HAPPY 58TH JENNY!

Today I'm celebrating Jenny's birthday with friends in the Central Valley, though I talked to both of her kids to remember their mom. I brought with me some of her keepsakes from her jewelry drawer.

In the photo above, the "J" is the necklace she wore her wedding night. The big gold watch is Jenny's "boyfriend watch", which was a birthday gift for her. It was part of a trend about 15 years ago.

The watch forming the diagonal of the "N" is a TAG Heuer that Jenny wore to all formal occasions. I love the bracelet and earrings in the next "N", but I don't recall Jenny ever wearing them.

The "Y" is probably the most interesting letter on the table. The upper part of the Y is a bracelet Jenny would wear to weddings where her cousins got married. The foam dart is, of course, from a Nerf gun. Like many boys growing up in the 2010s, Dylan and Tyler shot Nerf guns around the house. It drove Jenny nuts. So, if she ever found any Nerf darts that weren't picked up, she would hide them from the kids until they eventually ran out of ammunition. They would then need to clean their rooms or perform other household chores to earn them back.

The story behind the rubber band is similar. But, specifc to Dylan. He was an ace shooter with the rubber band back in his day! He could reliably hit a plastic cup from more than 20 feet away.

And, last but not least, the desserts: The last several years of Jenny's life, she preferred to celebrate not with a big birthday cake, but with individual-sized cakes--one per person. And, the bakery at Whole Foods was her favorite. So, we celebrated with several bite-sized masterpieces. Not my style, though. After Jenny passed away I reverted back to getting as big a birthday cake as possible. It felt like I was stretching out the occasion as long as the cake lasted.