This is our family's year for May birthdays in multiples of 25. We gathered on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the milestones of our son Ben, sister Jennifer, and mother Susan, who respectively turned 25, 50 and 75 this month. Each got to pick a flavor for his or her own cake. Photo by Glenn.
May 30, 2019: Our family witnessed a rare harmonic convergence this month as we celebrated a trio of birthdays representing a collective 150 years. But it was the unusual occurrence that each of those milestones was divisible by 25 that garnered all the attention, and what brought us together during Memorial Day weekend to honor them all.
Ben reached the quarter-century mark on May 2, and we enjoyed lunch on his behalf at Cocina Medina in Antioch. Twenty-five is a number that came up often during May, as we celebrated three birthdays that were multiples of the big two-five. Photo by Roni.
Ben gets 26 candles on his Stone Cold Creamery ice cream cake — one for each year and an extra one to help melt the ice cream, we suppose. Photo by Glenn.
We purchased a dozen cupcakes from A Sweet Affair bakery so we could sample their flavors prior to placing a cake order for the big end-of-the-month birthday bash. They sure looked pretty, but we were disappointed with the taste of the cakes in general and decided to keep looking. Photo by Glenn.
Roni arranges glass beads on the dining room table as she tries out a pattern for a craft project she is planning in the kitchen. The beads can be attached to glass objects using silicone glue, then lights can be used to highlight their colors. Photo by Glenn.
Phoenix appears curious about what Roni is doing with those pretty glass beads. He discovered they are fun to play with, which added to Roni's challenge in coming up with the right design as he helped her rearrange it. Photo by Glenn.
This is the end result of Roni's glass bead project — a decorative vase that she gave as a gift to our mother Susan to help celebrate her 7th birthday. Photo by Roni.
Brotherly love breaks out on our bed. Phoenix and Phyre are so adorable together that it is difficult to imagine them tearing each other apart in the living room later in the evening. Photo by Glenn.
Here is a scene from the movie "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu" that we went to see in the theater as a family the week after Ben's birthday. Ben really wanted to see the live-action flick, but it was more of a nostalgia trip for us as it brought back memories of going to see the animated Pokémon movies with him nearly two decades ago. Photo by Roni.
It's May 25. Time for the big 25's party. If this shirt looks at all familiar, it's because Glenn has one almost identical to it — both shirts a gift from Jennifer. Photo by Glenn.
Susan shows off the framed photo she received from son Sean as one of her birthday presents. Sean took the picture himself. Photo by Glenn.
Jenny displays the handmade quilt she received from her mom as one of her 50th birthday gifts. The individual squares include artwork drawn years ago by Jenny's daughter Shannon. Photo by Glenn.
Time to dig into those three party cakes. Safeway's bakery did a great job with the decorating, and the flavor was equal to the task. The black forest especially was as moist as it looks. Photo by Glenn.
The hot summer months are on the way, and soon the Ironhouse Sanitary District will reopen its recycled water fill station for area residents. Roni is in charge of the station, as well as the June 1 kickoff event. She even had to put up this event sign herself. Photo by Glenn.
Ben enjoys a belated birthday gift to himself — a new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 computer that he purchased from Best Buy. It came with the keyboard and a digital pen that he expects to find useful in drawing his artwork. Photo by Glenn.
Ben, our son, reached his quarter-century mark on May 2. Jennifer, Glenn’s sister, joins Club 50 on May 31. And our mother, Susan, marked 75 years on May 25. Silver, gold and diamond jubilees. Throw in the fact that our grandma Rose turned 100 this past October and it has been an eventful eight months on the birthday calendar indeed! You can’t let such an event pass unheralded, and so it was decided some months ago that there should be a family gathering. Plans began to take shape, with our expert event coordinator Roni volunteering to see them through.
You can’t have a birthday party without cake, and because of the unusual nature of this celebration we wanted one that could tie all the milestones together in a single theme. We envisioned something like a three-tier cake, with each tier dedicated to one of the guests of honor. Ben, being the youngest, would have the top tier, with Susan’s taking up the base and Jenny’s in the middle. Then we got to thinking about the logistics of such a display and the problems that might arise. Having all the tiers the same size would make them difficult to stack well, and because each person wanted his or her own flavor, making the tiers different sizes would mean that Susan’s cake would be huge while Ben’s would be quite small. That didn’t feel right, but the deciding factor in large part turned out to be cost.
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A
BOVE ALL, WE wanted the cakes themselves to be memorable for their flavor, and our search for the perfect cake got us started looking at bakeries. Unfortunately we don’t have many (good) bakeries located near us and usually find ourselves forced to rely on the less than stellar offerings at the local grocery stores. We expanded our search over the hill and wound up looking at the Diablo valley. Years ago we’d had A Sweet Affair bakery franchise near us in Antioch, but they closed that location, leaving the original store in Walnut Creek. Glenn had enjoyed several cakes from there in his newspaper days, so on his recommendation we took a Saturday drive to town to investigate.
