party, party, party!

Every once in awhile all the stars are in align­ment: the right peo­ple, the right energy, the right weather, and a cou­ple of unex­pected ele­ments, and… you have the best party. It was like that for my mother’s birth­day party on Saturday.

First we tied dozens of yel­low and white bal­loons to the fence (admit­tedly still in its lying-doggo state at the dri­ve­way end, but still), and can I tell you how beau­ti­ful the day was? Bright blue sky, the kind Avery is ter­ri­bly tired of hear­ing me talk about, wav­ing trees, a crispy feel­ing in the air. Then the bal­loons had been prop­erly arranged, and John’s mom and I had done most of the under­ch­eff­ing for the party foods (scal­lops and shrimp with red pep­pers and aspara­gus! chicken liv­ers wrapped in pancetta to be grilled on rose­mary skew­ers! chicken breasts mar­i­nated in soy sauce, sesame oil and lime juice, per­fectly grilled by John! tomato, moz­zarella and basil salad, dev­illed eggs, you name it, we ate it, and there is no hol­i­day tra­di­tion I love more than cook­ing with my mother in law). I jumped in the shower and not a moment too soon: up turned the birth­day girl in the dri­ve­way! Jane was jump­ing out of her skin with excite­ment, Joel was pre­pared with his incom­pa­ra­ble arti­choke dip to heat up, and then Anne came from across the road wheel­ing Baby Katie, and then there were Becky’s fam­ily: with a new PUPPY! Just what the party ordered: an eight-week-old choco­late lab mix called Cocoa.

I’ll tell you, if your party needs liven­ing up, try six chil­dren between the ages of 3 months and 14 years, a kit­ten, a puppy, a preg­nant lady and a much-too-small grill, and you’ll be all set. But between the oven, the toaster oven, the stove and the grill, all the food came out at the same time, and we sim­ply fell upon it. My mother smiled and smiled, and we all ended up hang­ing out in the new Adiron­dack chairs under the hydrangea tree, my sis­ter hold­ing Anne’s baby in an amaz­ing feat as both accom­plished mother of a tod­dler AND mother to be. My dad and Joel and John and Becky’s hus­band mark toured the prop­erty in var­i­ous groups, vis­it­ing the horses in the meadow, look­ing at the gor­geous sign pro­claim­ing “Red Gate Farm” made by my dad that finally lives proudly on our fence.

The girls slip ‘n slided to their hearts con­tent, since Becky gra­ciously adhered to my request and brought their REAL slip ‘n slide, so we could eschew the one stud­ded with sta­ples that I had cob­bled together to make work dur­ing Cici’s sleep­over. The sun shone, the girls slid (Jane had every­one lined up prop­erly!), they jumped the pony jumps and tram­po­lined and we adults chat­ted and ate and relaxed. And dessert? Don’t get me started, not that I eat any, but I had asked Becky to make her famous chess pie for my mother, and she made not one but two, the sec­ond a choco­lately ver­sion that every­one went nuts for. Recipes desired, let me know and I shall beg Becky for them! And the oblig­a­tory birth­day cake that was much nicer than oblig­a­tory, say­ing the now-traditional “Happy Birth­day, Mona.” And then? It began to rain. So we repaired indoors for what turned out to be sort of the per­fect amount of time for Jane to nap, for the grownups to hud­dle in the kitchen and gos­sip, wash dishes, put the odd and sundry refrig­er­a­tor item away, for Ash­ley to try to train Cocoa to use her pee­ing pad, and… then the sun came back out!

The weather reports had been that Con­necti­cut thing: almost per­fectly accu­rate. We we were able to sit out again then, and I made up a silly tram­po­line game for ALL the girls involv­ing eggs siz­zling in a skil­let, joined by bacon, and then sud­denly a spat­ula, and… BOUNCE! Just the sort of game for an adult to invent and then… dis­ap­pear and let them con­tinue. Finally full-family pho­tographs, and sud­denly every­one piled into cars and were gone… sad good­byes all around. It was hard to think who to feel sad­dest about say­ing good­bye to, so I just didn’t come to any con­clu­sions. It was so quiet when every­one had gone.

But the next day brought another party, the wed­ding shower for Farmer Rollie’s daughter-in-law-to-be, a lovely girl called Tri­cia. For this, John and his mom repaired to New York City to see a show of pre-fab houses at MoMA, and gosh was I relieved to miss THAT. So Avery and I con­cocted our con­tri­bu­tion to the shower, a tra­di­tional “Eton Mess,” put on our best duds and headed off to a great Amer­i­can fem­i­nine tra­di­tion.

Eton Mess
(serves at least 10)

2 lbs straw­ber­ries, hulled and quar­tered
2 pints heavy whip­ping cream, whipped with a trace of vanilla and a tbsp sugar
2 cups meringues, crushed up to peb­ble size

In a large tri­fle bowl (don’t have one? nei­ther did I, so go to KMart and get one with Martha Stewart’s bless­ing and about $6), put in a layer of straw­ber­ries. Add a layer of cream, a layer of meringues, and so on until you run out. End with a straw­berry on top.

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And we had to bum a ride from Anne, who had more than enough on her plate going to a memo­r­ial ser­vice in town. “Every­one who isn’t here,” she remarked on let­ting us off, “will be there.” At least I had a moment to speak to Anne’s gen­tle and better-worldly mother, author of two of our family’s favorite books, mother of two of our favorite girls… how I wish my sum­mer included a long, leisurely chat with her that would let us flit from topic to topic with­out regard for a minute sched­ule involv­ing so many mov­ing parts. Alas, not this sum­mer, I fear. But some summer.

And I must tell how: if you are try­ing to attract a ground­hog, Gary will attest to the time-honored appeal of many, many straw­berry tops from Eton Mess! We were seri­ously pop­u­lar that afternoon.

More tomor­row about the adven­tures of John’s mom’s last cou­ple of mag­i­cal days with us, but for the moment, can I report in GREAT sat­is­fac­tion the repair of our fence? I will doc­u­ment this minor mir­a­cle on film (or a mod­ern fac­sim­ile thereof) tomor­row, but suf­fice to say, it’s lovely, and ALMOST worth the wait. What a summer…