Before I launch into the highlights of this weekend a little background information is called for so that the full flavor and nuances can be appreciated.  About 3 weeks ago my brother (to whom I’ve not spoken to in over a year and half over a matter of trust betrayed) called me.  Up until the estrangement, Aaron and I were close.  I am the eldest and he is a year younger than I am.  We have been thru a lot together and up until the estrangement – I trusted him and the rest of my siblings with my life.  His kids were at my house more than they were at his.

The occasion of his calling is that our Mother’s 75th birthday was coming up and he and Mother had decided between the 2 of them that a party was just the thing to bring the family together again.  Now while this speech (and it was quite the thing, just wish I had taped it for later playback, my only excuse being that I was unprepared for the shock) was going on – I was reminded of the cartoon where the angel is on one shoulder and the devil on the other and both are trying to get the attention of the poor schmuck to listen to their own advice.  The angel almost always loses but sticks around to say “I told you so”.  

My first inclination was to tell them all to go to hell.  My second, call it lifelong conditioning or whatever was to agree that indeed Mother should have a party to celebrate her 75th.  Next thing I know I am informed that the invitations have already gone out (I didn’t get one, I suppose that the phone call was mine) and to 150 people (Gulp).  My Mother then gets on the phone to tell me that she would like her favorite colors as the ‘theme’.  (My Mother loves color – the brighter and more vivid the better and if they clash loudly she is in heaven. – her living room is bright turquoise and hot pink with touches of bright fuchsia.) Her request?  Purple and orange.  I wince – I know very few people who look good in orange which is why they make prisoners here in Calif. wear it (there is a reason that no word rhymes with Orange, I mutter) but I agree to purple, (we are NOT talking lavender here but eye searing electric purple) knowing I can tone it down with large dashes of white.  And somehow before I can absorb it all….before the conversation ends - I have been drafted to do the cooking and the decorating. 

Thank the gods for the Dollar Store for they smiled when I walked in.  Shelves of purple plates, napkins, plastic silverware, plastic tablecloths and cups, crepe paper streamers, candles, spools of netting, ribbon all in eye searing purple.  12 clear glasses that have heavy bottoms which when stamped with ‘75’ with purple paint and tied with netting bows will be centerpieces.  I sweet talk old Timothy at the flower mart into holding for me for Friday pickup 20 long stemmed purple roses and 20 long stemmed white roses at half price.  I thank the gods and they reward me with a brainfart. 

By now the total of those RSVPing stands at a whopping 94.  Why, why am I going to knock myself out cooking for days for this?  Since my Mother’s sole demands in the food department (which are communicated to me via my brother) are the family clam dip and spinach dip recipes and ‘those little crab stuffed mushrooms’) I realize that divine inspiration - Costco.  Sure enough I find in bulk frozen crab stuffed mushrooms which with a little work I can substitute for my homemade ones, crab cakes, egg rolls, meatballs, hot wings, shrimp, mini quiches - all good for a mob and which only need to be reheated or baked.  Frozen spinach and water chestnuts for the spinach dip, cream cheese, French bread rounds to scoop out and serve stuffed with the spinach dip, salami, Italian ham, and cheeses and crackers, pickles, olives.  Oranges, apples, grapes, walnuts and peaches for fruit cups, Mellon to wrap the Italian ham around.  Already cut veggies in plastic bags (Yeah!) and a huge jar of ranch dressing and jumbo bags of various chips.  Even Chex mix (Patrick’s personal favorite).  Jumbo sized jars of cocktail sauce (for the shrimp).  Cans of beans and a tub of guacamole, salsa, and a block of cheddar to grate for the Mexican layer dip.  Frozen cans of lemonade and cranberry juice for punch with raspberries and blackberries (purple remember?) and a tub of raspberry sherbet and bottles of lemon soda for the fizz.  My Mother in her autocratic decree has banned alcohol from this party and for once – knowing my family I agree.  They are scary enough sober and I know full well that there will be at least one contraband bottle of champagne in the kitchen – purely for cooking  purposes you understand as well as a hidden bottle of whiskey (for medicinal purposes) to bribe my brothers for their assistance and compliance.  I bake Wednesday and  Thursday night  – 4 kinds of cookies – raspberry bars, white chocolate macadamias, chocolate peanut butter bars and fudge (I have drawn the line in the sand on the deserts – NO Death by Chocolate, NO Kaluha Cheesecakes, NO sour cherry pie, NO Dutch apple – partly because I don’t have the time, but mostly because they are family favorites – my own small rebellion at being sucked back into servitude.

With the truck full to bursting at the seams I pick up the cell phone and ask Aaron “You did arrange for the cake didn’t you?”  A rather obvious question since it is a 75th BIRTHDAY party – duh!~   There is a long silence on the end of the phone.  I curse fluently in my mind but only say….”Tell me you did or I’m not coming.” There is an even longer silence.  I say very quietly – “You WILL go to Costco.  You WILL buy 2 large sheet cakes – one carrot, one chocolate – BOTH WITH WHITE FROSTING. “  I get a ‘Geeze you don’t have to shout.”  Now it’s my turn, “You have to ratchet up the decibels sometimes to drive it thru a thick skull.”  I add my pastry bag and a can of white frosting and my food coloring (purple, yellow and green) to my must takes.  Purple iris, pansies with yellow centers and green twining leaves….her name in Purple…lets do it easy and the candles are purple…to outline a large ‘75’ – NO way am I putting 75 candles on 2 cakes.  She’ll bitch about having to blow them out anyway.

