Mom's B-day--a twofer 4 U

So, like I mentioned in yesterday's comments, Mike made me come home yesterday so we cd have a surprise b-day celebration 4 Mom. It really did catch her by surprise, since her b-day is 2day. [Mike also wrote abt yesterday's celebration--I'm gonna paste his version in below.]

Yeah, well, Mike and Dee had a cake made 4 Mom @ The Pastry Chef. They went an' got it after they brought me back from the airport. It was a huge rectangle cake with pink frosting on the sides, yellow frosting on top, and pink flowers all along one side of the top. Above the flowers were the words, "Happy Birthday Mom"--kinda looking like a kid Merrie's age cda written it. When Mike unveiled the cake, he got a bunch of straight, black lines kinda bouncing out from the top of his head in2 the air. Then he went and grabbed 56 b-day candles 2 put on the cake, but Liz did a pushing-away kinda gesture and sed an image of Mom showing her lower teeth while boggling out her eyes, raising her brows, and having her glasses pop off of her face while the candles made a cloud of smoke over the cake. Mike then spoke an "idea" bulb, and got a drinking glass from the cabinet, and used the glass 2 gouge a hole in2 the cake. Liz and I looked at ea other as the cake projected sum of those same str8 lines that had been jumping outta Mike's head, and Liz shrugged @ me while extending her hands out in front of her, like in an "it was this big" sorta gesture. I knew she was trying 2 do an "I dunno" gesture, but 2 annoy her, I pretended it was an "it was this big gesture." I said, "No way, I'll bet it was more like this," and I held up my pinky. Limply. She got pissed @ me, of course.

NEway, it turned out that Mike had gouged the hole 2 stick an enormous green candle in2 the cake. Then he got Dad 2 bring over Mom, lit the cake, and we all sang "Happy birthday." When it came time 2 say her name, Liz and I sang, "Mom," Robin and Merrie sang, "Grandmaaa," Dad sang, "Elly..." and Mike and Dee both kinda gaped their mouths without singing NE name @ all. Which was weird.

Well, Mom was v. confused when she saw me. She sed, "I thot U were in Winnipeg." I sed, "I was. Mike got me a plane ticket so I cd come home and surprise U." Mike asked, "Mom! R U surprised?" She sed, "Sure, I'm surprised, but U brot her home, U get 2 feed her 2nite and keep her here until U're ready 2 bring her back 2 the airport. Your father and I have special birthday plans and we're not having a teenangster getting in our way. No offense, April." And I sed, "Whatever."

So I'm @ Mike's 2day. I think I'm going back 2 Winni this evening, but I'm not 100% sure. The return ticket Mike got me was open-ended.

Here's what Mike hadta say abt the occasion:

April,

Formerly little sis. Mom’s 56th birthday. I wanted to make it special for her, kind of like it was really her 60th birthday, even though she still has 4 more years to reach that milestone. Deanna and I decided we would get a birthday cake from none other than the store The Pastry Chef. Personally I think it reminds me a lot of a great place I remember from North Bay, Ontario called The Swiss Pastry Chef, who was involved with the Heritage Railway and Carousel Company during their "Adoptions Day" at the Winter Wonderland Carousel.

But such remembrances do not matter. What is important is that my lovely wife, Deanna went to the store and I got mom a birthday cake, and not one of those multi-leveled cakes they had in their windows. I picked it out all by myself, while Deanna went to the Lingerie store nearby to see if they had any pink lingerie to match her all pink outfit. As we were leaving, Deanna remarked that she thought the business buildings were extraordinarily tall and she wondered why the upper windows had no window treatments, but I was so excited about the cake I did not really notice. I even did a little Irish step dancing to celebrate, right there in the street.

We got into our car and as it hovered along the road I once again got the feeling our car always seems to look different every time we drive. But the road near the The Pastry Chef is one of those roads where everything seems to tilt at 15-degree angle, so I was too busy trying to keep the car on the road to think too long about anything else.

Finally, back at our house, the whole family gathered around as I revealed the cake. I was so excited; I could feel little lines flowing out of my head. Liz was there, my lovely Deanna was there, and you were there of course and you had one of the googly-eyed puppets or dolls and you were showing it the cake. It said, “Happy Birthday, Mom!” and it had a picture of 8 flowers, mom’s favourite flowers, the little roses which stick right out of the ground and have no thorns.

I had gotten 56 candles and I was getting ready to light them up when Liz made some kind of hand gesture where her pinky finger was sticking out. For some reason, Liz was speaking in pictograms, but I could clearly see she felt the smoke from 56 candles would overwhelm mom and her glasses would fall off.

So then I raised the French fry which sometimes masquerades itself as my right hand’s index finger, and I decided to use a pictogram too. My pictogram was of a lit light bulb with little black lines coming out of it. This picture was to symbolically indicate how much I liked light bulbs. Liz seems startled, and you had a look on your face which I think you told me meant, “Surely you are not thinking of using a light bulb instead of candles.” “Well, of course not,” I responded as I went for idea #2, flammable dishware.

You crossed your arms and looked at me skeptically, as I reached up for a glass on the top shelf of our cabinet. The cabinet looked especially neat, with even the coffee cups stacked on top of each other. I could tell Deanna had been getting ready for mom to come over.

Not to fear though. I had a cunning plan. Instead of lighting the glass on fire, I would use the glass to cut a circle out of the cake with a FWUMP sound. You looked at me curiously then, but Liz was horrified. I think she said something about “How dare you mutilate mom’s cake? She puts the ‘grand’ in grandma.” I said to Liz, “When will you ever trust me? I know what I am doing.” But Liz just stared at the cake with the hole in left by the glass, and you looked back at that little piece of her hair which kept coming unbunned.

Deanna and I got out an old box of giant candles, she found left by mom from when she moved out. The box was labeled XL Candles, and it actually was extra large candles and not candles with the Roman numeral XL (40) on them, which is good since mom is 56 years old and not 40. We found a one of the candles had already been previously lit, so we decided that was the one to use. After all, we knew it could light, because there was drippy candle wax all around the top of it, which a regular unlit candle would not have. And it was a birthday miracle; I did not have to cut out more from the hole in the cake to put the candle in. After all, candles and glasses are usually not scaled to the same width and circumference.

We were finally ready for mom’s birthday.

I called dad who brought mom over. We sat her down at the table in the chair of honour, and I brought out the cake. We sang “Happy birthday dearrrr….” And then things kind of dragged as each person tried to remember their relationship to mom. You and Liz sang “mom.” My children sang “grandmaaa”. Dad sang “Elly”, Deanna and I sang generic notes because we really couldn’t fit in “great woman without whose old candles this birthday would never have happened”. There was more to the song, but your head got in the way of finishing it.

Mom stared down at the candle for a long time before she blew the candle out. Afterwards, I asked her what she thought of the cake. Her response, “Did you keep the part of the cake you cut out?” She cried when I told her I threw it out. It was a great birthday party, until mom asked where the presents were. I knew there was something I forgot.

Love,
Michael Patterson

BTW, Mike, I didn't have a puppet. That was Merrie (yr daughter) looking v. strange.

Apes