A Quiet Day in Preparation for the Glorious Birthday

Catherine is masked on the occasions of moving into our bubble.  
She is keeping herself in the close bubble for our collective health.

So, what does a pre-birthday planning event look like:

What flavour of cake do I want?

Should it be a DQ cake?

Can we get cookies involved -- low fibre cookies.

What do I want for gifts. 

That is my easier part of a birthday.  The gift will be that time when the party is over and we linger at the table and talk to each other.

I am looking forward to that moment, still quiet and celebratory,.

Arta

Baker's Best Chocolate Cookbook Reprise

Baker's Best Chocolate Cookbook.

I loved the antique fork in this photo that accompanied
the pecan pie recipe

That is the name of a cookbook which came with the compliments of Baker's Chocolate. I've always substituted callebaut, light or brown for either the light or the dark chocolate as requested. Mary owns this book. Rebecca has this cookbook. I have a copy of this book. I don't know which parts of the book are important to me: the pictures or the feel as though I'm on a very expensive food demo when I as the look through the book.

I feel as though I have gone to Paris and then that I am taking a class done by a chef, though I know very few people have had the same experience with chocolate that I've had, at least in not in the total number of hours of having my hand immersed in the chocolate.

My birthday is coming up -- Mary asked me what I wanted for a cake. There is a bar in this book and I made it once, took it with me to the library, Sacher torte in immitatioin, which I had to look up.

I do want my birthday cake to be made in the style of sacher torte, with that apricot filling, or at least we could make the bars, and that could be called my birthday cake. I had Mary take some pictures so that you can see how beautiful chocolate photography is -- just stunning. How do you like the fold-up fork beside the cake? If I were making a list of all the things in life I haven't done but I've wanted to do, eating using a fork like this would be one. Or even better having one, though I'm trying to divest at this point, not collect.

I was touching every page in this book today, looking at every side of the picture, every ingredient in the list. 

That has been how exquisite my day has been. 

I must add as per the idea of the photography of dishes, the china that the chocolate is served on has also been outstanding.

If you ever see this book in a rummage sale, think about who in your life might like it.

Including you.

Arta 

Eight Days of Birthday Happiness Coming Up

Happy 20th Birthday, Duncan

Duncan has a familiar truth about his birthday.

His mother either forgets about it, or is it away at a conference for the day.

He has few memories of being able to celebrate that day with her.

I remind him that he is just lucky she was there in the first place. 

... the Dairy Queen Special ...

He laughs but he tells me that is not enough.

He is a good party person to have around.

I began to acknowledge his birthday 1 day previous to the event.

By March 4th I had a sign up on the wall, reminding him that I was thinking of him on his birthday.

He brought me over to the sign and just told me that he accepted my good wishes but that his birthday wouldn't be until the next day.

He's not a person who has really definite party ideas.

Anything is good for him.

His dad asked him what kind of entree, what kind of birthday cake, what kind of present do you want.

About 3 weeks before Duncan's birthday, Steve was asking him what he wanted for a present so that it could be ordered online and here in time.

What's the front of a birthday present if it hasn't arrived, he reasoned.

Pizza was the entree.

Plenty of it.

He has so many allergies, it has become the custom for him to have an ice cream cake for his birthday. 

Rebecca picked up a large Dairy Queen Cake on the way home from an appointment.

Large.

After all it was his 20th birthday.

Stacy and Felix made a birthday cake in the form of a leather bound book, leather hinges, the cover bejeweled with glass candies they had made to themselves.

The faux leather hinges (icing are on 
the left side of the cake. 
The jewels are o the top and bottom. 
I looked closed at them -- yes made from the sucker recipe. 
You can see the gray pages of the manuscript
on the bottom of the cake
and it is hidden in this view, but apparent
when looking from the right side of the cake. 

Inventive

Pretty impressive.

Another friend brought over a German torte, a Sachertorte.

I spent more time cutting just one more sliver off of that cake than good for my health.

A good day for Duncan, a good day for me.

Arta

A Happy Birthing Day

From Mary Johnson to me, when I wished her a happy birthday for January 15

And happy birthing day to you. Thanks for doing all the work to get me here. What a great 46 years I’ve had.

https://www.thatskinnychickcanbake.com/lemon-layer-cake-lemon-curd-filling/

I’ve spent far too many hours this week thinking about what kind of cake I am going to make. 

I have it down to 3 (should I make them all or just one?) – a 3 layer vanilla cake with lemon curd in the middle and a whipped topping made from mixing cool whip with some frozen lemonade concentrate; oa lemon chiffon cake with same whipped topping and coconut shavings; or a classic chocolate layer cake with chocolate icing.

