birthday parties

My Brother’s Living Wake

Standard

‘Scott Henry turns seventy in style’

You know you’re getting long in the tooth when your brother turns seventy — and he’s your younger brother. Scott’s birthday is in August, and mine is in November, so, for a few months he’s only one year younger than me instead of two. Every year when his birthday rolls around, I like to think that he’s catching up to me.

On another of Scott’s 70 birthdays (this was his first) his Big Sister had to have a cake too

But hey, Scott’s not only younger than me, he’s funnier too. He pitched his birthday party as a Living Wake. He said he got the idea after attending one of those big sendoffs — the kind with a slideshow of the life of the Dearly Departed, tribute speeches from family and friends, and, of course, tons of food and gallons of booze — and hearing people say, “Gosh, he would have really loved this.”

So Scott’s like, “Hey, if someone’s gonna throw me a wake, well, I want to be there to enjoy it.” And so his bestie, Susan, did just that. With some help from family and friends:

And it was a doozie. Yup, there was a slideshow, plus plenty of tribute speeches, and you wouldn’t believe the spread. There were even tears.

The only thing that was different from a traditional wake — well, except for the fact that the body was still breathing — was the presence of a birthday cake. At least I haven’t heard of a birthday cake at a wake before, but nothing much surprises me these days.

And Scott thought THIS was a lot of candles (!) I couldn’t count them, so not sure which of his 70 years this cake was for

But the most appreciated presence was that of our mother. After all, there wouldn’t be a birthday party — or a Birthday Boy — without her.

Mom holds court, Wakeside. That’s one of her courtiers, Youngest Younger Brother Doug, doing a bit of photobombing

I’ll close this story with a little video — thank you, Favorite Sister! — to give you a taste of the party, if not of the cake itself. (Which, like the setting, was as wonderful as it looks.)

Happy Birthday, dear Little Brother. Maybe one of these days you’ll catch up to me. In years, I mean.

Amagansett, New York. August 2023

The birthdays just fly on by

Standard

‘What happened to “You sure don’t look it!”?’

I’ve whined (er, written) about birthdays before. (Thank you, Loyal Readers, for your patience with my elderly musings: “Sixteen Candles. Plus Another Sixteen. Or So.” “All Saints’ (Birth)Day.”  “Skirting the Issue.” There are way too many — kind of like the number of candles on my cake.)

A scene from one of many random birthday celebrations. I believe this one was not actually mine — I was just trying on the tiara for size

I’m actually grateful for reaching the astounding age that I have reached — especially when I consider the alternative. One of our friends, even older than I, has a motto: “Every day above ground is a good day,” with which I heartily concur.

Having a very nice time above ground with a tiara and a glam group

Last year I celebrated a Landmark Birthday — seventy, it was, for heaven’s sakes — with a fancy party and all the glam trimmings. I was riding high on birthday glory when — about a week later, it felt like — I turned seventy-one.

Continue reading

“Never trust anyone over thirty.”

Standard

‘Unless, perhaps, she is your own daughter’

I’ll always remember my very first Big-Time Ad Biz TV commercial. It was for Q-Tips, and was called “Still My Baby.” I didn’t even try to find it on YouTube, not just because this was ages ago, but because it was a pretty awful commercial.

It featured this mom who has a baby on a changing table and a jealous preschooler sulking alongside. To mollify the older child, she asks her to “help” by handing her a Q-tips Swab. Then Mom reassures the child (a girl, natch) by thanking her and saying, “Such a big girl. But you’re still my baby.”

Here is The Child at sulky older sister age. She is not sulky, though, since she didn’t have a baby sibling to be jealous of

Continue reading

A Sterling character

Standard

‘A Ray of Sunshine brightens the road home’

I really should be sorting scarves and/or dredging out drawers, but this morning I woke up (heck, make that “sat up”, since I wasn’t actually asleep) with a horrendous head cold and I need a bit of a break from the utter sturm und drang of this whole business of getting-ready-to-sell-an-apartment-in-New-York.

See, it’s no longer a simple deal of making your bed and putting away the cat toys. No, these days you must stage your apartment — make it easy for your potential buyer to imagine that he or she lives there instead of you. Everything personal must go: the collection of shells and beach glass arrayed on the mantel, the foreign stamps stuffed in a hand-thrown pot with a red heart on the front, the carefully-curated display of evening bags on the hat rack in the bedroom. Even the framed photos of The Child and her cousins taken at various stages of precocity, from being dressed as pumpkins to being garbed in grad gowns — it all must be erased.

I can’t show you any of those things — they have been erased — but I can show you this collection of Henrys

I cleverly “gifted” a batch of framed photos featuring The Child’s cousins to the Cousins in Question present at my Mom’s Big Birthday Do. Which got me some puzzled looks as well as nice thank-yous. (I doubt that Young People are as “into” framed photos as People My Age, which is no doubt why I was urged to make them go away.)

A trio of Henrys shares a laugh, maybe over how hilarious it is that their cousin has to downsize

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end — from our run in the Apartment of 26 Years to my Mom’s Big Birthday Do.

Continue reading

So far, so good

Standard

’Wise words from my mom, the Birthday Girl’

I just love birthday parties. Especially when they are somebody else’s. In my personal opinion, birthday parties are just absolutely the best. (Weddings are a close second — or, hey, maybe even a tie.) With both, you get to celebrate a happy event, see a ton of friends and relatives — then you get to eat cake and make a bubbly toast.

This particular birthday was my mother’s (gasp) 90th, and we got to eat cake twice — while making multiple bubbly toasts. The first time was on her real, actual birthday last Wednesday, October 9. (The way-cool picture at the top of this post featuring my Two Favorite Women in All the World is from that happy occasion.) And we got to do it all over again on the weekend at a big Open House we held for family and friends.

Zillions of friends and ka-jillions of relations prepare to eat mucho cake and sip major bubbly

In case you’re wondering, my mom won’t mind me giving away her age. Not this time, anyway. She used to quail at being asked, “How old are you?” She, like me, was brought up to consider this an incredibly rude question, but you’d be surprised how many people — people who do not work for the DMV or even the Social Security Administration — ask it.

My mom used to answer Rude Age-Asking People by counter-asking, “Why do you want to know?” Which worked. Sometimes. For tips and pointers my Mom taught me on how to handle awkward questions, see my story titled, (naturally) “Why do you want to know?”

Continue reading