Spa maven celebrates birthday 98 in lockdown style
Sheltering-at-home directives have inspired truly moving celebrations of special life events. Unfortunately, these days, the accent is on “moving,” as in not standing still.
That was how Deborah Szekely celebrated her 98th birthday last Sunday.
Szekely became a local lifestyle pioneer in 1940 when she and her husband started the highly regarded fitness and health spa, Rancho La Puerta, just across the border in Tecate. Nearly two decades later, they opened the Golden Door destination spa in Escondido, which grew into a magnet for Hollywood celebrities and VIPS.
But Szekely’s passion and entrepreneurship went beyond healthful eating and fitness. In 2001 she founded the New Americans Museum in San Diego to document and recognize the diversity of immigrants and their contributions to our burgeoning economy and lifestyle.
Following days of flower deliveries last week came the congratulatory phone calls Sunday, climaxed by a Rancho La Puerta-hosted Zoom birthday gathering online of about 24 friends, each offering their birthday reminiscences and thanks for her mentoring and inspirational leadership.
Individual cars started coming early Sunday afternoon (and continued through Tuesday) at spaced intervals, with Szekely, dressed in a purple kimono and wearing a crown of flowers, sitting atop her front steps and presenting edible gifts to the walking parade of masked well-wishers, who spoke to her from a garden bench at the foot of the steps.
When asked how she has been spending her past month sequestered in her Mission Hills home, she told
friends she has been busy planning her 100th birthday celebration to be held at Rancho La Puerta. She realized that it was only two years away and decided she had better get started.
Oh, and Szekely did have a birthday cake, thanks to Michel Malecot at the French Gourmet, which has remained open for takeout. It had just one candle and a memorable message in white chocolate, “Happy Pandemic Birthday.”
On a roll: Retirement parties also have been going mobile.
A cavalcade of more than 100 police cars with lights whirling and sirens blaring, SDPD motorcycles and parking enforcement carts filed past the office of retiring SDPD Lt. Misty Cedrun after her final day at work in late April.
She has spent 25 years with the department, serving as a patrol officer, detective, child abuse investigator, heading the Family Justice Center and, most recently, leading a training and development unit.
The surprise farewell was put together by her colleagues and husband, retired Navy Capt. Mark Cedrun. The thing is, everyone wore masks, making it especially difficult to tell who was who. “We all looked liked armed robbers,” observed masked well-wisher Julie Meier Wright. She noted that Cedrun’s captain had used a ruse to get her outside her building, which is near the airport. “She was completely surprised.”
Another car caravan celebrated the late April retirement of longtime NBC 7 news senior producer
Paul Krueger, who has worked at the station for three decades.
On his Facebook page, Krueger called the parade by his Talmadge area home “a complete, and wonderful, surprise.” He says he looks forward to having free time, freedom to work on special projects and time for volunteer work.
His wife, Meg, and son, Will, joined him amid posters from the parade displayed on his front porch, including the humorous, “Paul, didn’t you retire five