Saturday Sky and a Birthday

Saturday Sky for Veteran's Day and a 90th birthday.

It is full fledged fall here now, in the 70's during the day and into the 40's at night. We leave the bedroom window open a crack at night and the crisp coolness is a real luxury.

Nana's 90th birthday celebration was about as perfect as we could have hoped it would be. Maria came in from college late on Thursday, after Nana had already gone to bed. So the first surprise for Nana was on Friday morning when she found Maria on the living room couch. Later that evening she had the surprise of her nephew and his granddaughter arriving from San Diego. On Saturday Michael and Annie both came home for the celebration.





There were flowers.

There were phone calls. Calls from all around the country. So many calls that when I wanted to take a nap, I had to shut off the phone in the bedroom. So many calls, that everyone else in the house refused to answer the phone because we all knew it was another call for Nana.

There were gifts. There were cards. There was a videotaped birthday greeting from her oldest grandson in Rhode Island, with his wife and Nana's great-granddaughter (our oldest son and his family).






There was cake.

There was a doctor-to-be who performed surgery on it for us.






It was a humongous cake. We could have fed everyone in the restaurant with it. It was a white cake with cherries and peaches and lovely sweet frosting, made by our church office assistant. (Lest you wonder, we did not feed everyone in the restaurant. But a great deal of it has gone today to feed numerous college students.)

There was a great meal at a great restaurant. Much wine, women, and song. As in, we had wine for the table, there were more women at the table than men, and the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" with much enthusiasm, whistles and noisemakers.

I would say that there was dancing in the streets, but we did draw the line somewhere.

It was always easy to remember Nana's birthday, because it was also Veteran's Day.

It's hard to imagine, though, that when Nana was born, World War I was still raging and there was no Veteran's Day yet.





Now it's Sunday and everyone has left to go back to home, school, and work. The house is quiet again and we'll be eating leftovers (and cake) for a couple days yet.

Nana says it was one of the best birthdays she ever had.