A little birthday party with a little ugly cake

It was Christine's birthday we celebrated.  She's 72 and beats everyone in tennis.

Table setting thanks largely to Sarah who made that splendid egg tree

Doesn't this make you happy?

Christine's husband, Bill, and I share a birthday, and we are inclined to hog our day, insisting on
multiple singings of the birthday song. Never come without a present on OUR birthday. We will not be ignored.  Christine makes sure we remember Tom in October.  When her March birthday arrives, she leaves town, or it slides in with the other March birthdays in our high school gang.

This year I thought I could do better.  And I did, thanks to Sarah, who put together that marvelous egg tree.  I had enough smarts to take it home with me.  One of Sarah's sisters made the Happy Birthday sign--Jen?  She has a lot of sisters.

I did make a little ugly cake.  Ugly cakes are a tradition with us.  So is the word "little."  Christine loves using that diminutive, as in "We need a little man."  Needless to say, Tom always calls her on this.  It doesn't stop her.

After supper, we worked on 1000 piece puzzle of a map of Manhattan.  Actually, Bill put the puzzle together, while the rest of us supported him with obnoxious quips, which he can't hear.  There are positive sides to being deaf.  I think in the hours we spent on the puzzle, I put six pieces together.  Then I aligned myself with Bill by sitting next to him.  "We're doing great," I said.

"Who's doing great?" Christine asked.  Guffaws.

Tom kept moving away to his computer and back again.  "I can't see anything," he'd say looking at the puzzle pieces.

Bill pretty much finished the framing and all of Central Park and Brooklyn Heights.  After they left, we shifted the puzzle onto a board, which is now under the piano waiting for Easter so the grandsons can finish it.

Christine has been my friend since the first day of Junior Year in high school. In fact, you might say we dated through high school.  I hope she lives forever.