The Canadian poet Rupi Kaur heard it is my birthday and decided to offer a free on-line poetry writing seminar tomorrow morning to help me celebrate, so I am going to take a few hours off work to participate. Feel free to sign up and join me if you want.

https://createcultivate.squarespace.com/dickinson/#workshops

Looking forward to what the next trip around the sun has in store for me.

Mary

Glass Pioneer Wagon

$2 - the right price

 Moiya delivered food to us on her birthday and when I asked if there had been anything just for her she laughed, went back out to her car and brought in this: a glass replica of a Red River Valley wagon.

There is a lot of happiness with a gift that is just the right price.

Arta

Zoe's 37th birthday in pics

Hi from Tonia!

As the designated photographer of Zoe’s birthday (no one else brought their mobile device), here are the best pics.

It was a wonderful event and Wyona and clan did a great job with food, cake, and Covid safety.

Hugs to all!

Tonia

A note from the one-handed typer:

- wow to the design on the blue blanket -- something I want one of

- I ee food lined both sides of walk-way.  Yum

- nice modelling of family mask wearing

- so many mask models

- gorgeous hand made gingerbread cookies on exterior of bd cake

- Happy bd hat rocks.  love the candles on top

- cute cousin's table

- as usual, your camera rocks, Tonia

Arta

Bonnie's 54th Birthday

For anyone with an October birthday, I always want to quote Dylan Thomas’s “It was my thirtieth year to heaven". 

I am going to add that poem to the bottom of Bonnie’s birthday post and then read it aloud to myself – when I read, I shall change the poem so that I hear, “It was my fifty-fourth year to heaven,..." for so it was for Bonnie. 

Yesterday, Bonnie made an early morning list: “how to fill my day with choices of blessing in each hour”.

She began by making her own birthday cake – poppy seed. 

 It needed 7 eggs, but only 5 were left in the carton. 

 I had already started breakfast and had another four eggs cracked in a yellow dish. 

She scooped out of that dish, two of the eggs of the four I had already cracked. 

Hey Lady
with Jayne Eastwood and Jackie Richardson

By some miracle, she was able to extract them without breaking the yolks into the whites, leaving me with 2 eggs. 

This seemed like an easier feat than borrowing two eggs from our neighbours. 

I halved the ingredients of my recipe to continue with curried scrambled eggs and she produce a cake that would get a 10/10 rating. 

 I would give her 10/10 instead for being able to separate eggs from whites as well.

Bonnie and I got into an internet conversation with Rebecca Jarvis during the day, all three of us wondering what we thought are the best feminist books to read. 

Both Bonnie and I are going to think deeply about that question -- good material for blogging, I thought.

A Night with Janis Joplin

Then Bonnie and I filled the rest of her birthday hours with entertainment – the best of Broadway right to our home. 

Bonnie’s first pick was Kinky Boots (2019), Then Hey Lady (CBC Gems) 2020, and she closed out the day watching Janis Joplin: the Musical, which was a close-of-the-evening-surprise with how charming the show is.

A perfect birthday.

And now a near-perfect birthday poem

Poem In October

by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall

Myself to set foot
That second

In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Happy Eightieth Birthday to me

at 17
I am wearing a shirt I made in Home Economics.
I was sick of that material by time I wore the shirt.

I had a calm birthday, alone at home, happy that my “eighty-posts -in-eighty-days-preceding-my-birthday” project was finished.

About 7 pm Catherine called to say hello, but when I accepted the invitation to her Zoom meeting, there were all of the families that I love, both wishing me happy birthday, having a 6 minute slide show for me, all wearing scarves, wearing necklaces and eating ice cream and all of them telling one nice thing about me – one of our family traditions at birthdays.

I had my dream birthday at that moment.

There is nothing more I could have wished for.

As well, I thought that I was going to eat ice cream that night alone, a cone, just a cone, I thought, requesting Richard to bring home the best flavour he could find at the store.

at 70
I am wearing a new silk scarf
that i have bought in Camden Market

He went to Costco, instead, picking out one of every novelty they sell.

That would be the Oreo Sandwich, large size ($15.99); So Delicious, Salted Caramel Filling ($8.99), Haagen Dags ($14.89, StroopWaffle ($12.99,); Kirkland Ice Cream Bars, Vanilla Almond ($14.99); and MEGA Sandwich ($14.99).

“I can hardly wait to help you make your way through all of this ice-cream,” he said as he placed the six large boxes on my island.

I was laughing so hard.

“Surprise.  Not quite what I expected”, I said, pulling out just enough for the freezer in my fridge and having him take the rest out to to the garage.

