virtual party

Today is my little sister's birthday. We live on opposite coasts so all I could do was to call and say "happy birthday!!!" I wish I was with her today to celebrate. If we were all together, and I was a magical party princess this is what I would plan:

a long picnic table, sitting right on the beach, with a crisp and clean white table cloth and enough chairs so that everyone we love and miss could have a seat and join in the celebration.

After a gourmet meal we would frolic on the beach, chasing the waves, digging in the sand, dancing with abandon until the moon was high in the night sky and the children were gathered in a sleepy pile around a roaring bonfire begging their moms to take them home. 

Finally we'd gather up the sleepy little ones and go back home.  We'd tuck them in, 2 or 3 to a bed, still a little sandy and salty, like a bunch of little oysters.  Cousins sleeping wrapped up in a blanket of safety and love.  The husbands would similarly go to bed.  But we sisters (me and Val and Anna and Em, Ange and JaNee, Kelly and Mom, Dani and J and S and Kate {who are now big enough to be one of the women instead of one of the kids}), we would sit up around the kitchen table eating something chocolatey and whipering secrets all through the night.  Our laughter would puncture the dark and send sweet dreams to our babies, hands would touch across the table, tears would stream down sun burnt cheeks as Val did her Charla impersonation, or Anna remembered Leonard's lips puckered through the crack in the door trying to admire the "lovely young queen" who had the misfortune to answer it, the young ones would share their romances & the old ones their wisdom, tales would be spun, sorrows spilled and joys relived. We would "remember when", and "did you  know", "would you rather" and "I hope some day" until the sun brought the new day.