I miss blogging. I miss the old web-log days when I documented major life changes and daily musings. I know I should do Substack and create packets of goodies for loyal readers who pay for a subscription, but I don’t have the will to create “content” when it’s a job. I never seem to sit down at my desk like I did in the old days. I clean houses now and take care of my parents. I have to go away and visit Matt just to get enough downtime to create books. It’s funny how things have changed.

First, I want to share about my first dinner party at my parents’ house. Over the last two years that I’ve lived here, we’ve been working on creating a pleasant place on our back patio. It’s really come along. We removed some old bushes from the tiered garden and replaced them with a playhouse I got off Facebook Marketplace and painted white. I planted a bougainvillea that now grows over the roof of the playhouse, and it looks like a little bit of Santa Barbara. It’s beautiful!

This is the view from the kitchen, and I love it so much more than the old shade bushes and weedy shrubbery and the barbecue flanked by trash cans, bicycles and whatever construction project my dad is working on. We still have the trash cans, bicycles and whatever project my dad is working on, but we move them around to accommodate whatever we’re doing on the patio. A big dinner party was the perfect thing to accommodate for.

So when July rolled around, I sent off a paper invitation inspired by the bougainvillea blossoms that flutter down from the playhouse roof. Everything must be shades of red and pink, I decided! I didn’t put on the invitation that guests must wear pink, but word got around. My friends know me and know I like to dress up. They happily played along.

My parents were so on board. I come from a long line of theme-party enthusiasts, and we threw ourselves into preparations. Every time I turned around, my mom and dad were doing something new for me for my birthday dinner party.

I realize how lucky I am to be living with my parents while they are still happy and enjoying life. So many children of boomers are busy with their own lives and carrying the load of caregiving when their parents are suffering. My parents are happy for the company, and the fact that I cook and clean is gravy. I’m very spoiled and trying like mad to appreciate every golden day.

My mom bought baskets of pink petunias (her favorite color is NOT pink so you know that was all for me). My dad hooked up the solar lanterns in a zig zag across the patio ceiling. I painted the back door red. We cleaned the patio floor and were happy to see that the koi fish I painted is holding up just fine. We bought some more chairs from a thrift store for $10 to replace the old ones that have broken over the years. My mom and I bought pink dishes, my dad made tomato soup sourdough bread. June was a month long flurry of fun party-planning activity.

I planned a pink menu on pink tablecloths with pink dishes. My favorite color of pink is really various versions of watered-down red. I don’t like mauve so as long as the pinks are going in the orange *warm* direction instead of the blue *cool* direction, I was happy.

We started off with tomato soup with a Parmesan crisp and a swirl of sour cream.

Then I set up our outdoor counter with a buffet of all my pink-inspired dishes: a garden salad with fresh-picked tomatoes, watermelon and grapefruit salad (a delicious peculiar combination), pickled beets with goat cheese and a main dish of bowtie pasta with a creamy vodka tomato sauce and chicken. I had big plans for bowtie pasta that was beet-dyed pink that I ordered online from an Italian store but it didn’t show up until 9pm on the day of the party so we just had regular bowtie pasta. A small bummer but what can you do?  AND OF COURSE, WE HAD BRENDARITAS! A summer Brenda party isn’t a party unless there are Brendaritas.

What is a Brendarita? Basically it’s a skinny margarita (no agave or honey or any sweetener for me) with grapefruit juice, lime, silver tequila and muddled berries. I thought I’d make some kind of dried strawberry salt rim but the humidity was not working in my favor and it turned into a crumbly kinetic sand-like texture that had to be thrown away. Good idea but not well executed on the hottest day of the year.

And let me tell you that hottest day of the year STRESSED ME OUT! Bug always moans about not being born in summer and wishing she could have a pool party in January but I was born in summer in the desert and 105-degree weather is no treat for outside parties!!!! We have a clubhouse pool but the whole reason for my outdoor dinner party was the beautiful patio we’d been working on all year. I studiously checked my weather app for weeks. At first the temperatures were predicted to be as low as 50.  I worried about people getting too cold but then every day the predicted temperatures rose until they topped out at 105.  ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIVE!! Seriously???  What I thought would be a pleasant evening of breezes and clinking wine glasses was quickly turning into my worst sweaty nightmare.

So we did what we had to do and served a charcuterie board indoors until we could bear to go outside. I was sweating bullets. Everyone else seemed to be fine. We gathered in our crowded living room with various chairs and everyone tried to convince me that the heat wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Here’s the thing about me and parties: I love to plan and execute them, I’m not so good at actually being at them. I don’t love socializing and I calm myself by tidying and fussing around making everything “perfect.” It’s not a good trait. I make everyone nervous and nobody knows what’s wrong with me. But I love parties so I continue to make this mistake over and over on a doomed quest to create the most perfect party ever.

Eventually the temperatures descended slowly into the 90s. It was still ridiculously hot but if you sat still and didn’t fuss, you could feel a breeze and enjoy the sun setting. Smoke from a fire on the coast (miles and miles away) provided a pink glow in the distance that was right on theme.  We served dinner and drinks and those who wanted to, shared some poetry. I said no presents, only poems, but you know how that works out. Everyone brought presents anyway and only a few shared poems. But I loved it. It was a great idea. I think I’m going to encourage poetry for every birthday party I throw for myself from now on.

