Spectacular, Spectacular!

No words in the vernacular
Can describe this event!
I was filled with wonderment.
(borrowed from Moulin Rouge)

Thanks to a fabulous family, fantastic friends, two massive inflatable slides, and a Complete CHOCOLATE Craze, I had the most perfect Birthday/New Year’s Eve Party ever!! I feel so blessed to have so many sweet, kind, and generous people in my life who helped make my big chocolate bash a party I will never forget.
Some of the Highlights:
-Purple extensions and tinsel in my hair
-My WHOLE family being in the same room at the same time
-Everyone helping SO much to get ready and clean up (I am VERY grateful to you all), including everyone who came so early and stayed so very late; the diet coke from Jana; a curling iron loan from Eliza; and the inflatables fitting in the gymn just by the hair of their chinny, chin, chins
-All the great treats everyone brought and the chocolate fountains Julie organized and operated (I loved everything I ate, but three discoveries: Chicken Mole, Trader Joe’s Peppermint Oreos dipped in a milk chocolate fountain, and peanut butter and chocolate combined is completely amazing)
-The arrival of my b-day gift from my parents….see pic below
-Rushing to get everyone there and ready for Photos with Sy (which was spastic, but fun!)
-Eating a brownie & mint chocolate chip ice cream for the first time in 14 years - embarrassingly with the whole crowd watching & cheering and snapping photos
-Going down the big slide about 300 times (299 of those times with Tiana)
-Paul’s Fudge Bingo of many voices
-The New Year’s toast with Martinelli’s that I was too wimpy to be able to open
-The marshmallow fight & the dart wars complete with a hand-made cowboy – thanks to Jake & Aiden, etc.
-And, a lot of other stuff, but - most importantly: having so many of the people I love and admire all in one place having fun and eating good food and doing so many nice things for me.
Again – THANK YOU to each of you who came to my party and helped me make it SPECTACULAR!!

P.S. I am thrilled that. . .
- I accomplished a BIG goal that was hard for me,
- I still LOVE chocolate,
- I can eat whatever I want now without having to read labels or inconvenience anyone, and
- Thanks to my parents, I have a new focus: Learning to play the harp!! A dream I’ve had since I was a little girl…and we ALL know how long that is now. Pretty great birthday gift - fulfilling a dream. Like I said a few years ago - my parents are the original Make A Wish Foundation. THANK YOU!!

Let the Fabulous, Flirty Forties begin.....

6 - Montana Mile Marker #5

Several writers and movie makers have tried to capture the essence of an Ideal – a perfect place of love, joy and peace.…

-Sir Thomas More in Utopia;
-The Arthurian legend of a place called Camelot (the Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave film is a classic);
-Or James Hilton’s description of Shangri La in Lost Horizon (was also made into a great movie).

I knew a man who succeeded in creating a real Utopia/Camelot/Shangri La. We called him Hans. And, his cabin on Hebgen Lake WAS the Ideal.

Apart from the days my brothers got married or had children, the best and happiest memories of my life are of Hebgen. Check out that sweet life-preserver. I could swim quite well by this time, but it was important to Mom and Dad and Hans that we all stay safe, so we wore them faithfully - and didn't really mind, because who could be bothered by anything at Hebgen?!

Hans was one of those rare individuals who saw the opportunity to make and share something special and actually did it. He was constantly improving things and doing things for us while we were there - like building a fire each morning so that when we woke up it was warm in the cabin...or teaching us how to make ice cream in the garage...or taking us on wood safari's...hunting for huckleberries...spinning tales about slingshots and moose (which I believed into adulthood)...showing us silent movies from his amazing collection in a living room theater decked out with big screen, reel to reel, light dimmer and surround sound...or giving up his bedroom in the big cabin so we could feel like the cabin was our's.

