Nifty Fifty

This may look like a "nothing" picture, but I think it is my favorite from our Nifty Fifty party today.

It's just Ned chatting with Kevin and Eric and Joe (Eric an Joe are brothers) but I just got such a warm feeling about the camaraderie among them and then I looked around and Jeri was chatting with Jenny's husband Dave and other little clumps of comfortable members of the "family" were getting caught up on what had happened in their lives since we last saw them.  I got all verklempt.

Because, if you go by blood and birth certificates and all that jazz, they aren't related in any way, shape, or form, but are more "family" than some other family members who may be on the genealogy chart,

These are the Pinata People, about whom I have written before. 10 people who met at Newman Hall in the 1960s, coupled, married and among them produced 22 children and throughout all these years, we have remained close friends.  We were in each other's weddings, we are godparents to each other's children. We took vacations together-- many, many camping trips.  We nursed each other's children, they attended the same schools (at least until the middle 1960s, when we started moving in different directions). We have seen the death of three of the kids, and five of the adults.  We've been there for people's funerals and even the funerals of their parents.  

The first year we had what became an annual New Year' Day party there were five children.  And all of us were pregnant.  The next year there were ten children.  We never doubled in size again (thank goodness!) but ten years ago we had a birthday party for the five who were turning 40 and today we had a party for the five who are turning 50 this year.

Liam, Joe, Steve, Jenny, Jeri

And we had a great turnout to celebrate.  Even my goddaughter, whom I have not seen or heard from in about ten years (she lives in Kentucky) was there, with her two brothers.

Only 4 of the living original 22 were not able to be with us.

The remaining Gen 1 folks were felt very warm and fuzzy to see all of our children enjoying each other's company again..

The Gen 3 kids who came (I've lost track of how many Gen 3 kids there are now) stood and posed, but I know it didn't mean nearly as much to them as it did to us

There was a pinata, of course, but I'm disappointed in my pinata photos, so none here, 

But the kids did gather to cut the cake.  There were so many problems with my decorating of this cake, I have declared this is my very LAST decorated cake.

After dessert, and much wine having been consumed, people started being tossed into the pool.

And of course, what else to do if you're in the pool but take a selfie.

Ned says that a bad thing about cell phones is that they have eliminated the possibility of surprise pool dunkings because most people have a phone in their pocket. These guys were just lucky that Steve's was waterproof.

Several of the group ended up in the hot tub.

It was just a wonderful day and we decided it will probably be the last of its kind, since I'm not sure we're going to be in shape to pull off a party when these guys turn 60!

More Decay

Charlotte liked my "sufficiently decayed" button and wanted one, so we brought one to her when we met for lunch today.

We were meeting at Fentons, an ice creamery in Vacaville, about half an hour from here.  The photo at the left is hanging on the wall in the restaurant an I just love it.  It says a lot without words! 

Jeri and Phil (the other Jeri and Phil--Jeri's godmother and her husband) were in the area and suggested getting together for lunch.  They live in their RV and travel around the country, spending the winter months in Arizona.  But Jeri has kids and grandchildren in Washington state, the Sacramento area and Kentucky and Phil has kids and grandkids (and I believe great grandkids) all over the country, so in good weather, they travel around visiting family.  They usually get into this area one or two times a year.

Since we were getting together with Char for lunch, we also contacted Rich and Pat in Sacramento and Audrey & Gene in the Sonoma area, on the other side of the state.

These are the friends of our lives -- the remaining members of the Pinata Group.  We've lost Jeri's first husband Bill, our friends Concetta and Michele, and, last year, Char's husband Mike.  But we all remain close friends, valuing our 55+ years of friendship.  We were happy that all but Gene made it to lunch.

The last time we met for lunch it was a year ago, at the same restaurant, just before Char & Mike and Walt & I were to head off on our cruise to the South of France.  But we never made that cruise, and Mike never made it home from Germany, their first leg of the trip.

Fentons has a nice selection of food, but I usually go for the crab salad sandwich.

I knew it would be more than I could finish but figured I'd have half for lunch and half for dinner.

