Dear Yentas:
“Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.” ………………………………………………Andrea Gibson.
“Everything comes with stuff” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………You Know Who
“What you talking?” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Mr. Kim
Well- it’s been an interesting week here in our hometown…THE POND is going away, the leaves are dropping, Green is less Green, and the nights are getting coder…. this is also The Queen’s BIG-ASS birthday week…. the start of birthday month……well, she is TQ, after all….
Started conspicuously with the planned two nights’ girl’s getaway with the BFF to THE Islands washed out due to Covid washing ashore in the BFF household.…which had even greater implications (foreshadowing here) ……
The nuked escape really hampered my master sneak attack birthday plans…. but made a bunch of excuses to disappear for major dinner making extravaganza shop on Tuesday afternoon…. then more sneak attack to hide all the goods at the fridge/cupboards in the Mt. Holly community center……and hope TQ did not get and urge to inspect her kingdom this week….
So the rest was just herding cats for major surprise birthday dinner on Friday…which involved last minute cancellations, additions, second thoughts, new emigres joining……and a host of cursing up a storm at the home office (read, closet)…..made it through with a nightly dusk walk on the dirt road panoramas with the little beast…and creatively hiding from various recruiting to go to Indiana counties trying to find me and convince me to come do some change work…..cant take any more 14 hour trips to get there…
So…(back to foreshadow) the BFF tested negative all week and again Friday morning, which enabled the erstwhile Former Empress of GE to lure TQ away with lies and deceit in midafternoon…..and allowed Papi to retrieve the goods, fend off 2 or 3 more blah, blah, blahs from the troubled party attendees…..and get home to clean and prepare in earnest…while having to deal with the last cancellation- who showed up in person and in distress to drop off her promised desert and beg off…amazingly she did this while I was holding a meat cleaver…well good riddance, I say…finders keepers- losers weepers…..and the carrot cake was really good as a door prize….at five pm the lades arrived , dropped off anonymously so as not to have any cars ins sight to give the shock value away…..all was good, notwithstanding having wacked off a tiny tip of my finger with the angry cleaver while cooking , setting the table, and making cocktails as they all arrived…they immediately all had two of the special lemonades we picked up from the Bronx crew last week…and were pretty stuporific hiding in the living room and giggling , when The Empress and TQ waltzed in at 5:15 to a wailing surprise….TQ seemed genuinely shocked to see The Southie from up the hill, Mt. Holly’s most prominent Mother Figure and The Self-Anointed Trophy wife (that was all that was left after the quitters)…so all good, except they were already both looped from the afternoon distraction activities and The Empress immediately spilled the beans that she had made a quick trip up the hill to avoid coming home too early, and insure the surprise would be intact….…and ran in to The other Southie half who asked how the party was-immediately blowing the surprise…f….n’ Southies….
Of course, TQ was confused and still surprised, amazingly…so then I continued to force feed the gals buckets of the lemonade and set about making and servings the four course extravaganza……getting them sufficiently tipsy to have them all thinking I war he best partner ever…works every time….all in all a major success…..and BONUS…..as arranged, precisely at 5:45 almost all the kids, grandkids, extended family and dearest friends all zoomed in simultaneously to sing Jenn a happy, happy…it was a moment….
So- despite multiple mountain traumas along the way….a success!!!!….and now onto the six decades of birthday experiences which were to begin Saturday….but put back by an emerging tractor crisis…which the b’day gal pulled b’day privilege and insisted be fixed so she could mow our barely overgrown yard before anyone saw it…..so found a belt in town and had to convince the local mower guy to come over on a Saturday morning so he and I cod get this ridiculous belt on without taking off the deck…..and TQ could thus joyously mow her domain…in time for Feel et Maux to arrive for an overnight on their way to Maine…
After more lemonades, we had a loopy dust- walk up the hill and then on to dinner at the fabulous and juts post flood reopened Homestyle Hotel in Ludlow….for an onslaught of fart to table small plate culinary delights…which F&M very graciously treated us to for the birthday..…arrived home pleasantly sated and ready for our leftover desserts from the party to find the aforementioned carrot cake mysteriously missing from the kitchen table where we had foolishly left it…and tracked some crumbs to behind the couch in living room where our little furry housemate has dragged it off the table, chewed through giant sealed plastic bag, and aluminum foil covering to inhale most of the cake…luckily we still had the mound of birthday cupcakes…and Lucy again proved her immunity to getting sick despite her atrocious bouts of scandalous sneak eating…
Put the friends on the road early this morning after our famous country breakfast (highlighted by the garbage bag full of bagels they brought us for made in real-deal Jersey) ……so trying to catch up before the next onslaught of this week’s continuation of b’day activities –which include three dinners and a concert overnight…. but that is all for next week’s Bloggish……….
Gonna have some soup, soak the dawgs and get ready for dinner #1…….so be well, enjoy the falling leaves, sat in touch……
Tired Papi
