I was decidedly down yesterday. I knew I was having trouble with even thinking about Monday...it's my birthday and it will be the first in 34 years that I won't be sharing with Tom. But I wasn't expecting the mood to show up so early...

A friend was having a...well, what would you call it? A remembrance potluck gathering marking the first anniversary of his wife's death. I almost called him and begged off, but then I figured socializing might help improve my mood. So I went but explained and said if it didn't work, I'd leave rather than dampen anyone else's spirits.

But it worked. Good friends, good conversation, good food... And then late in the afternoon we got singing. A friend who had a stroke five years ago just starting to sing again, and she sang a few. A couple more friends were there -- two guitars and two bazoukis. A woman who had heard me sing Mary Garvey's "Cannery Shed" ("Stella") at one of the Fourth of July gatherings at Demmon's Store in West Nottingham requested it, so I fulfilled her wishes. (And did "Astoria's Bar" a bit later. Thanks, Mary, for some wonderful songs -- I tell everyone who wrote them, where you live, and how similar the fishing industry out in your neck of the woods is to ours here in New England.) After just about everyone left, we moved into the house (from the screened porch) and ended up singing until almost 11. Not bad considering I had planned to leave between 5 and 6...

I think I've finally gotten everything that had to be done by this month done -- wrapped the list up by registering the car and getting it inspected, and then spending an hour and a half on the phone getting enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. (Argh!!!) Now the only things that have deadlines are PMFF stuff. (i.e. "normal" annual deadlines, not all the bureaucratic stuff I've had to accomplish in the past months when I've been least able to cope with all of it.)

Then after that was all done on Thursday, Jeri and I went to see "Maleficent" (not in 3-D or anything). I NEEDED some entertainment (and magic) at that point!

Heading across the river to Maine in a little while to go to see Judy Cook in a house concert in York. And maybe stop at the Weathervane for some calamari on the way home.

Linn