Cards...two meanings

Card Games and Birthday Cards
One of the many advantages I had when I met Paul, was his great family and all his wonderful friends.
The first time I met his long-time friends was Labor Day weekend a couple of years ago. He had a picnic at his house. They're affectionately called The Card Club for the obvious reason. I, who had rarely played cards, was introduced to Double Hearts. I was very nervous since I was out of my comfort zone, but they couldn't have been more gracious. They ignored my silly nervous mistakes and quietly cheered me on when I made the right moves. You couldn't find nicer people.
So...Paul and I became a regular Card Club Couple. I even learned the rudimentary rules of playing 500, which is their most popular game and is similar to Bridge (which I played in college, kind of...in the student union at lunchtime, and at lunch when I taught on Long Island). You have to have 12 people usually, because there are three tables from which you move around. Anyway, as hard as I try, I cannot, for the life of me, remember cards played. I've even practiced Hearts on the internet to try to remember cards, to stimulate my brain, to no avail. My brain must just not be wired that way. As they say, it goes in one ear and out the other.
This is all leading up to Thursday night when I had Women's Card Club for the first time. Yes.
Everyone enjoys each other's company so when Card Club meets, the women get together for an evening of cards before or after the Couples Card Club usually at the same house. We had Card Club earlier this month, but the only time I could get people together was this past Thursday night. Several weeks after Card Club met. I got a kick out of one of them saying - We usually have women's card club as close as possible to the night we have regular card club so we only have to clean our house once. Neat. (good pun!)
Since we only had 6 women, we had a great time playing Mexican Train, which I learned in Florida, and know the ladies enjoy. Being the summer, we couldn't get enough women to play 500 because everyone was either away, or committed to something else. We had 6, including me.
It was fun. I like these ladies very much. We started with a low-cal weight watchers' dessert and some decaf coffee. Then the card playing began. More fun. Since I'm retired, I didn't think anything of the fact that it was Thursday night, but several had to work the next day. So we ended around 10. Paul said that when their kids were young, and they themselves were, the ladies would play until 1 or 2:00 in the morning. Not now. None of us would be able to move the next day, including we retirees. I had two so-so gifts, in beautiful decorator gift bags, for the ones with the highest and lowest scores. ( Actually, the bags were worth more than the gifts! And re-usable to boot.)
Last night we went to Sharon's house to celebrate her 41st birthday. Sharon is Paul's youngest child. My oldest "child" just turned 40. I don't know why I mentioned that...perhaps for comparison's sake.
Tonight we're headed out at 6:00, weather permitting, to see Lee, Sharon's son, in a scrimmage for Notre Dame at Odessa, the school he would have originally gone to. I'm sure they'll be a lot of kids he knows on the other team. We possibly will not go...if the weather is rainy, and it looks like a good chance it will be raining. I guess I'm just a fair-weather step-grandma.
The above paragraph was somehow put in the middle of Sharon's birthday party story, and I don't know how to move it, so I'm sorry for the subject change.
To continue on with Sharon's story:
Paul's sister in law, Lue, was there and Sharon's in-laws, Sandy and Dave. Sharon's husband, Dave, baked her a cake, the kids decorated the house with crepepaper and balloons with 41 written all over one, and sayings on the others. (with dad's help, I assume). Paul got her 8 chrysanthemum plants - four yellow and four burgundy. Sharon's birthday falls at a great time of the year for mums...they're at all the gardening centers- colors bunched together. Red, burgundy, yellow, white, orange, daisy-like flowers. She loves planting things and has a marvelous HUGE garden that I've written about earlier.