Re: [gardeners] Jim's party

Martha Brown (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:25:18 -0600 

Penny,

What a wonderful party.  Give Jim my best wishes and many more to
both of you.

Martha
M Brown
NW Oklahoma, USA
USDA Zone 6b,  Sunset Zone 35

----- Original Message -----
From: penny x stamm <pennyx1@Juno.com>
To: <gardeners@globalgarden.com>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 12:10 AM
Subject: [gardeners] Jim's party


| .
| We held Jim's 78th birthday party tonite, and it turned out to
be
| an incredibly spirited and good natured, very long event... !
|
| By decree, only his relatives are allowed to attend, and by
definition,
| his relatives are short-tempered and crotchety. But not this
time.
|
| DJ flew in from St.Louis, a phenomenal event. Everyone was
delighted
| to see her, which made her happy which made the folks happy
which
| was reflected in the tone of the occasion.
|
| Jim's brother Peter and his wife Karen, both in their
mid-sixties, have
| become parents again -- they take their 11 month old grandson
from
| Friday night to Sunday night, every single week.  Now I know
darned
| well that DJ cannot stand children --  If they walk in, she
will walk
| out.
| But this toddler was no ordinary child -- he never got sleepy,
he never
| cried, he never tired, and he never stopped smiling from 4:00pm
when
| they arrived, until 10:00pm when they left. Anybody could pick
him up,
| and anybody could help him walk, and any piece of birthday
wrapping
| paper made a wonderful toy.  May the Lord grant that this child
retain
| this personality all thru life, but I am not sure that even the
Lord has
| that much power.....
|
| His New Jersey cousins came, and his Long Island cousin, plus
our
| two local daughters and one sin-in-law.
|
| Now the tie which bound the event together was the genealogy
| research which DJ has been doing on this branch of the family.
The
| cousins have astounding memories about dates and names, and
| today I received another chart from our newly found cousin in
Paris
| who knows even more than we do about the ancestors!  DJ also
| located a cousin in Little Rock, and between these two men, all
the
| questions we happend to have, have been answered.  God bless
| the Internet!
|
| My once a year treat to myself is to hire a girl in the kitchen
for this
| event, and it is worth a million of my hard earned dollars,
every
| penny of it.
|
| We had a computer going in the den, where DJ and others were
| putting names on the people in the photos which had been
scanned
| into Jim's machine. Think about it -- they were photos of Jim's
mother,
| Marion's  mother, Dickie's mother -- circa 1904 -- some dating
back
| to 1895. How do you spell 'dageurrotype'...?  DJ and cousin
Alfred are
| computer wizards so those old pix were enlarged, brightened,
cropped --
| whatever needed fixing -- in about 40 seconds. Their fingers
fly almost
| like hummingbird wings!
|
| At the same time, 15-y-o Laura had a laptop computer running at
the
| desk, for she was studying and taking notes for her midterms.
The
| noise didn't  bother her at all...  The baby was crawling and
walking
| carefully amongst all the feet in the way, and managed never to
get
| stepped on.  Also the kitchen-aid kept returning with hot hors
d'oeuvres
| which she passed around the crowd.
|
| Naturally, I had my own computer running in the next room,
where Alfred
| and I were very busy trying every resource at our disposal to
bring up
| an attachment from the cousin in Paris.
|
| All in all, while it was a circus, it also was heart warming.
| ............................................
| The menu..? Old fashioned and very appropriate:
|
| Hors d'oeuvres:  baked mushrooms in sour cream, very tiny meat
balls
| on toast, subminiature spinach in crust.  Lots of daiqueries
poured..
|
| Entree:  old fashioned pot roast, potato pancakes, sweet and
sour red
| cabbage, apple sauce.  Budweiser all around.
|
| Desserts:  choice of vanilla or chocolate Baked Alaska.
Coffee.
| .....................................
|  I had my new electric picnic chest running, plus a styrofoam
chest out
| on the front porch weighted down against invasion by
muskrats --
| or was it possums..?  And the pot roast hid in the car trunk,
don't
| forget..
|
| Challenging logistics, nicht wahr?
|
| I'm too tired to breathe. See you in the morning.. .
|
| Penny, NY
|
________________________________________________________________
|
|
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