Turning 70 in Style

This was the decoration above the food table for our friend Jill's 70th birthday. The birthday was a few days ago, the party was yesterday in San Francisco, at the home of some friends of hers.

We didn't realize they had arranged for the guests to park at a nearby school, but my parking angel was on it anyway. In this impossible-to-park-in-neighborhood, we happened upon a couple moving their car just a few spots from the party house. (Thanks again, Gilbert!)

My recommendation to everyone about to celebrate a birthday is...make lots of friends among Lamplighters, or some other group of professional musicians!

For one thing, theatre parties have great food. Usually it's pot luck, but the food for this party was all catered and it was fabulous.

And then there is the music. You should always travel with your own musicians!

There was a wonderful song, a Gilbert & Sullivan song with lyrics re-written by Barbara Heroux, one of the Lamplighters fantastic lyricists, changing "Hail the bride of seventeen summers" from Ruddygore to "Hail the broad of seventy summers!"

Boy Scouts at pedestrian crossings
Suffer her imperious bossings.
Maidens greet her, kindly treat her,
You will all be old some day!....

...etc.

Jill's brother had flown in from Minnesota to surprise her.

(His twin brother had flown in from England, where Jill was born and raised, 10 years ago for her 60th).

There was a slide show covering Jill's life from babyhood to today running continuously to a Gilbert & Sullivan background music in one of the upstairs rooms.

I do better at Lamplighters parties than most other parties, but still not really "well." But this time I found myself sitting next to a lovely gentleman in a wheelchair, who had worked with Jill. He reminded me a lot of my friend Steve and I ended up asking him questions about himself (my new trick about how to not feel like a dolt), Turns out he, too, had grown up in San Francisco, we had similar memories and he had also graduated from UC Davis, so he was familiar with this area as well. He was also a dog person, so we shared dog stories too. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with him.

After Jill cut the cake there was a roof-raising rendition of "Hail Poetry," de rigueur at gatherings like this, it seems.

Walt and I left around 5:30 or so and made it home without encountering bad rainstorms, so all things considered it was just an absolutely lovely day and a beautiful way to celebrate another milestone in the life of this really special person!