Fistful o’ crayon: Eef’s birthday bash and the eternal wisdom of a Nibler.
Often, if you are the lucky type, you might find yourself walking the streets, lost in your own little universe, tapping out a drum beat on the wallet in one pocket and the keys in the other, congratulating yourself on collecting the coolest friends ever, fantasizing about the critical details of the next adventure; salivating at the thought of the next time you can fuck off and run to an airport with a giggle. Bounding in time to the breaks of How Many More Times with a leading left foot and pausing with a dot to wonder, how DID I get so lucky? Eventually you might come back down to earth, either in some kind of graceful glide back to the ground, or the more exciting, standard issue, reckless crash landing and then doubt everything your gleaming self confidence brought. But every so often, one of the original members of the circus will ring you with a reminder that yeah, you really do have the coolest people ever.
Dave! what are you doing on Thursday night?
Im flying back from Prague, why?
It’s my birthday, everyone’s coming over and we are going to draw.
Who, in adulthood, would ever expect to hear something so full on righteous as that come out of the ear piece of a mobile phone? Draw. Ok, Im there, direct from Schipol, save me a spot at the table.
Look, when I was a kid, this was normal. Me and my friends, we all sat around and drew on everything. When we got tired of that, we built universes out of legos, you know, the toy building brick. But drawing. That was huge. Drawing was in the top five with bicycle, swimming, playing in dirt and lego.
And now decades have come and gone AND WHO THE FUCK HAS DRAWING BIRTHDAY PARTIES? I know the coolest people in the whole galaxy. I am, in fact, the luckiest motherfucker and need to remind myself of this on a more regular basis.
Unfortunately, by the time I got back from the airport, I missed out on a good portion of the crayon battle that apparently ensued before I showed up, but did get there just in time to see everyone show off their masterpieces. I swear, sitting here looking at these pictures now, all of us adults, who does shit this cool?
Apparently it is customary for everyone at a Dutch birthday party to bring a cake.
Or its not customary at all and everyone just brought a cake anyway.
Regardless, there were many cakes, which followed the usual awesomeness that comes out of the kitchen at Tos and Eef’s.
At one point a long discussion was had about De Korenwolf and how if a little rodent was good enough to halt real estate development, it was certainly good enough to be Gulpener’s furry mascot.
This evening was also the origin for a later discussion on the duality of the word box and things you can do to drumsticks when your friend sends some: zal ik je hele doos schuren?
All the funnier when the drummer is a girl. And it’s her birthday. Yes, we have some laughs…
This table has been the scene of countless hours of etymology, which really doesnt seem like it would be any fun in any way, but somehow our discussions always boil down to some talk of words and its kinda the greatest thing ever.
Earlier that day, there was a colossal Taschen score which everyone had to get their eyeballs on.
I was also not the only one who had gifted Eef a photograph for her birthday.
I was super lucky to be in Amsterdam for Eef’s birthday, first time I got to celebrate with her and of course, really glad I decided to hang around another week or so for this gathering.
The usual gang was present, replete with my favorite Dutch dog, Nibler, Koning van de Bakfiets.
My favorite part of Nibler is that he has this absurdly large head, even for a french bulldog, and it could possibly be the most satisfying thing in dog world. His little dog head is like, lusciously large. It truly is immensely satisfying to look at and flat out exhilarating to pet. Prominent brows, big bulging eyes, tiny muscle dog body but enormous head. Nibler rules.
He really is pretty much all muscle, skull and full of love. Some dogs are fun, others are friendly and then there’s the ones where you are just glad that you got to meet them because they make your life better. Nibler is one of those dogs. Unique, completely awesome, proud and full of love.
Makes sense he runs with this crowd, they are all like that…