For weeks… nay, months…. I have had to listen to Soenke inform me, remind me, beg me, urge me, whisper in his sleep to me, that the only acceptable birthday gift this year would be a remote-control helicopter. He cleverly diverted shopping excursions so that we would end up in the toy section of, say, Galerie Kaufhof… amazingly, right in front of the toy helicopters. When he wasn’t strongarming me with helicopters, he was trying to buy the biggest boxes of Legos imaginable to take back to my nephews in the States (subject to an extensive testing period in our living room, of course).

Somewhere in Germany, there is obviously a child in a man’s body. Interestingly, many of our male friends really perked up at the mention of both remote-controlled helicopters and Legos. Do men EVER grow up?

In the spirit of German birthdays, I reminded Soenke that it was HIS responsibility to entertain us all for an entire evening at his expense. Initially, he suggested dinner at our place. I slyly asked, “what will you be cooking?” After his considerable panic passed (he thought *I* would be in charge of the küchen), he bravely announced “SPAGHETTI”, his, ahem, “signature dish”. I admired his willingness to tackle a sit-down dinner for 13 guests, and wasted no time in helping him with a grocery list.

In the meantime, where in our fairly spartan apartment was I to hide a huge gift-wrapped box containing a helicopter? I stashed it behind boxes of imported 8 ½ x 11 paper under my desk, and shamelessly lied when Soenke asked me if his gift was somewhere in our place (he found it anyway).

Soenke spent the day of the party chopping, chopping, and chopping. I would not permit him to disgrace himself with basic jarred spaghetti sauce, so I instructed him in the ways of claiming the sauce as his own. Red and yellow peppers, onions, garlic… sautéed ground beef…chopped basil… grated parmesan reggiano. Everything smelled heavenly. We even found a bottled of “Caesar” dressing for the salad (I don’t know what the heck Germans put in Caesar dressing, but it’s weird), but no luck on croutons – although at one point I had the entire staff of the local Spar (grocer) looking for reasonable facsimiles. At least the garlic bread was good.

With about a foot of snow on the ground in mid March (and more coming down), the guests trickled in cold and hungry. We had a drink bar set up on the credenza, and every square inch of table space (including the coffee table) was set for dinner. The entire crew helped plate the meal in sort of a cha-cha line, and the guests were suitably awed at Soenke’s culinary masterpiece (“you cooked this?!”).

Soenke began to open his gifts…. a gift certificate to the Planetarium, some much-needed tools, a CD, a framed print from Mauritius (from me)…. then, the coup de grace, the group gift… the HELICOPTER. In his excitement to extract the helicopter from its casing, he caught some wrapping paper on fire, creating a warm blaze right there in our living room. Mehmet - in his stocking feet - saved the day by grabbing the fiery bundle and jumping outside onto the snow-filled balcony.

Predictably, the rest of the evening was spent with the guys trying to get the helicopter off the ground. We broke briefly for some American-style birthday cake, but helicopter was king. For some reason, the guys went upstairs into our bedroom to try and fly the thing.

(In the meantime, Lena saved my life by cleaning up our kitchen!)

Long after we’d bid our guests a fond adieu, I trekked exhausted upstairs, and found Soenke in bed WITH THE HELICOPTER TUCKED IN NEXT TO HIM. We had a small “it’s me or the helicopter” discussion…. Soenke wavered, agonized, considered, groaned….. and barely avoided my tossing the aircraft off the balcony before he gently set it on the floor NEXT to the bed, apologized to it softly, and gave it a tender kiss good night.

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Thank you to Sally who was our photographer for the evening! :

The legendary Alan brings out the birthday cake:

Soenke makes a wish (for a helicopter of course):

Opening the Mauritius print:

Here’s the big daddy…

First, Mehmet saves our house from burning down:

THE GIFT IS A HIT!

I don’t think he’s ever going to put it down…