and even made cute little flag toppers with my event’s name printed on ‘em. She came at the start of the event and set the pretty pink cakes out on the tables while people were arriving. Needless to say the goodies didn’t sit for long. I didn’t even get one!

The cocktails du noir that Damian created, even doing up the mixers and special ingredients and instructing the bartender how to make them, were Bee’s Knees (my fave), a cucumber margarita and a Siesta. Apparently the Bee’s Knees was everyone’s favorite drink as well cuz we ran out of it within the first 45 minutes of the party. And everyone loved the cucumber foam in the cucumber margarita.

Yup, everything was going swimmingly, and my peeps were having a great time. I just had one worry though: announcing the winners of the giveaway prizes.

I am deathly afraid of public speaking. In college, I always ended up dropping out of my public speaking classes because I would get soo sick every time I had to get up in front of the class. I wasn’t looking forward to this moment at all.

My friends around me were telling me to breathe and to calm down but I found that going the other way and getting all hyped up was the way to go. I jumped up and down several times like a boxer before a match and then turned around and got into my CoC mode.

And turns out it wasn’t that bad at all! Everyone was looking at me and I didn’t break even one sweat bead. I gave away lots of goodies to my lucky crackheads (pictures of winners linked, ‘cept for Leyna’s; sorry, Leyna!) — a gift certificate for Leyna’s cupcakes, one for South in Santa Monica, another for Citizen Smith and for La Cantina as well as a one-of-a-kind necklace from La Bijou Belle. Even Damian handed me a gift bag from Partida complete with tequila, agave nectar, a lime juicer and the recipe for the cucumber margarita.

I wish I had more stuff to give away but in the end twas all good. Everyone stayed til the last drop and I got to meet a lot of my readers who in turn got to meet each other. (I heard about a couple of love connections. Haaay!) Even after the party was over, DJ Aristocat came on with some good tunes and we danced our hearts out. Boogeying to early Michael Jackson is always fun.

It was a huge success and definitely something that I’ve gotta do again. My friend Mikey suggested that maybe I should have a CoC Halloween costume party or even one for the holidays. I’m considering it. Stay tuned.

BTW, thanks to everyone who came out for the party. Mwah! I hope you had fun. I know I did!

More pictures from the blogiversary. (If you see yourself in a picture please leave a comment on the Flickr shot identifying yourself.)