Jari's friend Make invited us to a party recently. As always, Jari had assessed the importance of details. He knew the exact date of the party, he had a pretty good hunch of the time and a vague idea of the place and not a clue what's the occasion, who else were invited, how should we be dressed and what to bring with us...

Since the assumed place of the party was a walking distance away from our house, we decided to walk there. After some trials and errors we scored and found the right block of flats in the middle of similar looking buildings.

Make (our host) and Riitta (his newly wedded wife) welcomed us at the door - at least our dress code matched with theirs. So far so good.

The party had been going on for quite some time. We were introduced to the people in the living room: a couple of friends, sisters and brothers of our host couple with husbands, wives and a few children - and The Mother of our host. Make told us that his mother was invited to every party any of her four children ever threw as this Super Granny (72 yrs) was a Party Girl. I vaguely remember seeing this Party Girl at our host couple's wedding in August - in the night club in the small hours.

Talking about the wedding; this is Make's third marriage and the priest, a friend of the family, said to him at the wedding: "You better make sure this is your last one as I'm not going run this ceremony for you ever again." Fair enough.

I was still wondering what the occasion was - you never have both friends and relatives at a gettogether unless there's a good reason...

Our hosts were still expecting one couple to arrive (only to leave their luggage on their way to the Eros Ramazotti concert in Helsinki). Make told us that the couple had just recently got engaged - the plan was to surprise them with champagne on their arrival. They were very surprised when they got the champagne glasses in their hands and we toasted on their engagement - not because of the nice gesture, but because the toasting was a bit premature - they had set the date (1 January) but they were not engaged yet. Embarrassing... They left for the concert in puzzlement.

So, it wasn't an engagement party.

We ate a bit and drank a lot and then it was time for karaoke - we were told that they always had karaoke at their parties. And guess who was the first to grab the mic? Yes, the Party Girl. The children (aged 46, 47, 48, 49) call her Sybä - you would expect somebody called Sybä to be something like 15 to 20 years old. And Sybä knew how to rock!

When the Super Granny, Party Girl, Sybä left the party she whispered to me that she wouldn't be leaving so early otherwise, but she had to check up on her mother (93 years) on her way home... Wow!

After the Party Girl left, it seemed to me that the party died. We left when the "almost engaged " couple joined the party after the concert. I was afraid they might start karaoke again singing Eros - "Parla con mee -eee".  As we were leaving Make invited us to his 50th birthday party in March - the "formal" invitation would follow. Can't wait to see the Party Girl again!

So this wasn't a birthday party, either...