Fenton's is mostly famous for its hand made ice cream treats. The original Fenton's was in Oakland, and we occasionally visited it when we lived there.  Char's son had his wedding reception there.  But when they were building a new mall to replace the wonderful and legendary Nut Tree and replacing it with shops, restaurants, and kiddie attractions, we were pleased to see that Fenton's had come to this neck of the woods.  We couldn't leave the restaurant without having dessert.

This is their "petite sundae" with chocolate peanut butter sauce.  Yummy.  

I came home and went to take my mother's pills to her.  I realized I wasn't feeling well.  I had no energy, had zero patience with the repetitions and "not really there"-ness of my mother, and just wanted sleep. I came home and took a nap and skipped dinner, and by later in the evening, I was feeling better.  Still didn't want food, though, so offered my leftover sandwich to Walt for dinner (I honestly don't know if he ate it or not).

It was a fun afternoon, always special when you can spend it with lifelong friends.

Whew. A New Project

I read an article today about a guy, Matt Kulesza, who decided he wanted to meet each of his facebook friends.  He's in Australia and has 1,088 friends so I'm not sure if he's going to make his goal of meeting everyone in 3 years, but I decided that sounded like a fun project.  I mentioned it and immediately had invitations from four people to get together for coffee.

So I designed a blog called Coffee F2F to report the experience and a photo of me with my FB friend, and already have two coffee dates set up for next week.   (Char and I are going to have our coffee date in Paris!)  I have no goals for completion.  I have 1,070 FB friends, scattered all over the place, so I can't possibly meet all (or even most) of them, but I'm willing to travel, if possible, from time to time.  There are several, for example in So. California that I could meet when we go to visit Santa Barbara. 

Should be easy to get several done quickly, since I have so many family FB friends!!  

I actually did the first F2F today, though it was kind of cheating, since a lunch date had been set up yesterday before I even thought of this idea. Jeri and Phil (the other Jeri and Phil) were in the area and asked about lunch.  I checked with Char and Mike, who were also free and Char checked with Rich and Pat, who weren't.

So the six of us met at Fentons Creamery in the old Nut Tree mall and had a wonderful time.  How can you not like a restaurant that offers more than one kind of crab sandwich?

(Made with Alaska snow crab)

I had Char take a picture of Jeri and me to start the new blog.

Fentons is famous for its ice cream.  In fact, it's in the top 10 ice creameries in the U.S., along with J.P.Licks, that we visited when we were with Jeri and Phil.  (When Char and Mike's son, Cam, got married, they had their reception at Fentons in Oakland.)  But by the time we finished our lunch, none of us had any room for ice cream of any kind.  I even brought half of my sandwich home for dinner.

The last time I was in Fenton's was for lunch with Char several months ago.  It was mid-week then and we were about the only people in the place.   Definitely not so today.  I think there was a waiting line outside and it was impossible to have a quiet conversation over all the noise, but we managed to get caught upon everyone's comings and goings.  And then, of course, before we left, we had to take group pictures.

Char, Phil, Walt, Jeri, Mike

We said our last goodbyes, again told Mike and Char we'd see them in Paris, and then headed off to our respective final destinations.

Walt and I got home in time to take brief naps before going to review Of Mice and Men tonight.

Before we left for Fentons, we discovered that if our house were burning down, none of our neighbors would notice.  I made cinnamon rolls this morning and butter dripped on the floor of the oven.  I recently made something else that had dripped too and was caked on the bottom of the oven. So after I got the rolls out of the oven, I decided to use the auto clean.  Within minutes it started burning off the stuff on the floor of the oven. Smoke was pouring out the top of the oven, and both smoke detectors (upstairs and downstairs) went off.  We opened all the windows and set up a fan to blow the smoke out but it was a good 15 minutes of smoke and detectors (neither detector would respond to the "off" button after setting it a couple of times) before things calmed down.  There wasn't even an inquiry from our neighbors.

I somehow feel less safe in this neighborhood now!

