2023 Life Logs, Day 239: A Family Celebration for My Sister Patsy
Date: Saturday, August 26, 2023
Weather: Partly Sunny; High 97, Low 76 degrees F
Location: At Home in a Tuscan Villa Airbnb, New Hill, NC
There are two sets of cousins here for the wedding. There are the children of my brothers and sisters who have always been very close and have always referred to themselves as ‘the cousins’. But now their children have taken over the title. So, in my family, when we refer to the cousins, we must identify which set we are talking about. I will refer to them as the older cousins and the younger cousins here. On Saturday morning, the bride, who is one of the younger cousins, and her new husband arranged a mid-morning golf outing for the older and the younger cousins. It was sunny and in the mid-90’s. They didn’t get back to our Airbnb until late afternoon and were exhausted. But they still had the energy to celebrate Patsy’s 90th birthday.
Patsy’s birthday was in July, but no family members were around to celebrate. The celebration happened this evening. It was a small group of us as most of the younger cousins left this morning, but it was just the right size to have an informal celebration around the fabulous and huge round dining table in our Tuscan villa. My guess is that it was 10 feet across. No matter how I contorted my body, I certainly could not come close to reaching the middle. But you didn’t need to as the center 6-8 foot in diameter part of the table was a huge lazy Susan.
Everyone who saw the table wanted one like it, just not quite as big as most dining rooms would not be big enough to accommodate it. My nephew Tommy grilled the burgers, Diana cooked half-runner green beans on our 12-burner kitchen stove, and I purchased potato salad and all the fixings to go with the burgers. I also purchased a birthday cake at Whole Foods. Buying most of the food pre-made gave us more time to visit. Since we see each other so seldom, visiting was the priority.
We ate early as Josh and Jessica, the bride and groom, were headed off for a few days of quiet at a resort in Virginia. But Jessica stayed long enough for her and her brother Jacob, Patsy’s only grandchildren, to bring the birthday cake to the table and sing Happy Birthday to their grandmother.
Then we all went outside where Jacob did a short but very impressive gymnastic routine. He is now 30, but when he was younger, he was a gymnast. He had not done the double ‘no hands’ front flips for years, but he did them with ease and brought great joy to his grandmother. After Jessica and Josh and Jacob and his friend Max left, the rest of us then sat in the living room visiting the night away. Tommy spent the night as he was getting up in the wee hours and heading home. It was a lovely evening and one that my sister truly enjoyed.
