Accordians & champagne:The last of us turns 40

Truth be told, we've been celebrating more 50s around here. But Saturday night's party marked a milestone for our group of friends, the Usual Suspects: We celebrated the birthday of the last Suspect to turn 40.

And thanks to his lovely wife, we did it in great style. When 40-year-old Suspect was in college (many, many years ago), friends threw him an accordian and champagne party, which he remembers as one of his best birthdays. So his wife set out to find an accordian player. They don't list themselves in the yellow pages, you know. But she was smart enough to ask a friend who plays the fiddle and is active in the local music scene to post a message on some music list serve. The results? "Raining accordian players," my friend reported. Evidently, they're eager for work, and several even offered to play for her on the phone. I'm not sure how she made her choice, but she hit pure gold.

Meet Renee, the official accordian player for the Usual Suspects:



The woman is seriously brilliant. Providing her own percussion by stomping or jumping up and down, she moved from classic polka to the Violent Femmes (great cover of Blister in the Sun) to Bob Marley. And how about that outfit? The skirt is leather.

She played for the dog,

for the kids,

and got everyone dancing (not that it takes much to get this group going).


We had tasty food: the official meal of the Usual Suspects, taco narf.



I'll add a few more pictures later but wanted to get in the weekend report so I can start blathering on about other things. Gotta keep current, you know.