![\"8c65585e7d66471955f2c6c6ae462d1c\"](\"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/8c65585e7d66471955f2c6c6ae462d1c.jpg\")
<\/a>I had planned a whole other story here, but then I realized\u2014sixteen<\/em>! As in…Sweet<\/em> 16! I\u2019m a Jewish girl from Brooklyn, (Happy Rosh Hashanah to my peeps tonight, by the way,) so how could I not<\/em> discuss Sweet 16s in my Sweet 16(hundred) column, right???<\/p>\nSo, in case you\u2019re not familiar with the concept, I\u2019ll tell you all about it, as it\u2019s the only way that I can come up with to celebrate column #1,600. It may not be incredibly apropos, but at least I\u2019m still accomplishing something.<\/p>\n
I doubt that anyone has a real<\/em> Sweet 16 nowadays, but in case you want to have a throwback<\/em> sixteenth birthday, this is how they go:<\/p>\n First off, you seat your guests from the closest ones around you out to the lesser pals. Classy, eh?<\/p>\n Then your best<\/em> friends have jobs to do during the soiree. Your very<\/em> best friend takes the \u201cminutes,\u201d so you have to make sure that you have a clever, talented writer bestie in time for the fete. As you open the presents, she writes down some of the comments in a \u201cHe: She:\u201d format. And then she reads them out, as what you and your \u201chusband\u201d will say on your wedding night. Of course, you have to receive at least one giant<\/em> gift, so that someone will inevitably shout, \u201cOoh, it\u2019s so big,\u201d so the minutes-taker can incorporate that shocking statement into the script. I repeat\u2014classy, eh?<\/p>\n Yours truly (the girl sitting high up,) at my own fabulous Sweet 16, surrounded by my besties. Photo by Martin Salkin.<\/p><\/div>\n Then your most artistic<\/em> pal (who also has to be your second<\/em> best bud,) makes a stupid hat out of a base fashioned from one of the cardboard gift boxes, and then decorates it with all the wrapping paper and ribbons. And then you wear it for a total of ten seconds, to laughs mixed with oohs and ahhs if she does it well. (And, oh yeah\u2014your guests have to give you good presents since they\u2019ll be opened in front of the assemblage. That\u2019s the best part of the entire shindig!)<\/p>\n Lastly, your third<\/em> best pal, (that’s getting down to it, isn\u2019t it?,) makes you a \u201cmemento glass\u201d by filling one of the restaurant’s finest goblets with water and one of the flowers from the table, and then dripping a candle over it until a topping of hard wax covers the whole glass, while your mother looks on in horror, just praying that she can throw it out sometime before your seventeenth<\/em> birthday. (No such luck in my<\/em> case\u2014it was still there when I emptied out my Brooklyn house\u2014just three years ago<\/em>!!!)<\/p>\n [Note: I explained this all on a video on my YouTube channel on my birthday last year, so if you want to actually hear the longer, more detailed explanation of that rite of passage, you can view it here: www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ifLygLOFwGI<\/a>. \u00a0The readers\u00a0in Colorado might enjoy watching it the most, if you get my drift.]<\/p>\n So, I guess I\u2019m grateful to my 1,600th column today to have made me think about all that fun once again. I guess I should be sort-of attached to this number because I\u2019m basically Forever 16!<\/p>\n This is the perfect pic for my 1,600th column! Why, you may ask? Because it’s entitled “1600 Pandas In Hong Kong,” and also features–wait for it–columns!!!!!!! Loving it!<\/p><\/div>\n Now, on a sidebar, part of the fun for me of celebrating these milestones is finding the perfect picture to accompany my written lauding of the occasion. For the first few hundred, I was always looking for pictures of hundreds of actual columns, like ones in ancient Greece.\u00a0 But after a few of those, I figured I should give up the search for \u201ccolumns,\u201d and just go with fun images, when I could find them.\u00a0 I thought I had hit the jackpot with the pix for #1,500, (which you can see here, I hope for the second time: itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/special-day-my-1500th-column<\/a>.)\u00a0 But this 1,600th treasure hunt proved even more fun.\u00a0 The only problem was whittling them all down.\u00a0 [Note: I hope they prove as good as I originally thought\u2014I was doing my search in the actual middle of the night while I was watching the super-long, super-late quarterfinal U.S. Open tennis match between American Sam Querry and South African Kevin Anderson.\u00a0 Kevin won, by the way.]<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>And a good time is had by all! I\u2019m actually not even kidding about that\u2014it really is. You and your friends will talk about it in perpetuity! And, if you\u2019re me<\/em>, you\u2019ll keep those goony gifts for just as long!<\/p>\n<\/a>