Today was Holy Thursday. It was also, coincidentally, my Mom’s birthday. And, as the weather forecast had foretold, it was snowing intermittently, though the snow didn’t stick until temperatures dropped below freezing in the evening.
We celebrated my Mom’s birthday by having lunch at a really good local Italian restaurant, which I just noticed has a totally unfair one star review at one of those restaurant review sites. Just because the interior design is a bit dated (which it is), doesn’t mean that the food can’t be good. And unlike Amazon, that site doesn’t even allow you to downvote unhelpful reviews.
We ordered a big antipasto platter (which turned out to be three separate platters) to share among all the guests. Afterwards, I had penne with scampi in tomato garlic prosecco sauce, which was one of the daily specials. Other guests ordered pizza and the grilled liver, which is one of the restaurant’s specialties.
Anyway, here are some photos behind the cut:
The guests. My Mom is the one in the green sweater in the middle.
The table with guests photographed from another angle.
Someone actually took a photo of me for once.
Really yummy antipasto platter, part 1
Really yummy antipasto platter, part 2
Antipasto platter, part 3. Too meaty for my tastes, though the cheese was great. And the carnivores among the guests loved it.
Wrapped birthday presents and cards
Unwrapped presents and cards. Lots of books.
sending...
Happy belated birthday to your mum. Chachic has hers today, my uncle has his tomorrow and mine will be coming up April 7th, heh. Seems like a good time for birthdays.
How great to see your mom liking books, and ones you’d also like reading. In my family no one has my taste in books. That’s what online life is for, heh.
In my family, there’s lots of March/April birthdays as well. My Mom, myself, my aunt, my cousin as well as my long deceased grandmothers all have birthdays in March and April. My parents’ wedding anniversary is in April as well. That’s also the reason why no one in my family ever much cared for Easter, since it always collides with someone’s birthday. Apparently, a lot of babies are conceived in the hot summer nights of June and July.
My Mom would probably still be reading the Rosamunde Pilcher, Heinz G. Konsalik or Marie Louise Fischer novels she used to read when I was a kid, if I hadn’t gradually introduced her to new authors. She doesn’t like everything, e.g. she didn’t care for Lois McMaster Bujold, but she likes a lot of the books I get for her.
No, my mum never cared for trying anything fantastic after she no longer read fairy tales to me. And my interest when ever further into that direction. She also doesn’t read romances, as such – just the stuff from the Bertelsmann club. These days she reads magazines, and sometimes a book that’s been hyped in the press or whose author she knows – like Hape Kerkeling’s journey as a pilgrim.
My Mom used to get lots of books from the Bertelsmann book club like many members of that generation. That’s where all the Marie Louise Fischer and Heinz G. Konsalik and Johannes Mario Simmel and Uta Danella and Rosamunde Pilcher books came from. She finally cancelled her membership in 1996, after my grandma died and it proved difficult to find someone willing to take the shelves and shelves full of Bertelsmann book blub editions. She read mainly magazines for a while, but started reading more fiction again when she was bedridden because of back troubles for a couple of weeks. Since she couldn’t go out, I bought books for her and she liked most of them except for Lois McMaster Bujold.
I think in such a case my mum would watch TV and have my dad buy more magazines, heh. When she’s in hospital that’s how it usually goes. That’s just how it is.
My Mom probably would have watched TV as well. However, the TV is upstairs, while the bedroom is on the ground floor. And since my Mom couldn’t get up the stairs, it was either read or listen to the radio.
Everybody and everything looks so lovely! Happy birthday to your mom.
My Mom says thank you for the congratulations. 🙂