Wordless Wednesday: birthday roses

Will you still need me, will you still feed me....

I sure hope so!

...it's kind of spooky looking at that 8-digit number...

But I'm OK with it!

However, still waiting for Vera, Chuck, and Dave....

Extra! Local family ends Spurs losing streak!

...at least, that's what we like to think.

Another great birthday present from our exceptional children was Spurs tickets for the whole crew. What a great idea!

We picked, somewhat in advance, an April 3 noon game with Phoenix, not realizing at the time that coming into that game, our boys would have lost 6 in a row—their longest losing streak since before the Tim Duncan era.

So there was extra pressure upon us, as fans, not to let this string continue. As you might be able to tell, from the scoreboard shot above—which was taken at halftime, amazingly—we were able to turn it around in style.

On the left you can see the great view we had from our much-too-expensive seats. A great vantage point!

These wonderful children have come up with some spectacular birthday presents lately. From my Lord of the Rings feast, to their hugely vital role in Henry's surprise party, they really have set a high standard. But this year's might be hard to beat.

In order to make the afternoon even more special and exciting, we decided to have brunch at the Blue Star brew pub, one of the kids' favorite local eateries. On an earlier visit, we learned that they offer a free bus ride to Spurs games if you take in a meal there first. And they serve brunch on Sundays!

Perfect! No parking hassles, delicious beverages to consume on the way there (and on the way back! you just put in your order and have your mimosa waiting for you after the game)—what else do you need for a great celebration?!

Here are the kids ordering their to-go brews...

notice the brewing equipment in the back of the shot...only pub-brewed libations will do for my beer-snob kiddos

...and here we are on the bus, ready to head for the arena and make sure our boys pull out of their uncharacteristic end-of-season tailspin:

The whole affair was so successful, both from the standpoint of fun had and game won, we might just have to make this an annual event. We're definitely sold on the bus-to-the-game idea, birthday or not.

view from the Blue Star parking lot of Pioneer Flour's iconic tower

Although, from the birthday present standpoint, we're not sure how this could be topped.

Turn about is fair play

Februaries are busy months in our household, and a month when it's very difficult not to gain weight. First there's V-day, followed close on its heels by my birthday, then our anniversary (33 years and counting) and then, just out of the February frame, my husband's birthday on March 1.

As some readers may remember, my 60th last year was commemorated with a wonderful surprise party at a local Mexican eatery. And it wasn't the first time the devious spouse had pulled this. When I turned 50 (long before blogging days) he threw a surprise dinner for me at his mother's house, attended by out-of-town family and friends I hadn't seen for years.

I assured him after both parties that I'd never be able to pull off anything like that for him. For one thing, he's too clever and suspicious—much too hard to fool. And for another, I'm not a very good actor/dissembler/organizer.

But with the help of industrious in-laws and wonderful children, we were able to do it! Scheduled for a week early—only one of many little diversions—at the home of one of his sisters, Henry's surprise 60th celebration came off beautifully on Saturday. The picture above is of son and daughter keeping watch for our arrival at the party house, which caused a little anxiety all 'round, as we were about 15 minutes late! [Thanks very much to incredibly talented daughter-in-law for the pictures with this post. I was much too wiped out from keeping the secret and stressing over getting him to the party to have energy left for taking pictures!]

And here's the birthday boy, being really, really surprised! [flanked by super-hostess sister and myself]

Planning this party and carrying out the lead-up to it without giving anything away is one of the most stressful operations I've ever undertaken. Childbirth has nothing on it! [slight exaggeration] Having to make sure suspicious charges didn't show up on the cards he monitors, getting everyone on board with the "cover story" that would get him to the party house on time, worrying something I or someone else might say would plant a seed of suspicion, and, finally, not being able to do anything myself to help with preparations on the day—I'm getting too old for this!

Having such a wonderful group of friends and family on hand—some who came from far-flung locations to join us—was what really made the evening. But the food and entertainment was also first-rate. Food was mostly contributed by generous friends and family, but we did splurge on a professional super-cake. Here's a look at it, a personalized scene showing the aftermath of a fantasy boating mishap (note the name of the boat: here's a blog post that includes a picture of Henry in the same canoe! although at a different scale)
It tasted as wonderful as it looked! I have to plug the young artist who made this for us. See some other examples of her handiwork here.

