Friday, January 11, 2008

Friday Five: Las Mañanitas

Mother Laura brings us a birthday themed Friday Five. She says: "My forty-third birthday next Wednesday will inaugurate the "Birthday Madness" season in the Grimes-Honkanen household. The next day Katie will turn five and just over two weeks later, on Feb. 3, Nicholas will be eleven. In the middle, on January 30, we celebrate the gift of Grandma Di; Nicholas and I were both due on my Mom's birthday but I was uncharacteristically early and he was little late. We will be doing a trip to Disneyland to celebrate them all in a couple weeks; in the meantime I offer this birthday-inspired Friday Five."

1. When is your birthday? Does anyone else (famous and/or in your own life) share it? My birthday is June 8. I share it with Frank Lloyd Wright, Joan Rivers, Nancy Sinatra, Barbara Bush, Boz Scaggs and Robert Preston among others. As a little Catholic kid I used to get very charged up about the fact that my "half birthday" was on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

2. Do you prefer a big party or an intimate celebration for the chosen few? I am an "I" on the Meyers Briggs. 'Nuf said.

3. Describe your most memorable birthday(s)--good, bad, or both. There was this party. There was this cake. With the candles that won't extinguish no matter how hard you blow. The frosting caught fire. Someone grabbed water and threw it at the cake to put it out. The frosting fire caused the smoke detector to go off and the noise was driving us all crazy. Someone else ran and hit the circuit breaker as that was the only way to shut it off. So there we all sat in the dark with wet cake and laughed. It was very memorable in its own strange way.

4. What is your favorite cake and ice cream? (Bonus points if you share the cake recipe). Or would you rather have a different treat altogether? My favorite cake ever was my dad's sponge cake with seven minute frosting. Sadly he was the only one who could make it. The recipe still exists, but it's not the same, somehow. So now I have ice cream cake.

5. Surprise parties: love 'em or hate 'em? See #2 I wouldn't mind being surprised with a small friendly dinner, but spare me from people jumping out from behind furniture!

Bonus: Describe your ideal birthday--the sky's the limit. The last two years I have been away at summer seminary on my birthday. This year I'll be home. We did the Sunday schedule at team meeting this week, and I discovered my birthday falls on Sunday. I signed up to celebrate and preach that day I think that's pretty ideal right now.

10 comments:

Sally said...

As a fellow "I", I understand the party thing- one of my biggest fears is a surprise party- I would hate it!!!

Anonymous said...

i'm not a fan of the surprise parties either. i'm thinking wet cake would be pretty bad... funny... but bad.

Sr. Heather said...

Yay for being home on your birthday! Ha at the flaming cake! :-) And Robert Preston - I've always loved him.

Happy Friday!
Hedwyg

Dr. Laura Marie Grimes said...

Great memorable story--and you are so right about the ideal birthday. Someday I would love to celebrate mine that way.

Jan said...

The wet birthday cake scene is bittersweet. Glad it brings more laughter now. I also am "I" so I understand that smaller is better.

Terri said...

ok, did you eat the soggy cake, or just laugh at it? (I don't think I'd eat it unless someone I loved had baked it....).

Rev SS said...

LOL at # 3. I, a fellow "I," loved the small surprise parties my friends have thrown for me. (no masses jumping out from behind furniture) And, I think your upcoming b'day sounds perfect.

Lindy said...

TO MAGGIE:

Hey, Maggie, I tagged you over on my blog. It's pretty fun to play but you may have to get your guardian to help you out.

Your friend,

Rowan

RevDrKate said...

MP, we were able to salvage some of the cake...the burning frosting actually protected it. It tasted kind of like toasted marshmallows...it was...um...interesting.

Unknown said...

Cool, FLW is an awesome cheesehead to share a birthday with.

This is not related to but I have always wanted to tell you that your galations banner makes me feel good, take that whatever it is worth.