Mom's 84th Birthday

What a lovely day. We celebrated mom's 84th birthday beginning with a vase of flowers cut from our garden. She was touched that I included a Bird of Paradise as they do not grow easily here on the coast. We drove to the city for another surprise of a lunch at the historic Sheraton Palace Hotel in the Garden Court. This room's gorgeous glass ceilings had their glass panes darkened with black paint during WWII. Not too long ago, they removed all the paint to reveal the beauty of the original ceiling. The light streaming in was filtered but allowed the room to be softly lit.

That is mom and Michael just to the left,
both in blue.

The food. Ah, the food. Mom had an amazingly elegant onion soup as a starter then 3/4's of a pound of fresh crab meat encircled in a strip of cucumber on one side of the plate while the other side included a seasoned avocado and a mixed salad tossed with Green Goddess Dressing. The hotel invented Green Goddess Dressing and the recipe is included on their web site. Michael and I split the "Garden Court Steak Oscar Modern" which was a grilled filet of beef, signature jumbo crab cake, green and white asparagus, sauce Bearnaise. So happy we split it! The waiter surprised mom with a lovely chocolate dessert.

During lunch, Michael was talking about my dad and how much he loves having mom so close to us now. When he started to tell her how we know her not just as my mom but we know as Colette, he started to tear up. That made both of us tear up and we had a drippy party for a few moments.

She and Michael had a cocktail. Ah, Michael had two! I drove the rest of the day!

We stayed for a couple hours and left after taking a peek at the very famous huge Pied Piper painting by Maxfield Parrish, which hangs over a bar in the Pied Piper Bar and Grill. Very dark and paneled and manly room. I remember the first time dad showed me this painting. We had met for lunch in the city. He knew so many cool places to eat.

I thought we were going to drive mom home, but no! Michael piped up from the back seat, "Your mom has never had a Dynamo Donut!" I waited for her to protest and nothing happened. So, I wove my way through some city street to arrive to a somewhat gritty area of the city. We parked and walked about five blocks, which she totally enjoyed. She felt she was back in the city for really the first time. The real city, not the tourist city. The guys behind the counter at Dynamo were delightful and gave mom a free donut for her birthday - apricot and cardamon. Michael had a corn bread, rosemary and strawberry one. And 4 Barrel coffee. The best local coffee.

It was a lovely day for all of us.

The prednisone has kicked in and I did not sleep a lot last night. After Michael leaves this morning, I am going back to bed. Ah, the joys of prednisone. It is going to be a long six weeks.