A Birthday Bash

My family likes to get together to eat, but for some reason we like to have an excuse like we can’t get together just because we want to.  If there isn’t a reason handy like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Labor Day or even Decoration Day, we usually just say it’s someone’s birthday.  Today, we said it was Gene’s birthday.  He had his birthday in August, but that didn’t seem to matter.  We also said it was Jack’s birthday and my birthday.  Well, at least mine and Jack’s birthdays are in October.  So we celebrated with dinner at my parents.

Over the years, mother and I have done many, many parties together and this was no different.  I went over there about 4 hours before the guests were to arrive to do my part to get ready.  Gene went to REI to stay out from under foot.  We could do a party almost blindfolded it seemed.  Those days are gone, I’m afraid.  We are both less organized and all afternoon I felt like I was going in circles. Today’s almost disaster came when everything was ready to serve and folks were gathered round to offer thanks.  Vera remembered she hadn’t boiled the corn.  It’s not uncommon for us to have some disaster.  The first dinner party we had in the house they are living in now was in 1976.  She had invited about 45 people over and we had everything under control.  When we turned on both ovens and the stove top the whole kitchen circuit panel blew out.  In those days we were able to recover quickly—fire up the grills and bring out all the electric appliances.  That day we had the corn boiling on the hearth in an electric saucepan.  Today we just gave thanks for everything but the corn and we had plenty to eat.

We had a good time, laughed a lot, and ate too much.  It was perfect.