Elena 
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1. Saturday was my birthday. I am now almost, but not quite, in my mid-50s. The mid of the middle. Geez. Not that I had a lot of time to ponder it. Saturday morning the special choir Mr. Pete and I belong to was supposed to sing a memorial service at the exact retirement home where my mom died. It was sponsored by the hospice company that was supposed to help us in mom’s final days – a company that, to my mind, was a complete waste of time and money. So, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going back there. Especially since on my birthday four years ago my mother made a special effort to wish me a happy birthday from her death bed. Nope. I wasn’t going back there to play and listen to songs consoling other people for their losses while I was still feeling mine so acutely – and especially on my birthday. So Mr. Pete went and I went to mass and then to get Noah’s race packet for his 5K instead.
2. I also had a chance to talk to a second cousin of mine from New Mexico This young lady (who seems very sweet on the phone) grew up next door to my father (as next door as you can living in a vast ranch land with many acres between homes). Anyway, she shared with me what it was like to visit my father and all of the good family times they had. Then she told me that my father always spoke so highly of his wife and his daughters and talked about how much we meant to him – it really almost broke my heart. I only saw my father a handful of times growing up. We never went out to visit him. He missed most of the big milestones in my life except for my wedding and the first time I tried to get my new baby to latch onto my breast to nurse (and frankly, that was one of the milestones I really didn’t want my dad around for!) And then in the feebleness of old age and dementia of alcoholism, he allowed everything he ever said would be ours, to be stolen by my EFC. So this news about all of his fondness for me and my mom and sister was kind of hard to listen to – especially on my birthday.
3. But the day had its consolations. Noah played a difficult piece pretty well for his recital.
4.
And then he did an awesome job on his 5K the following day!
5. Mr. Pete and I played a concert on Sunday. This is one of the numbers we did although this particular video is from a different concert a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of my favorites.
6. The other delightful thing that I noticed as my birthday approached was that things aren’t quite feeling right “there.” You moms and menopausal ladies will know what I am referring too. Pushing those big babies out took a toll and now I think my body is literally saying that the foundation is a gonna go! The weird thing is that the feeling like the basement of my pelvis is about to fall out comes and goes. It’s bad for a few days and then I don’t even think about it. But last week when it was getting bad I made an appointment to see my doctor, so I can find out what is really going on. In the meantime I ordered Pfilates, because it seems to make sense, it’s something I can do to help myself, and it was reasonably priced. We’ll see.
7. And as I was cleaning up somethings in my office I came across these two cancelled checks from 1959 that my mom wrote. Even as a young newlywed with very limited income she had the will and the resources to buy books and music!