And that wasn't all the talent on view. Our son showed off prodigious video editing and composition skills to create a "this is your life" video for his dad. Plus, he reminded me that I could embed it in the blog!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a memorable, fun, evening for us. And for helping keep the secret!

Not a milestone, but still a famous number

No baseball fan can write the number 61 without thinking an asterisk should follow it. Billy Crystal even made the digits—complete with asterisk—a clever title for a decent baseball movie.

As a hint to what my 61* graphic means, let's just say I am old enough to remember personally the 1961 baseball season, which was when the number became so famous.

But my asterisk isn't (specifically) baseball-related**, but rather means:

• I wouldn't want to be younger, since there aren't any years since 1949 that I'd want to give up (maybe a few days in junior high, but not a full year)
• for the time to have gone by this fast, I must have been having a lot of fun (although when you're this old you can't always remember it!)
  
• it looks and sounds worse than it feels, at least most of the time, since...
• 
  
• inside, I still feel a lot like this:

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**Pitchers and catchers report to spring training soon, which is always a joyous occasion to have happen right around your birthday! Play ball!

House-hunting in A-town

No, we're not thinking about moving. Not after just getting half our house made liveable!

But the globe-trotting son and daughter-in-law are looking to put down roots, to find a home base of their own to jump off from when the make their future travels. And we're just thrilled that their selected location is so close!

Being part of the new internet economy [going to an office in the same place every day to work is so TwenCen!] they can live anywhere. So why wouldn't they choose Austin, coolest city in Texas by far and one of the coolest in the country! Not temperature cool, to be sure, but definitely hipness cool.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of people are enamored of Austin, and the house price reflect its popularity.

We took a family Valentine's/early birthday* trip north up IH 35 this past weekend and spent a few hours house-hunting with them and their perky realtor. They found a house they were really excited about, only to find out a few hours later that four offers had already been received on it. That's them on the front porch at the left.

Sigh. I guess that was a really good price. They have learned, pretty quickly, to be philosophical about such setbacks, though, and are determined to keep looking.

The rest of our visit was spent playing games, sleeping, and eating. Doing all this with the whole fam (including cat grandson Bosworth, shown on the left making sure no one disturbs a napping Henry) is a perfect birthday gift for this mother of adult children.

But I even got a couple of other unexpected cadeaux: a Kindle gift cert that I will have so much fun deciding how to spend, and the promise of a ticket to an upcoming Alamo Drafthouse LOTR extravaganza. Does this sound like heaven or what?!

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*More on this non-milestone bday in my next post.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

[Note: title needs to be read with Gomer Pyle intonation. Sorry if you're too young to know what this is; there are advantages to being 60 years old—see below.]

We went to meet friends for dinner at an incredibly typical San Antonio Tex-Mex eatery Wednesday night, and, being an earnest blogger, I thought I'd get some blog-worthy photos of the place and took this one, of the restaurant with Venus above, as we approached it....


..... not realizing that I was freaking out my very devious (but also extremely sweet) husband by doing so.

You see, in my obliviousness I didn't realize the crowd of people in the restaurant were all people I knew. [I just thought they were there for the free margaritas we'd heard about.]


It turns out the free margaritas was just a flimsy cover story to set up a surprise birthday party for yours truly, attended by 60+ (appropriately enough) friends and relatives. And after I'd specifically told said husband I didn't want such a fuss made. Well, I was wrong.

The very nice people at El Milagrito, where they're not even usually open for dinner (the picture on the right is of us with their friendly, cooperative staff), provided loads of yummy Tex-Mex treats, there was a rented margarita machine and ice chests of beer, and a wonderful time was had by all, myself especially.

Husband of the hour managed (in a rather short time, as I was to learn) to gather groups of friends from many of my separate lives, some of whom I hadn't seen in ages. Since ....

• kids outgrow their sports endeavors, meaning you don't get to see the friends you made among the other parents any more (like this group above at the left)
• people have the temerity to move out of your neighborhood, or retire from their jobs, also meaning you don't get to see them any more
• and even folks you should see often, like current neighbors and relatives, you don't get to visit with enough, because we're all so busy

Here's a few more pix from this thoroughly enjoyable evening:

[thanks to Henry and Christina for these great photos]

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Thanks to these and all the other lovely friends and family members, and also thanks to those who weren't able to be there. Having so many people to be fond of certainly more than makes up for the down-sides of being so ancient.

The party's location means the "little miracle" and that's a wonderfully apt description of each and every one of these precious friendships!

¡Muchas gracias, mis amigos!