2006

Best Picture: crash

"March of the Penguins" was a shoe-in for Best Documentary this year, and if there's a better animal to build a party theme around, I'd like to hear what it is. The little black-and-white creatures were everywhere you looked at the party this year; everyone got their own stuffed baby penguin to take home (Millie got the "talking" one and therefore took home the Oscar Gift Basket, too), and Gwen made up a tasty seafood lasagna that would surely have pleased the flightless birds, had any real ones decided to show up. They were all over the invitation and ballot, naturally, and they proved to be highly inspirational. Of all the invitation packages I made up over the years, this year's one (the last printed one, as it would turn out) is my favorite.

The 2006 party was the first one in which Chase really got into the spirit of the ocassion. He'd been pretty much oblivious to everything going on around him at the previous three parties, but not this time: he ate and he ate and he ate, tore around the room in a circle over and over laughing his head off...until he came to a sudden stop in the kitchen and emptied the contents of his stomach all over the floor. At that point he decided to call it a night and retired for the evening. Big baby!