My birthday has gone past, now.

at 80
I am checking out a new gold barrette
I have purchased on-line.

Richard, Mati, Sumin, Sumarga and I are working our way though the ice cream confections.

Last night as I eating yet another bar, I was trying out the Salted Caramel So Delicious Bar. I remarked to Richard, “Look at this label – 'no dairy'. I haven’t seen an ice cream bar like that before.”

“I don’t think I could have bought that if I had looked at the label carefully,” he said.

Arta

Michele Rasmussen's "All About Arta"

(Note from Arta: When people asked me what I would like for the celebration of my 80th birthday, I told them I would like to put their words on our family blog. Here's what my friend, Michele, said.)

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Telephone Birthday Wishes, Arta.

I remember one million sleep-overs at your house. You didn’t have 8 children. You had 9, counting me. I will always remember butter horns, cinnamons buns and bread. Your house always smelled so delicious. I remember I wanted to learn to make bread. You taught me how to make a 10 grain heavy bread. It was raising. I took it home and it was so heavy, my brothers were throwing it like it was a rock. Now that would be gourmet bread.

I remember you used to rub the knots out my shoulders. The rubbing would be agony but I felt like a million dollars when it was done. You had learned how to do this from you dad.

I remember you loved to travel to see Wyona and you would bring home fun stuff.

You had that grand piano and at Christmas there was a beautiful hand carved nativity on it, again, from Wyona in the Philippines. It was so lovely. The figures were so large. I must have touched that many times. I was drawn to it.

I learned to love avocados at your house. Kelvin would bring home boxes of them from the store, seconds. You showed us how to eat them out of the skin with with Hy’s seasoning salt, or mash the pulp and put it on toast, again with the seasoning salt.

I was 16 when Richard was born. I was at your dinner table one night. We were sitting and eating; Rebeca was holding Richard. After dinner you came out and said we are going to learn about birth control. You laid out a condom, foam jelly, a diaphragm, and maybe some pictures of other things like an IUD. You showed how you put a condom on a banana. I was so embarrassed and so was Rebecca, both of us laughing so hard. And Richard, the baby, was playing with the banana. I remember that so clearly.

The other part of that night is how you use toothpaste when brushing our teeth. You placed a lot of toothpaste on a brush smeared it all over the table, showing how if we used a lot it was destined to get all over the counter and the mirror in the bathroom. Then you showed us how to put a pea sized amount on the toothbrush. Both of those lessons were taught at the same dinner table.

You would the champion all of your children in their own unique ways.

I love you so much, and you have had such an influence on me. You were fundamental to my testimony. I learn to talk to God from you. I learned to ask questions. I learned to have faith. I learned how to work hard when things were going wrong. I learned how to be a good a mother. If I could have, I would have had more kids like you. I knew you were super strong woman, but not so strong that you couldn’t apologize.

Michele Hasegawa Rasmussen

Kalina and Arta's Birthdays

Happy Birthday to Arta from
Shuswap!   Today we had a Covid Birthday party for Kalina Oldham and Arta. This is Arta's cake. There were 18 of us here, four tables for four families. Somehow Moiya and Dave never sat alone at their table but they did the happy thing and walked around visiting others. We sang Happy Birthday to both and I think Moiya took a video. Miranda and children were here with us.

I have to say it was really weird to sit at a table with just one's own family. Greg guarded the hot dog and s'more fire. The party went on until dark. Your party was so fun Arta!
Love always,
Wyona

My Birthday is Coming

sitting in the plaza
... waiting for the Marble Slab Creamery to open ...

 I know that the best way to have a happy birthday for me is to plan it myself: think up an idea and execute it.

Now I could really care less about my birthday and in a perfect world, I would let it come and go.

But I noticed that Betty, Alice and Michael perked up when the first part of my sentence began with, “My birthday is coming …” and before I knew it, the second part of the sentence said, “… and I am having an ice cream party.” 

Right away they knew to start giving me two or three flavours each that I might choose to bring to the party. Michael wants vanilla with Nerds covering the top of the cone. He doesn’t care if it is a sugar waffle cone or not, but no glass bowls, please. Alice is staying with Tiger, Tiger, probably until she sees what Michaels looks like and then she will switch over. Betty is undecided.

On our trip today, Michael and I explored Aspen Landing and found a Marble Slab Creamery. Our noses were against the door until the woman who was opening the shop came over to ask us what we needed. We told her we were just window shopping and that we knew she didn’t open until 11 am, which was lucky for me, since Alice had picked the new shoes she wanted and we were on the road before then.

