It’s not every day that a WWII veteran throws a party, so when The General decided to celebrate his 89th birthday in Bisbee, we had to come along to share the fun.

An old mining town near the Mexican border, Bisbee is filled with staircases and art. The houses are stacked up the sides of the steep canyon, punctuated by tall narrow columns of Italian spruce. It reminds me of Greece, only with more colors.

We stayed at the Letson Loft Hotel, in one of the oldest buildings in Bisbee. On the first night, we discovered we were the only guests, which made us feel as if we were in a beautiful old haunted house.

We’d planned to spend some time in Bisbee shopping for art, but I didn’t really see anything that caught my eye. However, during a visit to the local Fiber Arts Guild (housed in the basement of the former YMCA) I found a lustrous hank of hand-spun alpaca yarn, along with a gorgeous 60-inch loom.

Lovely, isn’t it? Unfortunately, a loom like this one costs over $9,000 and would require an entire extra room in my house. (Either that, or I’d have to give up my office.) So no loom for me. I went down the street and consoled myself with a pretty hat and a new kimono jacket instead.

We spent a whole week celebrating The General’s 89th birthday, and I did in fact succumb to these tempting birthday doughnuts. So much for my low-carb Lenten resolutions!

It was all for a good cause.