The Girl and the Fig

Char and I had lunch together a few months back and had such a good time we decided to do it again, and include, we hoped, the three other women in our Pinata Group.  We are somewhat scattered, with Pat in Sacramento, Char in San Ramon, Audrey in Santa Rosa, and Jeri--who knows where, since she and her husband travel around in their RV.  We figured getting Jeri here was a stretch (and were were right), but we managed to find an OK date for the rest of us.

It takes me an hour to drive to Char's house, probably and hour and a half or two hours to get to Audrey's house, in the opposite direction from Char's, and Pat is the closest, but she's still 40 miles away, the farthest from Audrey and Char.  Also, things are complicated by the fact that she doesn't drive.

But nevertheless, we found a date and place to meet.   Audrey chose a restaurant called The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma, which was a shorter distance from Audrey and about equidistant for Char and me, and Pat's husband would drive her to our house so I could take her with me.

We got there about 15 minutes early and I found "Gilbert parking."  Gilbert has been my parking angel since he died in 1986, usually finding me places either directly in front of or very close to my destination.  I would say he outdid himself today.

When we were all there, we were shown to a lovely table out on the patio.  I loved it because there was a fan directly opposite where I was sitting, so it blew cool air right into my face, which I love, but didn't bother the other three women.

Pat and Audrey each had salads, Char and I had quiche.  It was quite a different kind of quiche from what I normally make.

I found myself analyzing it in the way that panelists on one of our favorite shows, "Check, Please, Bay Area" might, concentrating mostly on how fresh the salad was ("fresh" seems to be a buzz word in culinary descriptions these days!).  But it did taste fresh, if a tad over-dressed.  I liked the quiche, which was more airy than my custard, but I don't know what they used for crust.  Whatever it was, it soaked up all the moisture in the quiche and where you should have a nice crisp bottom crust with the bacon and onions, all I got was mushy bacon.  The shoestring potatoes were my favorite kind of fries, but it was all too much and I left part of everything.  When I got home and was feeling queasy, I wondered if that was why I couldn't finish my lunch--I think I was the only one of the 4 of us who didn't.

Before we left the restaurant I made a stop in the bathroom and discovered they had a rather unique way of marking "men" and "women."

I kind of got the idea that Ken had had his way with Barbie and she looked a bit the worse for wear, while Ken still looked bright and chipper.

We wandered around a little in Sonoma, but had to get back on the road, each to our respective corners of California.  I was feeling worse and worse on the long ride home.  Just definitely not up to snuff.  And the ride seemed interminable because they are widening part of the little highway we had to travel and for the better part of 30 minutes, I think my top speed was 5 mph and that wasn't very often.   It was a joy to finally connect to I-80 and be able to go at a normal speed.

Rich was here to get Pat and I staggered into the house.  Ifelt bad that Jeri and Phil were here and all I wanted to do was sleep.  I finally went into the couch and slept for about an hour and a half and felt almost human when I woke up, though I still didn't feel like food, so I fixed dinner for the others and sat there drinking water.

At some point I remembered that the Emmys were on and had started about 2 hours earlier, so I just let the show record and then when dinner was over and Jeri was going upstairs to practice her cello, I watched the show, being careful not to look at any social media first.  I hate knowing the results before I get a chance to see the show.

I will say that "flaming red" seemed to be the color of the evening for women's dresses and nobody wore a more dramatic dress than Uzo Aduba, who plays "Crazy Eyes" on Orange is the New Black.  She was stunning....and so nice that she won an Emmy, though her category had been given out the day before, so we didn't get a chance to see her accept.  I also wept, as I expected to, at Billy Crystal's tribute to his friend Robin Williams.

So it's now pushing 1 a.m. and it's time for me to head off to sleep, hoping I'll feel better in the morning.  Jeri and Phil leave tomorrow and we will miss them, but we are going to Boston next month, so it won't be for long.

Day 57:  Lunching with friends of more than 50 years.

Old Friends

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my old "friends," the kitchen equipment I've been using for nearly 50 years.   Today I write about old friends (without quotes).

