Molly teamed up with me on this post. She was also the engineering mastermind for the project.

Whether tossed out with the trash, buried in the backyard, or mixed into your favorite soup recipe, the placenta is an organ worth celebrating over. The following tutorial outlines how to combine the ultimate party favor, the piñata, with the ultimate afterbirth.

Begin with an oblong, spherical piñata. Paint it with several layers of goopy red and brown paint. We used Crayola brand finger paints because they are non-toxic without sacrificing any gross-looking qualities. To achieve a thicker consistency we suggest adding RIT dye. RIT not only adds to the girth but also floods one with memories of tye-dying in Mrs. Chistopherson’s art class.

Make sure to leave areas of thick dark red or brown paint to simulate placental veins.

Note: Using a slightly green undercoat really accentuates the reds.

The umbilical cord is fashioned out of torn red rags woven into a lumpy rope. These can be found in the automotive section at your local grocery store.

Generously apply red paint. Everything must be covered in blood.

Attach the cord to the placenta. It will serve as the rope from which you dangle the piñata.

Fill with appropriate candy. We used Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish. San Fransisco Fred asked if the fish were to emulate semen. No Fred, though a valid question, we just happen to love Swedish Fish. The Sour Patch Kids, on the other hand, were meant to represent preemies.

Toy babies are an elegant touch that adds authenticity.

Your placeñata is ready to be smashed. But don’t skimp on ancillary party details.

Like the Mariachi band.

And dancing gringos.

Once the party is well underway break out the blindfold and hitting stick. Sam only had a fishing rod, which worked wonderfully.

Yippee!!!

Alas, another party/pregnancy has ended in a pile of beer cans and wrinkled, bloody dreams.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted, but here is the first of the last two entries from our European vacation.

We flew from Prague to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Our friend Virginia met us at the airport and arranged for this fancy Mercedes to drive us to our place in town.

She found this awesome little guesthouse owned by a super friendly old Croatian couple.

With magnificent views.

We made a fancy dinner with salad and wine to celebrate our first night in town. Mike, who owned the place, brought us down a caraffe of homemade wine to welcome us. Croatians are very friendly people.

After dinner, we explored the old town a bit.

Sam, the Adriatic Queen.

Most of the bars in Dubrovnik are in alleyways. For more information on why alleyways are cool, visit: http://www.thewarblersnest.com/?p=8

Sam and Virg enjoying alley life. Sam had only been in Croatia hours, and he’d already lost his head.

Meet Jen and Emily, who we liked to refer to as Jemily. They were on our flight from Prague to Dubrovnik. They were having their ear chewed off by this weird American dude, who kept going on and on about how he was a Women’s Studies major (”But not to get laid. Seriously, that’s what everyone thinks, but I really wasn’t in it for that.”)

The next day was all about swimming in the Adriatic.

And snorkeling. For some reason this picture reminds me of a paparazzi photo. “American Doofus Caught Snorkeling.”

And eating Mussels! Look at those Mussels!

We went to this fancy restaurant for dinner one night, and I ordered the fried fish, thinking it would be like a filet of fish sans head and tail. What I got were these little fucking gutter fish that had probably been swimming in the gasoline water from the harbor. Sam gave me shit for being picky, which then led to one of our only fights during the whole trip. It’s true that I have the food palette of a six year old boy, but these things were pretty fucking gnarly. Sam ate one to try and show me how delicious they were, but I had none of it.

After fighting about food, we went to the club and made up over island drinks. Look how happy we are now that we don’t hate each other anymore.

This is Latino Club Fuego - the hottest dancehole in all of Dude-bro-nik. We ended up spending a lot of time here.

Drinking these really stiff drinks.

I really like this photo. Sam is sooo ready to party and I’m all “Oh, please.”

Sam and Jen

We spent the next day walking the perimeter of the walls.

The old town of Dubrovnik is a walled city, which is handy for keeping out the undesirables like raccoons and Italians.

#1 Awesome Dog

The nice thing about having Satellite TV is that you can watch 30 Rock while waiting for your clothes to dry.

The next day we loafed around on the rocks.

And went looking for this place. We were a bit skeptical until we arrived and realized they weren’t kidding.

This is the ship from Goonies.

Sam’s clearly impressed.

I like Goonies!

This is looking down from where we were drinking. After a couple beers, I got up the nerve to walk down and jump from one of the smaller cliffs. I then spent 15 minutes trying to climb out.

Later that week we took a bus and then a ferry to an Island called Hvar. Ferries are really boring.

But they also allow you a lot of time to reflect. This is the album cover for when Sam releases him Emo album called, “So You Think You Know What Sad Is?”

We were told the ferry would take us to the Island Hvar, but what we didn’t realize was that the island was 90 km long and we were dropped off at the wrong end. We walked around like this - in much the same we did the 20 other times we were lost - and tried to figure out what to do next.

We figured we should probably take a picture of Sam looking super fucking tough and see if that might spark any ideas. It didn’t.

We eventually met some Australians who were in the same predicament. We pooled our money and hired a taxi to drive us across the island. The taxi driver seemed drunk and made us stop to pick up his girlfriend on the way. He then tore ass down these little roads no wider than golf cart paths and kept looking back to tell us how he could drive these roads with his eyes closed. Sam and I and the two Australian dudes took pulls from a jug of homemade wine, while Virginia dazzled the Aussie chicks with stories of how she used to work on music videos for Usher. It was really one of the more enjoyable parts of the whole trip. I wish I had more pictures.

This guy named Disco Dino picked us up in town and drove us to our apartment. It looked like it was straight out of Ikea, but it was clean and comfortable and had a stereo that played Love Generation.

Sam in a late afternoon wine coma.

One day, we decided to rent a boat and charter the many small islands off the larger island. This is our vessel: The SS SeaBurgler.

And this is our crew, Jemily.

I pretended to be Cap’n Crunch.

And Sam was Captain Ron.

This is how Sam would look at people we suspected were pirates. Nobody messed with us.

Because sailing is hard work, we docked at a small island and had some shots of some sort of crazy booze made by Croatian Sea Gypsies.

Our waiter assured us is was delicious, even though it looked like sea water and seaweed.

Most of the boats that were docked at the island we far more impressive than ours. We were told Hvar is where all the international playboys come to party.

A view of the islands we navigated.

This is the castle back on the island of Hvar. We hiked to the top one afternoon but were a little disappointed.

However, someone else told us about this nightclub located in a castle, so we went and checked it out.

This was our last night in Croatia so we partied as late as we could.

And then walked home around dawn. I never could tell if this was just fog or smoke, but it was kind of eery and depressing. Croatia was a shit ton of fun, so we were all a little bummed to be leaving. But up next was Budapest and we heard they had hot springs and 90’s fashion, so we tried to get pysched up for that.