Anyway, my birthday is coming. If you will be around, please give me the flavour of your heart’s desire.

Happy 74th birthday

From Arta
When I went to see Zoe today, she was wearing this hat.
I asked what that was all about.
She said, "It is Wyona's birthday and Art,
my brother-in-law's birthday.

Well, why not wear a hat to celebrate their birthdays?

From Wyona:

My birthday was pretty quiet. I went to get tickets for Matilda on Sunday for Marcia and Zach. Greg and Marcia went to get tickets for The Book of Mormon: the musical and Les Miserables.

I only got Les Miserables for Marcia and Zach today.

I wanted to go to Costco so Greg and I headed off there. We went two stops past where we got off at the wrong place, Moiya, and then he and I took the bus back one stop.

I found a quicker way to get home also. Greg bought a filler jacker for under his coat for my birthday.

It is really cold here now.

Wyona

Happy Birthday Cakes

Thank  you Costco.  Birthday cakes that are quick and easy.

Glen invited the Bates, the Woods, the David Pillings and me to his birthday party.

One that he was throwing for himself. He had flown and then driven home from Victoria, B.C. that day he decided to give himself his own party.

“What adult doesn’t give themselves their own party,’ he said on greeting us at the door.

Glen stopped by Costco to buy himself a cheesecake for dessert.

Thank you Moiya for a poppy seed cake with candles.

His guests didn’t know this so Moiya, upon getting the invitation to the party set out to make him a poppy seed cake with a lemon pudding filling and a white icing.

Moiya, then worrying that he might like a chocolate cake instead, called him to borrow ½ cup of cream and was in the process of making a second cake when he hollered, “Hey wait, I bought my own cake.”

Thank you Shauna.  Black Forest Cake extraordinaire!

To bad for her that she found out 1 ½ cakes too late.

Shauna Pilling, at the same time decided to make a Black Forest Cake for Glen using the famous “add a cup of boiling hot water to the mixture” recipe that makes the best of moist cake.

Shauna also sent David into Sicamous to buy some cherries for the filling.

"I will take one slice of each, please."

She was going to chop half of them up and leave the rest of them whole, for the filling.

“Not that I knew what to do,” she said.

“I was just making it up as I went along.”

All David could find at the store was cherry pie filling, so that is whar he brought home.

After being exasperated with David's failure to bring home the right thing, Shauna picked the cherries out of the pie filling and just used them in the layers of the cake.

When they found out that he had brought home the right product, they gave themselves high fives for trying.

And with one breath, all the candles are extinguished.

As well, Shauna spent a lot of time decorating the cake that she baked makes her cake a mighty plus.

Glen can blow all of the candles out with one great breath.

Happy birthday to all.

Arta

January Birthdays - Happy Birthday to you all ..

I knew the concept of "Having a January Birthday" as soon as I could figure out that birthdays come once a year. 

My dad had a birthday in January. 

So did many of his friends.  My parents had a party in January to which they invited people with January birthdays. 

I loved these parties.  They involved many tables of people playing Rook and laughing into the late evening.  If I got up early there were left-overs of wonderful treats some of them contained in crystal bowls.

Mary, Catherine and Dalton have birthdays in January.  They would be invited to that party were it still being held.

There are other celebrations which I enjoy on my own, one of which is going to the opera.  I asked Peggy Estabrooks at church if she wanted to go to Tosca this Saturday.  She phoned me to tell me that she couldn't go, she had other commitments.  We chatted for a while.  Then she said,  "You know if your father were alive he would have called me this month to wish me Happy Birthday."

"What?  He never called me on my birthday."

"Well, you don't have a January birthday do you?", she said.

No I don't have a January birthday.  And Peggy really made me laugh.

Twas my 77th Year to Heaven - Part II

I don't want to forget the other half of my birthday gift -- going through the mountains with Wyona from the Golden to Calgary.

The trip took longer than normal.  It seems we slowed down a number of times on bridges, for cleaning crews were out blasting the side of the bridges with water.

The biggest charm of the trip occurred on the Bow River Parkway.  I saw a herd of white baby goats, maybe 7 of them, right beside the highway.  Wyona slowed down so as not to hit them.  They didn't seem interested in leaping out to the pavement, but were milling around by the side of the road, some of them munching on the new green grass.

We also saw deer down in a small gully.

Even the domestic animals were interesting in the foothills, so many herds of cows and their little ones by their sides.

Spring.  Such a lovely time for a ride.

Arta

My 77th Year to Heaven

LtoR: Greg, Glen, Wyona, Bonnie, Arta, Dave, Janet

... see the clock for the exact time of the party ...