The people in the Pinata Group are our oldest friends, the ones who have been in our lives for more than 50 years.  Several months ago, I pointed out to Char that we weren't getting any younger and that we should make a greater effort to get together more often.  We have our cruises, but other than that we don't see each other month.  Of course, the miles between us (it takes an hour to get from one house to the other) kind of works against that, but we decided we would make the effort, because we enjoy each other's company.

So a few months back, Char drove up in this direction and we met at the Nut Tree strip mall and had a lovely lunch at Fenton's Ice Creamery, an import from Oakland, and a place where we had eaten together in the old days.

It was fun and we resolved to do it once a month.

But resolutions like that are easy to forget when you get on with "life" in your respective corners of the state.

We tried awhile ago to make a luncheon engagement for the two of us with three other women of the Pinata Group, but that went nowhere.

We decided to get together this week, and Char chose Wednesday as the day.  Again, we tried to involve the three other women in the Pinata group, but one was traveling around the country, which she seems to do constantly, and wouldn't be in our area.  Another's husband was recovering from surgery and she didn't feel she could leave him.  That left Pat, who lives in Sacramento and was going to be free to have lunch with us.

I was charged with picking a restaurant that was (a) near Pat's house, (b) had soft food for Char who had just had dental surgery, and (c) had vegetarian selections for Pat, who is vegetarian.

I decided we would eat at a Mexican restasurant in Sacramento, near Pat's house.  I had been there once with Peach and our cousin Shirley and I remembered that it was a good place, should have lots of soft stuff, and lots of greens.

Char drove to Davis and picked me up, and we met Pat at the restaurant.

The waitress came to take our drink orders and I ordered my usual water but then changed my mind when Pat and Char both ordered margaritas.  I decided to have one too.  They were huge, but not very strong, so it was a good choice.

The really nice thing about eating with your oldest friends is that, as Char pointed out, you really know a lot about each other.  We knew each other's parents and siblings and attended a lot of funerals for those people (my mother is the only Pinata grandma still living). I talk easily to Susan at Logos, because she is the daughter of Char's cousin, and Char babysat with her when she was a baby.  I know all about the aunts, Leona and Mabel and their quirks and a lot of Susan's family are names I recognize. We are interested in Pat's sister-in-law, who is blind and lives by herself on several acres of land in the hills.  We picked olives in her garden one year, and planted trees in memory of Pat's son, who had died, on that property.

We realized that there were things that we didn't know, and had never thought to share, but with a shared background of 50 years, there were more than enough memories to go around, after updating information on what our kids had been doing lately (Char and I pretty much know what our own kids are doing, but we were interested in hearing about Pat's kids).

It was a leisurely lunch with lots of laughs and a reminder of why we have remained in each other's lives all these years.  It also underscored the importance of not letting our friendships just kind of drift off and get lost, as so many friendships do.

I feel like we're in a kind of weird money-less tontine. We're now in the last quarter (or less) of our lives.  We have already buried one woman, and another one has had a heart attack and is not doing well.  It's depressing to realize that we are at an age where any day now we could get "the" telephone call announcing which one of us has passed on.  Char and I have promised to give the eulogy at the funeral of whichever one of us dies first.  I'm a terrible speaker and get very,very nervous if I have to speak in public, so if she decides to die before I do, the thought of giving a eulogy might just kill me right then.

But it would seem appropriate if we had a double-funeral and let someone else do the eulogy.  I have the mental image of the two of us trying to stuff full sized Christmas trees into their little Saab, all those pumpkin pies we baked, and all the other silly stuff we have done togehter over the years.  I can't imagine life without her, so she'd jolly better well stick around until I die...

In the meantime, I'll settle for another lunch, maybe when Jeri's godmother, Jeri, is in town and can join us.

Day 24:  Happiness is Ladies Who Lunch

Old Friends

What a great day it was.  Jeri and I spent the day with some of our oldest and dearest friends. Certainly some of my oldest friends, and for Jeri, friends she has known since birth.  The only reason Walt wasn't with us was because he was feeling sick, and decided to stay home and rest.

Jeri began the day visiting my mother.  I opted not to go this time, and to give them some grandma- granddaughter time together.  At about 12:15, I called Jeri to let her know I was ready to pick her up.  We had a lunch date.

