My best friend, Karen, celebrated her fortieth birthday with a fabulous 70's themed party. It was so much fun and it gave me a lot of ideas for my next party, although hers will be hard to top.

The invitations were great. They were round and silvery like a miniature disco ball. Inside were all the details like location, date and time of the party. At the bottom was written. "Get ready for the Return of Saturday Night Fever! Come to my fortieth birthday and boogie down in your coolest 70's threads. Halter tops, and platforms recommended."

I went to the fancy dress shop and picked out the perfect outfit. I found a vinyl pair of bellbottoms and a light blue, tube top. Except for shoes, I was all set. I splashed out in the shopping centre and bought a pair of very retro platforms to complete the outfit.

When I arrived at Carrie's the place was already rocking. I fit right in; the other guests were dressed so outrageously I looked almost normal by comparison. Karen’s boyfriend, Martin and one of his friends had dressed up as drag queens and they looked absolutely hilarious. More and more people arrived and the party started to really get going. Martin grabbed me by the hand and did an over exaggerated tango into the living room. The "paparazzi" was there taking pictures of us doing various styles of outrageous dancing to 70’s music.

Karen and Martin had moved out all their furniture from the living room and dining room to make one big dance floor. Around the outside of the room they had put about twenty folding chairs that they rented from the party shop. A couple a tables, covered by metallic silver tablecloths, were put together and had food and drinks were on them.

There was plenty of Corona beer and Sebastiani wine and numerous types of tasty hors d'oeuvres provided by a local catering company. In addition, Martin had taken the time to prepare his famous green olive spread. It makes me hungry just thinking about it. The recipe is very simple--grated cheese, diced green olives, mayonnaise and garlic – very simple and extremely tasty. I think I ate almost half the bowl. A large disco ball hung from the ceiling and Carrie had put coloured party light bulbs into her track lighting. Framed posters of "Saturday Night Fever", Aerosmith, Nixon and "Star Wars" hung on the walls. Silver streamers lined each doorway and there was plenty of body glitter to go around.

Karen hired a DJ who was playing, 70's music--from Credence to Gaynor. A group of us sang along to all the songs of Aerosmith and Neil Young, it was so much fun. I realised I didn't even know half the people there, but we all had the 70's in common and that's what brought us all together.

Martin ran around taking pictures all night. One of the guys there, Dan, knew almost as many 70's song lyrics as I did. Extra points for him! Dan gave me a big kiss on the cheek when Burt took a picture of us.

Dan and I were the last to leave. It was about 4:00a.m! I can't remember the last time I had such a great time. Dan even asked for my phone number. Maybe it was the hot pants!