Party Like It's Your Birthday

Mom and Me at My First Birthday Party

I was one cool kid. I mean, I had a sweet pageboy haircut, I was into the “theater-arts”, and I liked to use big words like “peruse” and “behoove” while meticulously detailing business plans with all my little eight-year-old friends. Ok. Maybe it’s a good thing I had a cool mom.

She made me cool long before I knew I could be. She knew how to throw a party and I became legendary for my birthdays. There was the “nerd-themed” party at which Erica Dunlop showed up in her girl scout uniform with her head-gear on…and won the costume contest hands-down. Then there was the “fifties” sock-hop at which we blared “Rock-Around-the-Clock” and mom taught us the hand-jive in our garage. {I was pretty-much born to hand-jive, baby.} There was the year she sent us out in teams to scout the neighbors’ homes for scavenger hunt goodies (“Good evening Ms. Jones. Might you have a calendar from 1982?”), and there were all those sleep-overs. Oh the sleep-overs, a total misnomer since we rarely slept, but for which she planned intricate games and then endured hours of girl-giggling and high-pitched screaming that would send even the dogs into the other room to escape the madness. She was a saint. A saint with a party-hat and streamers. A saint with a penchant for a good time.

And today is her birthday. A day she would most certainly use to celebrate. Which reminds me of. . .

Mom’s Life Lesson #3: There is Always a Good Reason for a Party

Never miss one. Show up. Or better yet, plan one yourself. It’ll be fun. Life is better when celebrated with a couple hundred of your closest friends. There will be good food there. And lots of it. Preferably a selection of morsels drenched in chocolate. You will not leave hungry. Promise.

Have a theme. Decorate as if you are competing in some sort of Lifetime Television Reality TV Show that will crown Hostess of the Year. Costumes are hilarious. Play games. Give prizes. Laugh a lot.

Stay late. Close the place down. Then go out for French Silk Pie afterwards or maybe a DQ Blizzard. One can never have enough dessert…or enough of a good time.

Mom was a good time wrapped in a flesh and bone package. She was the life of my party. And today, on her birthday, I raise my glass full of sparkling cider in tribute to her and vow to live life the way she did. Like it was one big reason to celebrate. Like I don’t have to get up early in the morning. Like she was still here with me to enjoy it...

Happy Birthday Mom. The party won’t be the same without you. But we’ll still have one. . .

Confessions of a Loser

Baby Liz in Her Summer Best, 1947

The long days of summer inevitably remind me of my mother. She loved this season. Probably because it meant she was off work, free to spend her days buried in her latest novel, sleeping in until noon, staying up to the wee hours of the morning, shuffling me to the local cabana, organizing some closet in need of meticulously-labeled Rubbermaid bins, and playing endless games of Uno and Crazy Eights.

Crazy Eights. A card game requiring more luck than skill, but one that I still absolutely Had. To. Win. Although my competitive nature would eventually serve me well in my future career, it caused me great angst as a seven year old during consecutive rounds of meaningless card games. Losing a hand meant I lost my mind and my afternoon deteriorated into fits of crying and irrational frustration. I would throw down my clown-clad fist of cards and scream, “That’s not FAIR!!!” Embarrassing. I know.

And what would Liz do? Certainly not enable my immature tirade with any empathy. Nope. She would fix the deck of our next hand to ensure I lost again. And again...until I stopped the ridiculous display of huffing and crying and stomping around (though I'm guessing I was pretty entertaining). But my summer streak as a Crazy Eights loser taught me:

Mom’s Life Lesson #2: Life is Not Fair.

She would tell me this every time I tried to make the fairness argument (yeah, it wasn’t limited to Crazy Eights). How many times I must’ve said, um, whined about that. And it never worked. Mom was quick to point out that life isn’t fair. The sooner I learned that, the happier I would be. Other people will get things I won’t, do things I can’t, go places I will not, win when they shouldn’t. Friends, grown-ups, and strangers alike will disappoint me, break promises, make bad choices. I cannot control what happens, but I can control my reaction to it. I have no guarantees except my own attitude.

Mom knew this to be true. And as if to prove her own point, she got cancer. The ultimate in unfair. But she met it with an attitude that buoyed her up, rallied her loved ones, impressed her doctors, and allowed her to survive with it longer than she should have. And though sometimes I miss her so much I’d like to stomp around, throw my frustrated fists in the air and scream (at nobody in particular) that it’s just not fair, I remember, I’m right. It’s not. But it’s not supposed to be. And mom would think it ridiculous that I dwell on it.

So I don’t. Instead, I think I'll play some Crazy Eights.