Birthday Bakers

Going to birthday parties has always been great fun for kids.   When I was young I’d wear a pretty party dress and my mother would take me to the birthday kid’s house,  with me proudly carrying the wrapped gift.   Then we’d put on paper hats,  play games,  and eat cake and ice cream while the celebrant’s father took home movies as we waved shyly at the camera.

A generation later things were quite different.   The birthday parties I took my son to were usually themed and held in restaurants,  gyms,  or museums,  with entertainment supplied by hired clowns or magicians.   Pizza or 6-foot heroes were usually on the menu,  and the kids were completely unfazed by the professional videographer recording the event for posterity.

But for my son’s birthdays I always tried to come up with party ideas that had special meaning for him,  and one year I capitalized on his early love for cooking and baking.   (See Reading with Hattie, Baking with Julia)

He was 7 or 8 when I hired the Birthday Bakers,  two lovely young women who arrived at our apartment bringing everything that was needed for a dozen little kids to bake and decorate a cake,  even little chef aprons for them to wear and keep.

All I was asked to do was preheat the oven while the Birthday Bakers spread everything out on our dining room table,  and helped the kids break eggs,  measure flour and the other dry ingredients,  mix the batter,  and make the icing.

Then while the cake was in the oven,  the kids sat in a circle on our living room floor and our two Birthday Bakers read them Maurice Sendak’s wonderful book In the Night Kitchen.

And that year everyone agreed our birthday party really took the cake!

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Had someone drugged the soft drink they served me, at the offices of the mining company where my newfound friends needed to make a stop? Was I influenced by the sultry thirty-something woman who insisted that I receive my first lesson in appraising sapphires?
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The Puppy Farm

I’ve written before about my wonderful childhood puppy  (See Fluffy, or How I Got My Dog and Fluffy and the Alligator Shoes)  but sadly there is more to tell.

I’m sure today’s child rearing gurus would advise you to tell your kids the truth no matter how painful,  but I suspect my folks practiced the old school kind of parenting.

When I was 10 Fluffy was hit by a car and the really awful thing was I saw it happen.  I was coming home from school when she saw me from across the street and ran towards me.

I don’t know why Fluffy was off the leash that day,  or if somehow she had gotten out of the house alone.   I only remember the sound of screeching brakes on our usually quiet street,  my beloved dog lying motionless near the wheel of a car,  and my mother and my visiting uncle kneeling in the street trying to console me.

Eventually they led me to the house and told me the vet was taking Fluffy to a puppy farm in the country where she would get well.

I never saw Fluffy again and although we never got another dog,   we did have a succession of wonderful cats.  (See Missing Pussycats ,  Mr Bucco and the Ginger Cat,  Hotel Kittens,  and The Cat and the Forshpeiz)

Over the years I must have wondered if there was something a little fishy about the puppy farm story and whether city dogs who get hit by cars really do go to the country for rehab.   But I never questioned my parents because they were grownups and I knew grownups never tell lies.

And now my parents are gone and my uncle is gone,  and surely the vet is gone too,  and so there’s no one left who can tell me what really happened on a shady Bronx street one afternoon over half-a-century ago.

And so I choose to believe that Fluffy did go to that puppy farm in the country,  and for all I know she’s there still.   For in my mind’s eye I still see her running through the fields  –  the Elysian puppy fields.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Book Club

I took this photo in front of my friend Helen’s beautiful waterfront home on City Island in the Bronx.   Pictured are the wonderful women in my  Uptown Book Club,  in the back row – Reina,  Karlan,  Judy,  Marlene,  and Helen;  and in the front row – Renee and Paula.

It seems I have a propensity for joining book clubs,  but if I have to name a favorite,  this is the one.  (See Book Slut, or Why I’m in Six Book Clubs)

When we started meeting about 20 years ago our assigned leader was Renee,  a New York Public outreach librarian who led monthly book discussions for a group of teachers and school librarians in the Bronx school district where I was working.  When that outreach initiative ended,   Renee agreed to continue meeting with us informally,  and our group meets to this day.

I’ve written more about this book group,  my  friendship with Renee,  and sadly her untimely death.  (See Comfort Food for Renee.)

Now we take turns leading our book club meetings,  but still feel Renee’s presence,  joking about what insightful question she would ask to open the discussion,  and what else she would say about the book.

Several of the other women in the club have also become good friends,  while others I see only at our monthly meetings,  and yet after years together l feel very close to them all.

If you’re already in a book club you know the special bond that can exist among passionate readers.  And if you’re not,  but you like reading good books and making new friends,  what are you waiting for?

– Dana Susan Lehrman