A Sweet Affair is insanely popular with the locals. Their shop includes a deli with fresh sandwiches and soups that can be enjoyed in their restaurant. But of course they are best known for their cakes, cupcakes, cookies and eclairs, and it was no easy task to resist them when we went to the counter for a quote. We talked with their decorator about what we had in mind, and she told us that pretty much anything we could bring them a picture of could be recreated. We scanned the internet for some designs we liked, and then she cooked up an estimate for us. We expected to pay around $120 for what we had in mind, but our eyes popped at a figure that was more than three times that. And that was on the cheap end. Seems that something about Roni’s idea would be difficult to recreate, and stacking the three tiers meant they needed to be of a certain size to make everything work. We weren’t feeding an army, so we didn’t need a cake so large.
Fortunately there was a less expensive option that got us down to our original estimate, but it meant we would have three separate cakes and Roni wasn’t sure how she felt about that. At least this approach meant we could make each cake the same size, and because they would be 8 inches in diameter we wouldn’t have so much left over after the party. We decided to let taste be our guide, so we bought a dozen cupcakes in the flavors we were considering and took them home to enjoy.
That night we had a cupcake party with Ben. Roni divvied up the bakery treats so that we each had a third of lemon, chocolate, white and red velvet — Ben’s personal favorite. Tempting as they had appeared in the display case at the bakery, we all found ourselves disappointed when we actually got to sample them; the cakes were dry and no more flavorable than some of the packaged mixes we’ve had off the shelf at the grocery store — nothing like Glenn remembered from his earlier encounters with A Sweet Affair. Had something changed? We peeked at the Yelp reviews for the place and discovered we were not alone; many others had lamented a decline in quality in recent years. Back to square one.
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D
ESPITE OUR GENERAL disdain for grocery store bakeries, there is one with a good reputation when it comes to its cakes: Safeway. Having struck out with A Sweet Affair, we decided to give our local grocer a shot. But first we wanted to sample the merchandise, so on a whim we dropped in on the Brentwood Safeway one afternoon to inquire about our options, and while we were there we picked up several varieties of cakes for dessert. We were reasonably pleased when we tasted them at home — much better than our original choice — and so decided we’d use them for our party.
As far as the decorating went, it’s pretty much what you see is what you get with Safeway. If it isn’t in their catalog or their decorator’s head, then it won’t be on your cake. Special orders aren’t their specialty, which is not to say that they do bad work. There were enough ribbons and roses in the general lineup that we felt confident of finding some attractive designs for our purpose. And Roni, as usual, had a plan to enhance the decorations. But still there was the question of one cake or three. We chose the latter to be sure that each of the party participants would have the flavor he or she requested, and at a fraction of the cost of A Sweet Affair’s prices, it looked like we were getting a bargain.
Meanwhile we had also been looking into the idea of other food to bring to the party. We had recently been to Genova Delicatessen in Walnut Creek and loved their sandwiches, so we decided to order a tray of them for the feast. Genova has two locations in Walnut Creek, and one of them happens to be in the same shopping center as a Safeway store. So we figured it was karma and decided to place our cake order at the Walnut Creek Safeway, meaning we could grab the cake and sandwiches in one stop rather than have to run all over town on our way to the party.
Things were coming together well. Roni texted deli menus to everyone to get their sandwich preferences. She ordered the cakes with plenty of time to spare. She combed the internet for decorations themed around a 25-50-75 celebration. Glenn tracked down photos of the trio and turned them into cutouts to place atop the cakes. There was just one small detail that we managed to overlook, and it nearly turned out to be a calamity.
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T
HE MORNING OF May 25, we all climbed into the car for the trip to Hayward. Our sandwiches would be ready at Genova Deli by 11 a.m., so we figured we’d grab them first and then walk next door to pick up the Safeway cakes before hitting the road for the remainder of the drive. Everything went smoothly at the deli, and when we saw the cakes at the bakery we were impressed with them. We decided to pick up some drinks and chips to supplement the food offerings. Roni wanted to get ice cream too, but she was worried that it would melt by the time we reached Hayward, and we already had a trunk packed with cakes and sandwiches. She suggested that Glenn get in touch with his brother Sean and ask if he could pick up the ice cream on his way to the party.
Glenn texted Sean with the request. Sean replied that he was riding with Mom and Dad and that they would grab some ice cream on the way. Great… but on the way to where? A shiver ran through Glenn’s mind as he texted Sean back to have him clarify where they were driving to. “Your house!” came the reply. Oops.
It was at this moment we realized that amid weeks of careful planning and anticipation of the birthday celebration, we had neglected to establish the location for the festivities! When Roni offered to provide all the food and drinks, she assumed we would bring them to Hayward. Glenn’s mom thought we were hosting the party in Oakley and had even asked what time we all wanted to get together. So while we were in Walnut Creek preparing to head west, Sean and the others were in separate cars heading east. He and our parents had already reached Dublin. A series of phone calls ensued, and after a check with Jenny and Tom confirmed that they had not yet left Hayward, it was decided that we would all meet up at Mom and Dad’s place in the Hayward hills. Phew!