... Wyona pretending to snitch some of the icing ...

If I wanted a really good trip for my birthday, I might choose going through the Rockies.

To make the event more special, I would choose a time when the water is gushing down the waterfalls and streams and tumbling over the cliffs.

An important stop along the way would be at Three-Valley Gap.

 Not that I haven’t stopped there before, but this time the stop was right in the avalanche path.

 A vehicle drove toward us on the wrong side of the road, stopping at every car, then moving on.

The woman driving the car held a sign in front of us that read: Delay until 12:10 pm.

We knew to get out of our vehicle and walk up and down the road for 20 minutes.

Wyona investigated the bank on the lake side of the road.

The water was full of rolling waves.

 The embankment was steep and there was no beach along the water’s edge.

The birch trees only had branches that leaned toward the water.

“I guess that tells us where the sun and shade are here,” Wyona said as she continued to walk and look to the water’s edge, still searching for beach.

We saw a train move slowly along the north side of the lake.

All of the trains have been moving slowly at Annis Bay this week, as well, all on the lookout for washed out track or a mudslide.

I know this stretch of the road, for a few miles toward the west is the treacherous winding passing-lane where the 18 wheeler hit Richard and Miranda’s car. Trucks and cars were behind us, the line snaking up the hill toward the west where there are often accidents in the winter: trucks slipping off the highway and over the embankment on the lake side.

... look for meadows full of skunk cabbage this time of year ...

We had our Free Parks Pass with us. Every lover-of-parks should have one this year. I tried to get Wyona to stop somewhere. My first wish was Skunk Cabbage but it was still closed. That didn’t matter. I could see thousands of yellow flowers in the marsh as we drove along the highway. Giant Cedars. Closed. Hemlock Grove. Closed. Rock Gardens. Closed.

The top of the pass seemed like the only logical stop, but Wyona said she doesn’t always like turning left at that point so we drove on, the holiday not over yet.

To be continued ...

Arta

Pre-Birthday Party

I had the best evening pre-birthday party anyone could have: Bonnie Wyora, Glen, Janet, Wyona, Greg, Moiya, David and I all gathered around a chocolate-cherry bundt cake.

Cream cheese icing and a chocolate glaze garnished the cake.

 A Sven candle graced the top of the cake, and 7 small candles were lit as well.

 I was asked for a speech. “Tell us about the best thing that happened this year.”

“Getting a stent in my heart tops any other event of the year.”

I had enough breath to blow out 7 of the 8 candles.  Not bad.

Arta

Happy 56th Birthday, Boyce

"Nice to see you eating better, Boyce."

I received an email saying that it would be Boyce's 56th birthday on March 31st, and that the day would be celebrated on the 30th with a party on Grant's floor at Seton Place.

Just turn left at the elevators on two.

"Yes, I know I am 56."

When we arrived Ramona had done it all. 

There were helium balloons.

Two tables were set with cloths and festive plates and napkins -- matching of course.

 Take-out Chinese food was there.

"How can you be 56 and your dad be 90?"
"Where did the time go?"

The birthday man was feted with stories of the past.

Bruce remembered that on his first date with Ramona, when he brought her home, Boyce came out to the car, got in, and the date extended while they went again so that Boyce could be part of the event.

Boyce has always had the good sense to tell me that I am his favourite aunt.

His eyes truly lit up when Jeni reminded him that he is her favourite brother-in-law.

In the phone call from Katherine, some little voice asked Jeni 
if she could come for another sleep-over. I would like to come
to that party as well.  I will bring the candy.  Lots of it.

I couldn't capture the picture of Boyce blowing out his two candles -- one a number five and the other a six.

That part of the evening lasted only a fraction of a second.

We all feasted on Chapman's Creamy Vanilla Ice-cream and/or Rainbow Sherbet.

"Hard to keep the glasses on the right place on my nose."

I think I have said enough to make everyone wish they had been there.

Catherine face timed in from Lethbridge and her little family sang Happy Birthday.

All of us are still amazed that technology will let us do that.

The right size of cake for 7 party people.

Boyce spent a long time reading his cards and looking at his gifts. I had the vanilla twice but showed restraint with the sherbet having it only once.

Besides wonderful cash Boyce received chocolate-covered almonds from England and a small box of mints, the top of the box carrying the face of John Wayne, and Jen reminding him of the saying, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

One winter bear scoop for the ice-cream,
the other scooper for the sherbet.

I have been to many birthday parties, and initiated some of them.

But I think I have been to more of Boyce's parties, just as a guest, than any other person I know.

The theme is always Chinese food. 

Arta