I head the 100 miles down to the hometown to begin the preparations.  I’ve given Aaron a list of ‘must do’s before Kate arrives’.  When I get to my Aunt’s who has graciously given us her home (think 3 bathrooms, a huge living and dining and family room that flow into each other, a kitchen with 3 ovens and 2 giant freezers and enough platters and bowls and assorted serving ware to make even me drool – add to that a huge covered outside patio that comfortably seats 40 compared to my small 1 bath and miniscule kitchen, living room that seats 10 and you know why.  I arrive to find that nothing – nothing has been done on the ‘to do list’ with the exception that my brother Sean has delivered the folding tables and chairs.  They are filthy having been in storage for over 2 years in a barn.  No the lawn has not been mowed nor the leaves raked up.  Not one thing I’ve asked them to do has been done except one…and it is the most important one of all.  The boys (Patrick and Aaron’s kids) have decided that every person invited be asked to send in or bring to the party, on an 8 X 11 sheet of paper a remembrance or good wishes or a picture of Mother for an album (which you guessed it by now – no one has thot to buy either).  I’ve found one – purple suede no less and the first thing to go in is a copy of the yes purple initiation. 

Patrick has pulled thru - dredging up along with my cousins, pictures of Mother from the early years and three of them have been busy gluing them to large poster boards to put around the room – sort of watching my Mother age before my eyes is unsettling but I’m too busy having the boys put up crepe paper and blowing up purple balloons to focus on it.

aturday – I realize that at 1 am the bottom is dropping out.  I sit down for a moment and wake up at 4 am to iron tablecloths (white ones’ I’ve brought down) to go under the purple plastic ones which will be the table toppers along with the centerpieces.  Aaron’s Michael has raked the leaves and mowed the lawn under grudging protest but it’s done and that’s what matters.  They are coming at 9 to move the tables that Megan and Sandy have washed along with the chairs out on the patio and I’ve got another 6 set up inside the house.  Decorating is done by 9 am on Sunday….the countdown has begun.  I’ve spent most of Saturday evening making the things I could ahead – the dips.  Arranging veggies on the trays and keeping in the fridge – arranging the cups, plates, etc on the large tilled buffet that lines one wall of my Aunt’s home.  She entertains a lot – her husband belongs to several organizations and they love to do this so we are uniquely blessed that when they built their home they designed it to be able to entertain.  This is her gift to my Mother, her older sister – the use of the home and they’ve managed to make themselves scarce until just before the party.  Their girls tho – Joan and Karen are there – and for everything Karen says – Joan has a dissenting opinion.  The 2 of them give me a headache and I banish them – each in different directions to different tasks. 

Finally its time for me to dress.  As the crowning indignity my Mother has decreed that each family member must, (hear that command in that word) be dressed in…you guessed it…purple.  I’ve found the most (to my Mother’s mind) inappropriate purple velvet dress I could find.  Classy floor length simple skirt and a patterned cut velvet purple top with long flowing sleeves and a small dipping neckline.  My Mother will grind her teeth that it is #1 velvet which she believes only Elizabethans and hippies wear, and #2 that it is floor length.  She still maintains that a lady wears hemlines just below her knees – as if anything else is a sign of poor breeding and bad manners, or worse – that the sight of a naked kneecap might cause men to consider you a ‘loose’ woman.  *Insert eyeroll.  I could have worn something that showed a whole lot of leg but realizing I was going to be in the kitchen bending over to take pans in and out of ovens won over my wild hair to be brazen.  Oh well…wait until her 80th…*evil laugh.

Pictures were taken.  I’d handed out disposable cameras and brought my digital.  In particular posed pictures of the family – a family that now gathers only on funerals and weddings and sometimes not even then.  Pictures of Mother and the kids.  Mother and the grandkids.  Mother and the great grands.  Mother and her brother and sister – and their significant others - most of us in various shades of purple or perversely in orange.  And the crowning touch of it all?  My Mother wore….red.  

She smiles at me and says loud enough for everyone to hear, “And Kate will put all the pictures in an album so you all can see, won’t you dear?  As your gift to me.”  Like the party isn’t enough.  How typical Mother.   

My brothers and assorted cousins retire with the plates of food to the kitchen for the cleanup.  The boys by now have deserved their whiskey and I’ve gone from champagne to a nice large snifter of brandy that I’m not sharing as I and a couple of my cousins begin to wash dishes and put the leftovers into baggies to parcel out.  I hand out my final list to the boys – to break down the tables and fold up the chairs and to move the furniture back where it was in the living room, take out the trash. 

Today – Monday - I’ve a fridge full of leftovers.  I brought in the rest of the cookies to work to get rid of them.  I’m pondering bringing in the rest of the food tomorrow.  I’ve been almost 48 hours on my feet with only 9 hours sleep in 3 days.  I’ve driven over 300 miles between getting things and driving home and I’m now at work feeling like I’ve had an out of body experience I haven’t quite grasped all the nuances of yet except to be profoundly glad that it is over and that I survived.