Jeri's godmother, Jeri, and her husband Phil (we still have yet to get Jeri & Phil in the same city with Jeri & Phil!) were passing through town and   stopped for a visit.  They live in a mobile home and you never know where they are going to be, so you want to catch them while you have the chance.

Jeri and I met each other at the Newman Center on the UC Berkeley campus and we quickly became good friends.  She was in my wedding, I was in hers; she's godmother to my firstborn and I to hers (though her daughter is not named Beverly -- Harumph!)  As with all of our special Pinata friends, we have weathered lots of good, lots of bad, and the love and support of all of our group sustains us in triumph and tragedy.  Today it only had to sustain us through a Greek lunch in a freezing restaurant (the silverware was too cold to touch comfortably!) with the slowest waitress in town.  But once we started catching up on who is where and how are the grandkids and who has done what to whom, we didn't mind the physical discomforts.

When it was time to say goodbye again, there had to be pictures, of course.

Phil is fairly new to the Pinata family.  He and Jeri found each other after the death of each of their spouses and they have  been married a couple of years now.  It's so good to see my friend happy again, and to get to know this special man.

We stopped at Trader Joe's to get some goodies to take with us to the Bay Area.  We were having dinner with the Blackfords.  Jeri tries to hook up with Char & Mike's kids, or at least some of them, whenever she is here in town.   It takes just a little over an hour to get there and we showed up around 4:30, with our Trader Joe goodies in tow.  Gradually the house began to fill with familiar faces, and I loved looking at the groups gathered to visit.  No matter whether we've seen each other yesterday or not for a year, it always feels like coming home whenever a group of us is able to get together.

Jenny's dog, Niki, took it all in stride.

While Char and I sat and chatted about books, people gradually began disappearing down the stairs.  We eventually discovered there was a lively game of darts going on in the garage.

The game went on for a very long time, and when it was over, as they are so accustomed to doing, the kids obediently lined up for photos.

 

These girls (except for daughter Jamie) have been friends for all of their lives.

We haven't been friends for THAT long, but more than 50 years.

It was just a great evening, proving once again that sometimes ... many times ... maybe most times ... old friends really are the best.

(The only thing better is mothers and daughters!)

The Ruse

Well, this is going to be posted very early because I have to have it up before noon, when I usually post around 6 p.m.  It's all because of the ruse.

Jeri is at my mother's and texted me that my mother wanted to know if I wanted to come down and "hang out with them" today.  Well, I'm supposed to take her to the doctor tomorrow and I didn't want to drive down there two days in a row.  Also, I'm having lunch with a friend today.  It's already been rescheduled once and I didn't want to reschedule again,  so I said no. 

Then I got another text where Jeri said that my mother's idea had been that I would spend the night.  Oh dear....it sounded like she was really lonely, but I really didn't want to go and spend the night.  While I was trying to explain that in text, the phone rang and it was my mother, asking me to come down and spend the night.

I was hemming and hawing when she handed the phone to Jeri, who said "see, we thought if you could come down Grandma and I could have our gin and tonics and you'd be the designated driver to take me to the bus stop at night so I can get to the airport."  Or words to that effect.

It became very clear.  Jeri was worried about my mother driving her into downtown late at night and if I came down, there would be a good excuse for her not to, since my mother won't hear of Jeri taking a bus or cab to the transit bus station.   I understood completely.  So I'm going to San Rafael so we can avoid my mother having to drive late at night.

In the meantime, since I have no real "content" for this entry, here are the 3 generation pictures from the party on Saturday.  We started out at Newman Center with five couples and this is what we have created

The whole Pinata Group there.

The First Generation
(2 have died, one left the group when they divorced, one wasn't able to come)

The Second Generation + spouses (many missing)
(I love that on the TV monitor in back is the pumpkin pie movie)

The Third Generation (several missing)

Can you tell how much I love all these guys.

Choo Choo

There was the sound of a train engine puffing and a train whistle blowing and I was proud. I had won the first of 3 games of Mexican Train that we played last night.