I can still remember the smell of the woods and lake and the feeling of waking up in that bed under the 4 inch thick brown quilt; and, the site of my Dad chasing a baby bear outside the dining windows to get a photo; my brothers hunting for frogs; swinging on the swing; playing chinese checkers and the marble game; listening to "cabin music"; the wind in my hair as I skiied across a glass lake; cleaning my first fish; sliding down the plastic cushions at the Walton-style table; and saying goodbye for the last time.

In a few days, when I blow out the candle sitting atop the first chocolate birthday cake I’ve had in a very long time, my birthday wish will be for everyone to have a Hans and the opportunity to experience the Ideal that was Hebgen.

#6 on my list of Favorite Things is HANS' CABIN and HEBGEN LAKE, MONTANA.

17 - People Without Faces

As we were traveling home from work one blizzardy day - just after I had gotten my driver's license - my Dad counseled his strong-willed teenage daughter, "I'm an experienced driver, and I wouldn't go out in this snow tonight. I think you should stay home from the high school basketball game."

I didn't stay home, and he was right. Two good friends and I were in an accident - no injuries, thankfully - and, the other driver was cited for failure to yield. To this day, I regret not listening to that advice for two reasons. The first - despite having gained some experience and snow driving skill, I am terrified of driving in the snow. Still.

The second reason - I lost my brilliant collection of key chains that night. I'd been collecting key chains on vacations for several years and somehow, my keys were lost during the mayhem after the accident. Tragic.

I love my collections...stuffed lions, movie soundtracks, trip sweatshirts, Authors card games, earrings, and Willow Trees.
My nephew calls them the people without faces. Somehow, these little people without faces speak to me (in the figure-ative sense - get it, Dad?) and I love them. Above is most of the collection minus my Willow Tree Nativity set and a couple of figures I have at work.

I love giving Willow Trees as gifts and getting them as gifts too...like my other collections, many of the pieces have been given to me by people who know me well.... and to each of you, I say THANK YOU!

#17 on my list of Favorite Things is my WILLOW TREES.

43 – The Great William Shakespeare

One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was a miniature card game called Authors. The deck includes greats like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, and of course, William Shakespeare. The game is played like Go Fish…where a match/set consists of four of the author’s books or works…the person with the most sets at the end of the game wins.

My brothers and I grew up playing this game. Whenever I ended with the most sets, I never considered it a complete win unless I had the Shakespeare set. It was (and still is) my personal challenge to get that set, and I have employed all sorts of trickery to get it (except cheating, of course).

In high school, I was always more excited to memorize Shakespeare lines than any others. In college, when I had to write a compare and contrast paper in film class, I chose two of the versions of Henry V (the ones by Sir Lawrence Olivier and by Kenneth Branagh – who, by the way, does Shakespeare brilliantly). And I continue to notice quotes from Shakespeare more than others – in various facets of life and our culture. I’m not sure what besides the Bible is quoted more than Shakespeare.

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a Shakespeare expert. Not remotely. I do think, though, within the works of Shakespeare exists something of brilliance and inspiration. Here are some of my favorites:

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Sonnet 116
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

Hamlet
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

JULIUS CAESAR
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

HENRY V
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in Englad now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

ROMEO & JULIET
O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

Truly great!!!

#43 on my list of Favorite Things is SHAKESPEARE.

47 - Word Games

I remember a conversation a while back with a guy I met online who said he liked a girl who was straight forward and spoke her mind, because he was too old to play games. Those words were just that - words. Words to form a trite little dating phrase rather than an actual mantra or principle by which to live. They were in reality part of a game. A game I didn't want to play.

Now, I like playing online word games, just not the kind he was referring to. One of my favorite online games is Yahoo's TextTwist where in one version, you find all the words six specific letters can possibily form, and if you find the six-letter word(s), you advance to the next round. I don't play this as often as I once did - in meetings when I got bored, while watching movies or the news, while wasting time, etc., etc.,...but every once in a while I do like to hop online for a few minutes and play a game with words.

#47 on my list of Favorite Things is TEXTTWIST.