Why do you throw birthday parties for yourself, you might ask. Well, 1. because I love planning parties, and 2. I don’t want to mope around on my birthday.

I rang in my fifty-fourth year with all the pomp and circumstance a fifty-four-year-old can handle. I bought a blush-colored pink bridesmaid dress from a thrift store, hacked off the bottom and flicked around like the Birkenstock-wearing fairy that I am. It’s hard for me to look at photos of myself aging. I know everyone moans about this and I’m sad that I can’t seem to rise above complaining either. It’s hard to see my face fuller and my old thin bird-like twenty-year-old arms hidden under layers of padding and flab. I’m pretty muscular for my age (cleaning houses every day will do it) but it’s all hidden under a fat suit. It is what it is, I tell myself as I try to remember to fix my posture and smile. Getting old sucks.

Getting old with your friends who are also getting old does not.

I’m thankful I get to be this old. I’m thankful I am surrounded by people who get me and all my party-planning quirks. I’m thankful that I’m not alone or lonely. I’m thankful my daughter and her boyfriend came. I’m thankful that the evening cooled and battery-operated candles flickered on all the glowy pink things. I’m thankful that everyone stayed a good long time. It was the best birthday present I could give myself and I plan on doing it again next year and the year after that…until I die. It’s not a bad gig. Now if only I could attain perfection or figure out how not to fuss so much.

There is nothing I love better than spending a day shopping flea markets and antique stores. Not the kind of stores that sell pricey crystal chandeliers or highly polished furniture that belonged to a prince of some far away land. No, I prefer the dusty, cram-packed consignment shops where you can find anything from an old coke bottles to psychedelic lava lamps, ancient cook books, leather boots, abandoned orange crates and everything in between. It’s a wonderland of discovery.

What I especially love about finding treasure in these wonderlands is that every piece tells a story. You might not know it at first but the deeper you dig, the more history you can find. Every treasure is unique and it’s not likely you’ll ever come across anything like it again, especially not on an end-cap at Target. Sure, I love a professionally staged home as much as the next Becky-Home-Decky but to me, a home filled with treasures that have stories to go with them is so much more charming.

Recently, I found an old vintage dresser mirror. It’s not anything special. I paid twenty bucks for it but I loved the aged patina of the old mirror inside it the weathered yellow wood. It has flecks and ripples, rust spots and nicks. Maybe it belonged to a Peggy Sue from the 50’s. Did she gaze into it as she got ready for a hot date to the malt shop? Maybe it was repainted in the 70’s by some beehived Betty wearing a long striped polyester dress that reached the floor… I’ll never know and that adds to the magic of it. It’s a jumping off point for my imagination.

When I’m throwing a party a piece like this can inspire a theme. I recently hosted a brunch for some friends and family so I decided to set up a little vignette with my new favorite mirror on the sideboard beside our dining room table. It was a perfect focal point behind the table that would set the mood for our party.  This party’s theme was Golden Memories, a literal play on the amazing forsythia branches I happened to find in our local grocery store’s floral department.

I always plan parties around themes no matter how big or how small. I’m funny that way and my themes can be just as funny. It’s just a little trick I picked up from my grandmother. She always threw the best theme parties.

Since I have a stash of old photos that my grandfather gave me I decided to string them on the vintage mirror.

I just jute twine and washi tape because washi tape is so easily removed without ruining the pictures and because it comes in so many patterns and colors! (Yes, I have an extensive washi tape collection.)

I placed some old books beside the mirror to give my vase of branches some height. It didn’t hurt that the books were classics and went right along with my theme.

I also placed a few trinkets from around my house in clusters of three. The roses were picked from my garden.

Speaking of roses, don’t flowers the best cake decorations? They are inexpensive and always look like a million bucks, even when the blossoms are open and ready to drop petals at any minute. I also have a kumquat tree in my front yard that has been going crazy this spring so I clipped a few branches and added the bright orange fruit as embellishment. An easy trick to get fruit to stay put on top of your cake is to spear them with toothpicks and then stick the toothpicks into the cake.

Since the kumquats looked so pretty on the cake I decided to use them elsewhere in my party decoration too. I love decorating with flowers and fruit. They look fresh and festive and I don’t have to store them in a box when the party’s over.

Fruit also made an appearance in our champagne glasses. I rolled some of the blackberries in sugar to take the bite off their tart flavor for some of my guests who I know like their drinks a little sweeter than others.

Then I set the table for our brunch. At first I was going to just scatter photos on the top of the table to make a great conversation starter but then I worried the pictures might get ruined by drips and sticky fingers. I could have made color copies and used them that way but in the end I decided to use a giant map of Paris as a table cloth instead.

This would work well for a travel-themed event or a French soirée but I was using it to remember a trip my mom and I went on to Paris several years ago that was definitely a golden memory for both of us. I even marked out places we visited with little tabs.

With everything set up I was ready my guests!  I hope you enjoyed my Golden Memories tablescape!