February 29, 2024
This is a (totally inadequate) THANK YOU to my many friends, loved ones, acquaintances, blog-followers. book fans, and others who sent me birthday greetings on my Facebook Timeline yesterday. I haven’t even had time to read them through properly yet, but I just want you and the world to learn how touched I am by your birthday wishes. Some of you, I’m sorry to say, I don’t even really “know” and some of you I’ve only admired from afar for years, not dreaming that you knew of me at all! Wow!
Also, I wish to give a special shout-out — and on behalf of all my writer friends — to those of you who mentioned my articles and columns in the paper, my blogs, or even my books. For those of us who never expect NYT Best Seller status but write because we are passionate about our subject no matter how limited the readership, it is so lovely to get feed-back now and then. I honestly have little idea whether anyone reads my “words of wisdom” and I loved the affirmation from some of you!
As for my Big Piano Key Day — I spent it almost exactly as intended. I didn’t want to do anything but hole up in my office and write, surfacing now and then for refills on coffee and for a bit of food. In my excitement at this rare opportunity, I even forgot to put out the garbage (oh well!) but I did take phone calls and text messages — mainly because a friend had been taken to Portland in the wee hours yesterday and was undergoing open heart surgery for most of the morning. The updates were infrequent but I didn’t want to miss any and the latest news is that she came through with flying colors.
In answering the phone, however, I scored many other birthday greetings — at least four of them in song from musician friends in Oregon, Washington and Arizona! What a delight! One call was from Tucker who asked if he could come over
for just a minute. He sounded stressed and I was concerned about Carol who has been laying low with a cold, so I said,
“Sure.” He dashed between the raindrops bearing a dozen long-stemmed red roses, a birthday-frosted cupcake with a special candle, a lighter-gizmo for said candle, and a handmade card! AND he was apologetic about the flowers because he had had to choose them, Carol being a bit out of commission. OMG! I was so touched. Plus he took a picture — several of them at my insistence — after all I hadn’t even taken time to wash my face, let alone put on a bit of makeup all day!
But I did accomplish some writing tasks that were important to me and so the day was super-successful. It wasn’t until my “Zoom Birthday Party” with Charlie and Marta last evening that I was aware of all the Facebook greetings. “Mom, do you know that you have over 90 birthday greetings on your timeline?” Charlie asked. And this morning when I finally took a look, the number was 100! Gobsmacked is all I can say! Gobsmacked and Thank You All!