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W
E CAN ALL laugh about the mix-up now, but had it not been for that text message exchange we would have been standing on the porch of an empty house in Hayward while the rest of the family was doing a similar head-scratcher in Oakley. As it was, we arrived at our folks’ place around 12:30 p.m. and were greeted by a full house. Just in time, because everyone was ready for those deli sandwiches we’d brought.
We’d worried about having too much food, but it was amazing how quickly the sandwiches disappeared, even being cut into thirds as they were. We’d bought a couple of extras just in case, and everyone wanted to taste some of the other varieties people had ordered. We also had a big bucket of potato salad and chips and Martinelli’s cider, not to mention a big bottle of margarita mix we’d picked up from Costco. And that was before the cakes and ice cream, which everyone was too stuffed to want too much of.
But this being a rare celebration of three important birthdays, no one could resist the temptation to sample each of the three cakes. Ben had a white cake with fresh strawberries and custard filling and a chocolate ganache topping. Jennifer received a German chocolate cake decorated with roses; Roni had the decorators put the traditional chocolate flakes on the side of the cake only so there would be room on top for writing. Susan’s cake was a vanilla and chocolate two-layer cake with pink buttercream frosting. Roni added some decorations in the form of bejeweled metal numbers with each person’s age, and photo cutouts of the honorees. There were no candles except for three numbers that totaled the ages of the trio: “150.” We lit the numbers three times, and each person took their turn blowing them out.
There were presents too, but for Mom the best of them had to be the appearance of Dad at the party, straight up from his long stay in Hemet. Grandma Sorenson didn’t come with him on this trip as she had in March for our nephew Allen’s birthday, but she had someone looking in on her during Dad’s leave for the weekend. But Mom wasn’t satisfied to have her husband home for just a couple of days and has already begun lobbying to bring him up for a longer stay when we visit Sea Ranch again this July.
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B
EN GOT TO celebrate his 25th birthday twice this month, beginning with his proper May 2 date. Given his plans to get together with friends for a trip to the movies that evening, we decided to celebrate the occasion with an early lunch at Cocina Medina restaurant in Antioch, then came home to eat cake and open presents.
We had our own day at the movies for the three of us when we went to The Streets of Brentwood on a Monday afternoon to watch “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.” Even though we went during opening weekend the theater was mostly empty — just five people including us. Still, the girl at the ticket counter made sure that we reserved the exact seats we wanted for the show. Just in case there were 20 busloads of school kids arriving by showtime, we suppose.
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N
EARLY TWO YEARS since being laid off from the newspaper business, Glenn is gainfully employed again. Well, sort of. This month he started working part time as a content curator for Local News Matters, a nonprofit website whose mission is to keep Bay Area community journalism alive through grants and donations contributed by supporters.
The LNM site is the brainchild of Kat Rowlands — formerly one of Glenn’s managers at the newspaper several years ago — who launched the effort this past fall, a few months after she bought Bay City News Service from its previous owners. It was a casual offer she made to Glenn during our vacation in Southern California last month that he accepted soon after we returned home, having taken a few days to consider whether he wanted to return to the world of journalism.
Initially he is working about four hours a week, reviewing stories that have appeared on the Bay City News wire and repackaging those that meet the criteria for publication on the LNM site. It is an ideal gig, given that the work can be performed on a flexible schedule and from any remote location with an internet connection. Glenn has been working Monday and Thursday mornings so far, but he expects his hours may expand as he becomes more familiar with the position and the need for more content on the LNM site grows.
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T
HERE IS LITTLE to report from the Great Never-ending Kitchen Project this month, although work continues to slog along. Glenn has been concentrating on the pantry, which has proved to be more of a challenge than anyone expected. We previously mentioned that we had decided to go with a bi-fold door, a deviation from our original plans. We quickly discovered, however, that the door is slightly too large for the available space once a frame is added, so that has meant getting creative in designing a frame.
Most door jamb kits at the home improvement stores consist of three-quarter-inch thick boards that can be cut and nailed together as needed to form a frame. But that thickness proved to be too tight for our pantry, so we improvised by purchasing half-inch baseboards to use for the frame. Because the walls at the opening of the pantry aren’t perfectly straight, this has meant that we have had to shim the frame to make everything square — more effort without a clear plan for how to make it work, which has led to less enthusiasm and more construction delays.
Roni is getting sick of having her kitchen in disarray, not to mention that the construction materials and tools are cluttering up the living room and dining room. She is threatening to call in a real contractor to complete the job, so we may soon see a deadline for getting this project finished. Maybe before Summer? We can all hope.
But there is some light at the end of the tunnel. On Memorial Day we visited Home Depot to take one more look at the vinyl flooring material we plan to use. It has been so long since this project started that several new designs and colors have been added (in addition to a more expensive price), so we wanted to make sure we’re happy with our choice before placing an order. It takes about two weeks to get the planks delivered from the factory. Once we have them in hand and can start laying the floor, victory is in sight!
