Although New Year’s Eve is a terrific occasion for masquerade balls, Moonie was ahead of the curve; he and I attended one last month for Sojourner House, a wonderful organization that provides all kinds of support service to victims of domestic assault and their families. Moonie couldn’t wait to get us tickets knowing they’d go toward such a good cause! He also stayed in his little Moonie workshop all day to make us matching masquerade ball masks.

In no time, my tiny handsome date and I were ready to rock!

As soon as we walked into the ball, Moonie was photobombing the decked-out guests, loving the wonderful atmosphere.

He was also excited to be on the top floor of the fancy Biltmore Hotel in Providence. Every time I turned around, he was glued to a different window.

I guess he doesn’t get a lot of chances to feel tall!

But he quickly forgot about the city lights when he caught sight of his friend Lulu Locks. LuLu, the ball’s emcee for the evening, looked absolutely amazing. She apparently FELT amazing as well, as I couldn’t coax Moonie away from her pillowy chest.

“Sorry about that,” I apologized to LuLu as I tried to tell Moonie how much cake awaited him. He lifted up his mask a little to glance at me, then leaned back and sighed contentedly.
“Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow,” LuLu shrugged understandingly.

I finally did get my snuggly little dude away from one happy place so he could visit another – a room full of cake! Rhode Island Food Fights had organized a “Let Them Eat Cake” contest. The theme of the ball was Marie Antoinette/1700s French royal court – hence the title of the cake contest – and all the cakes were perfectly fitting for royalty.

Like, REALLY fitting.

Lovely stuff.

Almost too pretty to eat, in fact.

(Well, I said ALMOST.)

Moonie, of course, dug right into every slice he could get his little mitts on.

“You can really taste the rainbow,” he claimed.

But he still admired their outsides, too.

This was the winning cake. It was hard to fit it all into one cell phone photo, but it featured a towering guillotine over a gorgeous multi-layered cake. “They must have driven real slow to get that here,” Moonie whispered, looking up in awe.

Moonie washed down his cake at the free espresso bar provided by the nice folks at New Harvest Coffee.

Hyped up on caffeine, my pint-sized pal raced to the ballroom, where Miss Wensday and the Cotillions were in full swing. Moonie loves to catch Miss Wensday singing at the Dean Hotel, and he had a ball dancing to her at the ball, too.

He wasn’t the only one on the dance floor; the beautiful TropiGals were doing a vintage ballroom dance in interesting Chifferobe attire.

Suddenly Moonie started squealing and jumping up and down, yelling, “ERB! ERB!”
“I don’t think your red, white and shiny pals are playing here tonight,” I told him, but he pointed to a nearby table. Before I could react, he’d jumped up to visit with some pretty ladies from the Extraordinary Rendition Band.

When he was done squealing over the lovely ERBers, Moonie took off again. I figured he was eating more cake, but it turned out he was inspecting some of the silent auction items. He found this one particularly cozy.

We had a great night, and soon after the ball, Sojourner House posted this photo of the two of us.

I look like a double-chinned psycho, but they sure got Moonie’s good side. He looks fantastic.