This picture dated September of 1986 was the start of a journey of three friends who all met at Sacred Heart Hospital and began a tradition of celebrating birthdays up to the lovely party last evening.
The second picture was taken at The Excelsior 8/31/1989 and there are many more pics that I could show but this will do for now.
The important piece here is the journey of the friendship and the continuity of the celebrations. It is a blessing to be a woman and have these long term forever friends. These women have seen me at my worst and at my best and have encouraged me and totally been there . We have shared our successes and our failures. We have wept over our children and then totally rejoiced when things were going well in our families. As one of my friends so eloquently says, "God is the only person that has never let me down".. I would have to say how wise and true that is but I would have to say my friends run a very close second.
Early celebrations were considered "Magical". We spent months planning our presents even going to a theme . One year might be Garden art or everything French . There were splendid gag gifts and then one nice gift which would never be the "Grand Finale".........Oh, no the last gift would be a lovely piece of jewelry or Royal Doulton China or some exotic offering. We had cards to go with everything and when the gift opening was finished the room would be full of lovely wrappings and bows.......it was like being a little kid again on Christmas. We would usually go out to eat and the restaurant was tolerant of the many gifts..........getting them all intact to the car was another situation. One year we started spending the night at Jorja's and fixing a fine meal at the house. We would put on our favorite music and there would be dancing and frivolity. We would sit on the deck and wave sparklers or even take a soak in the jacuzzi. Did I mention champagne? The next morning was kinda slow but we always managed to rehash the magic of the evening and be ready to plot the next birthday.
My birthday is the last day of August and almost always hot. Liz is towards the end of September and Jorja is in December . Then we could take a break from the galas and enjoy other aspects of our friendship. The birthdays were sacred and we truly planned the strategy like a four star General, but oh what a lovely battle it was and I think we have won the War of Life by sticking with each other.
Last evening, Jorja having been inspired by a recent movie we saw, "Julie and Julia" cooked Boeuf Bourguignonne for us and it was awesome. We had two totally decadent desserts. One a raspberry chocolate torte with real daisies on top and a death by chocolate three layer exquisite orange flavor cake and chocolates from Normandy courtesy of a former French student Delphine. I asked the bakery to put this on my torte.......'C'est Bon! and it was GOOD and after all it is my name. May our birthday celebrations never end and Salut' mon amis.
No comments:
Post a Comment