Turning 73

It has just turned midnight and I am 73.  This week is so busy I don't have much time to think about being another year older (fortunately not deeper in debt).

The day is going to be very busy, with lunch with my friend Kathy, doing battle with the DMV and then at night Walt is doing his "Citizens who care" visit, spending time with a housebound friend so his wife and have the night off.  There won't be any birthday celebration, but we plan to go out to dinner after I get off work at Logos on Thursday.

Friday I'm sharing a birthday lunch with our Brasilian daughter Sonia, there are 2 shows this weekend, and at some point we are having a birthday dinner with Ned, Marta, and our Mexican daughter at her restaurant.  It's her birthday this month too.

So this is more like a birthday festival, marching into next week which ends with Walt's birthday, a weekend when we have 3 shows to review and can't really do anything official to celebrate.

But that's how it is when you pass 70, I guess!  I'm more worried about when I'm going to fit in a visit with my mother to pick up her dirty laundry!

I drove down to Char's today so we could go to another book club meeting.  We were discussing the book, "Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Krueger, which I remember enjoying but read such a long time ago (and 3 books since then) that I was having a difficult time remembering the story in order to discuss it.

Char is in the middle of cleaning out her house in preparation to downsizing and moving next month.  It is feeling somewhat cavernous and when she gave me a tour of the rooms she and her kids have emptied, it made me realize what a humongous job we have ahead of us, downsizing this place.  While we are not the hoarders you see on TV, we do have an overabundance of "stuff," some of which needs carbon dating.  It's one of those tasks so humongous you don't have a clue where to start, so its best to put it off for another day.  Or year.

When I got home, Walt said that Kaiser had called.  As I suspected, despite reassurances from both the person I spoke with on the phone and the secretary who took my DMV form, my doctor had to send it to Sacramento.  They promised to send it by courier today, which means there is no way I will l have it in time for my DMV appointment tomorrow at 3:20.

HOWEVER, there is hope.

I also had a message from Kathy, with whom I am lunching tomorrow.  She is having work done at her house and asks if it might be possible for us to return to the Olive Garden, our old stomping grounds (5 minutes from her house), instead of eating in Davis.

This pleases me on two counts -- first, it gives me longer to listen to my audio book, but second, Olive Garden is two blocks from Kaiser, where my paperwork should be sitting right now.  What are the chances that I can find the paper work and get it back to Davis in time to keep my DMV appointment?

Wouldn't THAT be a lovely birthday gift?

I still can't get my license tomorrow because there is still that mandatory behind-the-wheel test I am required to take, for which I can't make an appointment until I pass the written part of the exam.  But I can at least get a month extension for my license, 'cause you just know that if the license expires, I will be stopped by a police officer, even though it has been decades since I've been stopped the last time!

So everybody send good thoughts, light candles, burn incense and hope that I will somehow miraculously make this DMV thing work tomorrow...and that I pass the written test, which I am also stressing about.