I'm not sure how this came to be called "Mexican train," but it is a game where you make trains of dominoes and try to get rid of all of the dominoes in your hand. The first person to do so hits the center of the little green thing there and it makes the sound of a train. Char's set choo-choos for about 5 minutes (or so it seems), which is terribly annoying. Pat's set gives a couple of polite choos and then shuts up, which is perfect.

The Pinata Women's Cousins Day Group has had another overnight party. It never seems like there are enough of us, and there aren't. Jeri (the "other" Jeri) was not in California and Michele, whom we assumed would be with us for all these parties when we first started planning them, died before we could start them.

But Pat, Char, Audrey and I enjoyed ourselves.

Char picked me up around 10 a.m. and we made our way into Sacramento to Pat's house. Audrey arrived an hour or so later. We sat around having crackers and cheese and wine (yeah wine. In the morning. Wanna make something of it?) while we got caught up on the ups and downs and ins and outs of our lives since the last time we were all together.

These gatherings are wonderful for lots of blood letting, talking about things that we may not have talked about with anybody else. There is laughter and nods of agreement and, when needed, a comforting touch.

We seem to spend a lot of time wondering how we all got to be so old, especially when we talk about our children, the oldest of whom is looking "50" close in the eye (though not quite yet). How did we get old enough to have children who are going to start getting into their fifties?

Around 2:30, Pat hauled out the salads we had all contributed. There was a 3-bean salad, a tortellini with lentil salad, a caprese (tomato and mozarella) salad, and a green salad filled with cherry tomatoes from Pat's garden, along with some fruit and the crackers, moved over to the table. We ate our fill and sat around the table chatting some more. Over lunch we bemoaned political issues...fortunately we all feel pretty much the same way, politically.

We eventually set up the game of Mexican train and played that until 8 p.m. or so, always talking. I won't mention that I won two of the three games, because that would be boastful and just rude.

Around 9, Pat offered us more wine or ice cream. We were ready for ice cream and who can resist something called "death by chocolate."

Because we are old, we were nodding off at 10 and decided to go to sleep.

We all, amazingly, slept well, even Char and I, both of whom have insomnia problems.

In the morning, Pat made blueberry waffles which she served on her brand new picnic table, which was made from wood cut from a redwood tree which had been growing on her husband's family ranch, which which had died and had to be cut down. The table(s) made from the wood were gorgeous.

You'll notice that on the table is also a bowl of fresh blueberries, for waffle topping. Char and Pat picked those berries (along with blackberries) yesterday, also from Pat's garden. They were delicious.

When it began to get warm, we came in the house and continued chatting (which we did pretty much nonstop for two days--it's what I love about these get togethers). We called Jeri (the "other" Jeri), on speaker phone so she could be a part of the gathering as well.

At 11:30, Pat pulled out the leftover salads and we all gorged ourselves for an early lunch and then packed up our cars to head home again.

I'm now going to post this because Char says she always has to check my journal to find out if she had a good time or not.

Char -- you did. (So did I!)

Something's Wrong

There was something wrong with the buffet table at our friend Concetta's 70th birthday party.

It was the usual groaning board, filled with crackers, cheese, meat balls, stuffed eggs, veggies, fruit, dips, etc., etc., etc. What was missing? CLAM DIP !!! Nobody had brought clam dip. I thought of doing it, but decided that surely Char or one of her kids would bring the clam dip, but they didn't. I brought a few cheeses and some crackers. Oh, it was all delicious, but I can't remember the last party we've had where there was no clam dip.

There was something else even more seriously wrong with the party. I went to get my camera to start taking pictures and discovered that the battery was dead. I usually have a spare battery with me, but for some reason I didn't. I was there with no camera!

I did borrow Char's camera, switch disks and take a few pictures, just so I didn't go into withdrawal. Like this one, with Concetta surrounded by her best friend Phoebe, her daughter Lara, and Kevin, who is the son of Jeri's godmother, Jeri (who, being in Arizona, was unable to attend the party).

