Fibermania

The Big Birthday Bash



I got up early as usual yesterday, but instead of blogging, I scrambled to finish the last minute preparations for my party.

The table was set with my Target bargain dishes from last summer and my new Target bargain tablecloth and napkin set. I loves me some bargains!

The mis en place is prepared ahead of time.

And the Vichyssoise is chilling in the refrigerator, while the bowls are secreted in the freezer.

Jane Sassaman arrives and is chatting with Frieda who is off camera unfortunately. Jane was last at my house in 1995 when we all took a trip to Quilt National together. She recently moved to my neck of the woods and we immediately grabbed her and inducted her into the Girlfriends.

Emily Parson arrived wearing her wonderful new hand knitted sweater coat, and we enjoyed a toast of Christmas Punch together.

Judy Coates Perez, another recent Girlfriend inductee, lives in Chicago now and traveled to my house via the train, which conveniently stops at the end of Main Street.


Dave is the man of the hour, and wears his Christmas gifts including the new blue apron. We are using his kitchen for the day, and he will man the grill for our entree.

What a manly man. I am very lucky, no?

The assembled glitterati, from left back row first:

Judy, Anne Lullie, Jane, Moi, Frieda, Laura and Emily

The soup was the first course, and the soup froze as it was ladled into the bowls. We ate it like ice cream, which is mostly was. Well, whipping cream was half the ingredients.

The salad was to have avocado as its mainstay, but you can never count on avocados being properly ripe and the three I cut open were all unusable, so we just went with the Asian Pear, bacon, Kalamata olives, and Danish Bleu cheese. The dressing was my Lime Cilantro Garlic, very light and zippy.


Dave, master meatcutter that he is, grilled and sliced the Teriyaki Pork Tenderloin medallions and I added the Szechwan Peanut sauce and garnish.

Spiced Roasted Butternut Squash topped with Pignolas and Parmeggiano Reggiano, sweet and salty and mostly yummy.

We talked about art and business and dieting and house moving asLaura, Jane and Judy had made major moves this year,

I Pontificated, as is my wont, while the knitting started making its appearance.

Lots of wine, champagne, sparkling water and coffee, made us quite the chattering bunch. We had music and laughter and could hardly hear the doorbell ringing.

Who could that be? Everyone was here that was coming... Dave ran up to answer the door and came back down with a huge floral arrangement.

Who would have sent this to me? It wasn't Dave and he seemed to think this was a strange way

to announce there was another man in my life, THERE ISN'T!!

Open the card for heaven's sake and end this suspense,

It's from TOMMY!!

She was on her way to her Florida digs and couldn't come to the party so she sent a picture of herself with the flowers. The caption said, Happy Birthday Melody!! See I was here after all.

Was that cool or what?

We all had a moment of silence in Tommy's honor...NOT!

Instead we turned up the volume and started to dance. I am doing the stroll with Laura and Dave is standing guard, lest we fall over and harm the furniture. By this time we were just a bit on the tipsy side.


It was a grand birthday party and I am the HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD.

And the richest to have such wonderful friends.

Thank you all so much for all your good birthday wishes.



Melody at 58