It has been about a year since the psychiatrist and I had an amicable separation. He found a new transcriptionist and I entered blissful, if non-profitable, retirement from 30+ years of doing his transcription.
Amazingly, I don't think our paths have crossed in all that time, which is strange, since we often travel in the same circles.
Today, we both attended the same party.
He told me how much he missed "all my good work" (conveniently forgetting what a flake I was the last year I worked for him). I told him that I had to honestly admit that I didn't miss it one bit.
But it was lovely to see him (and his wife). Since we last parted, one of their kids has had a new baby and another one is expecting their second child in April. I told him about our impending new addition to the family and the trip Jeri and I are taking to France and Italy next year.
It was so incredibly nice to stand there talking with him without a huge cloud of guilt hanging over my head as I thought about how much undone work was sitting at home and wondering if he was going to ask me about it! He's a lovely man and I like him even better now that I don't have to meet his deadlines.
I'm even going to (I think) write a story for the newspaper about the musical group with which he has played for years. My editor and I discussed this several months ago and tabled the idea until the spring, when they will be playing outdoors frequently. Now that is going to be a fun article to write!
The party we attended was for a woman celebrating her 75th birthday. We've known her and her husband most of the time we've been in Davis, though we seldom see them more than once or twice a year (if that).
Pat is a wonderful woman who has had a major impact on this city, a "selfless" (as someone described her), self-effacing person whom I always hear apologizing because she hasn't done "more" for some particular cause or event or person, when, in fact, she has done so much.
In addition to being a founding member of the Davis Comic Opera Company, she was also a major force in starting Citizens Who Care, which provides support services for county older adults and their caregivers. You might want to check the group's web site. It looks very professional now, but I remember when it was just a germ of an idea that Pat and a couple of other people had.
I could go on and on and on about all the things Pat has been involved in, which also includes gourmet cooking and gardening, yet I never once visited her when she didn't apologize for something she felt she didn't quite do right.
As person after person got up to the microphone to talk about the impact Pat had on their lives, I thought how wonderful it would be to live that long and have this kind of a celebration. I know of very few people (myself included) who could.
I looked around the room today and saw some of the luminaries of this town, including a couple of former mayors and a County Supervisor. A good friend had left Dublin that morning (Dublin time) and hoped to get to the party in time, but she had not arrived by the time we left.
Walt and I gravitated to the table that was filled with people from the now defunct Davis Comic Opera Company, who are probably our closest friends in Davis (the honoree and her husband were founding members of the company). It was nice to sit together with this group because we see them so rarely now that there is no more DCOC. One guy with whom we used to socialize on a regular basis, and who is one of my favorite people around here, I realized I had not seen in over a year. We keep missing each other at events.
Now that we're all getting so old, we don't seem to do evening parties any more, so this one started at 2 and we were home in time for dinner.
But it was a lovely tribute to a lovely lady and I felt very honored to be among the invited guests.
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