This was a remarkable party for many reasons, but the biggest was that--whoever thought Concetta would be here to celebrate it? I remember her reporting what turned out to be the first sign of her MS--double vision. This was before we moved to Davis in 1973. Then we watched her progress from cane to walker to wheelchair and watched her paralysis grow until all the movement she has left is in her head, and the volume of her lungs has decreased to where she is all but inaudible when she speaks, even if your ear is right near her mouth.

But by golly, she is like the energizer bunny. She keeps on ticking. She survived the fire in the Berkeley hills. She still lives in that house perched atop the hill, when all houses around her burned, but hers stayed standing. She continues to travel, until recently to Australia to visit her daughter, but then Lara and her family moved back to California. She has caretakers and friends who get her around, and she continues to enjoy probably more social events than I do. She is an amazing person.

(She is able to maneuver her wheelchair around by moving the control in front of her with her chin--that's half a tennis ball attached to the controls)

This being a Pinata group party, we had a pinata and all of the children of our children lined up to knock it down, youngest to oldest, as their parents had done, Kevin in charge of manipulating the pinata, as his late father did for so many years.

Char, her son Cam and I were talking about the pinata and I joked that when we all start dying, we'll probably have a pinata at our funerals (actually that has already happened, as we had a pinata at Kevin's father's funeral). Cam joked that we could put the ashes in the pinata. Char added that we'd also add wrapped candy. What a novel way to literally scatter ashes.

As we always do at these events, we took photos of all generations. I don't remember the last time we had all of any of the 3 generations at an event--and we didn't have it today, but we certainly had a good representation.

Generation 2 & spouses

Generation 3

I wonder if we'll ever have a generation 4 picture!

There were two birthday cakes that threatened to start a bonfire.

Since she has so little lung capacity, she relied on the grandchildren to blow out the candles

They had bought the candles that keep reigniting so the kids blew for a long time. Then we all ate cake that had been spat upon by children for 5 minutes. Yum!

But it was a great party, a great tribute to an amazing woman. Happy Birthday, Concetta!

Bonjour, Ciao

Tonight we had a reunion of the group that went to France and Italy. Well, not exactly a reunion of the whole group, but Char and her daughters, Jeri and myself, and Sheri, who is the mother of Ashley (who brought "Bongo," the stuffed monkey on the trip), all got together. (Pat was supposed to come too, but things got too complicated and she was unable to join us.) The occasion was that Jeri was in town and what better way to celebrate?

The day started with my taking Polly to the vet to see about starting her on Prozac, which she probably will do next week, in the hope of mellowing her out to allow her to actually make friends with a potential forever family. After hearing her story, the vet looked at me for a long time and said "YOU can't adopt her, huh?" A logical question, since she's lived here 9 months already. Jeri is convinced we should adopt her. I'm not convinced and I know Walt really isn't convinced.

Polly shook like a leaf all the way to the doctor, and fell asleep in my lap on the ride home. I'm hoping Prozac will help that a bit.

Anyway, I then got in the car and took off for the Bay Area. Jeri was at my mother's and I was meeting them for lunch. Except that I got stopped on the highway for a good 30 minutes due to an accident somewhere up ahead. I was an hour later than I wanted to be when I arrived, but we had a nice lunch, a nice visit, and then took pictures before we left.

Then Jeri and I took a leisurely drive over to Charlotte's house, which included meandering through the UC Berkeley campus and reminiscing about my memories of being there in the 60s. We avoided the always horrible back-up line of traffic going through the Caldecott tunnel by going over the mountain, which was also fun.

We got to Char's not horrendously early and sat around chatting until the others arrived. We had wine and clam dip and other hors d'oeuvres and it was just really nice seeing everybody again.

There were few of us so that we could all fit in one car.

We went to an Italian restaurant, Incontro, which had been reviewed by Check Please, Bay Area, and which lived up to the praise it received on that television show. The wait staff in particular was very friendly and one cheery waiter took a group photo for us.

The food was good (my gnocci with truffle oil was fabulous, if not exactly photogenic), we laughed a lot, shared memories and updates on current events. Just a wonderful, relaxing evening with good friends, after which Jeri and I drove back here to Davis.

All in all a very good day.