That would be me, mes amies. I not only passed my heart scan, I totally aced it! Zero hardened plaque in my coronary arteries. I was amazed, frankly, but thrilled. All three of us, Mary, PJ, and I left the Heart Hospital with good reports. So how did we celebrate? Lunch, of course! And at my new favorite French restaurant, where the ambiance reminds me so much of Paris. The most important thing about the heart scan is that I now have more peace of mind about the whole dying young like my mom thing–probably dumb because I could drop over dead tomorrow. The heart scan is no guarantee that…

I got a note from my friend Donna today. We met when I rented her Paris apartment two years ago and I knew immediately she was a kindred spirit. We’ve kept in touch, a note here, an email there. We’ve talked on the phone, and I visited her last time I was in Washington, DC. Whenever I hear from her, I think about my time in Paris. What an incredible experience Paris was for me–a dream come true. I’d wanted to go to Paris since I was about ten years old and found a little packet of old photos of the City of Lights in an antiques store in Michigan.…

Today is my birthday. I’m turning 58. My mother died of a massive and unexpected heart attack at the age of 60. My greatest fear is dying the same way, but covered in spiders. I’m kidding about the spiders, although I do have terrible arachnophobia. I’m not joking about the heart attack fear. My sensible self smacks me regularly when this fear manifests. My mother was a good woman, but she was overweight, smoked (and not just tobacco), played around with hallucinogens, never exercised, ate whatever she wanted to eat, and was a non-compliant diabetic who hated going to the doctor. I am overweight, but I’ve never smoked anything, I’ve…

In 1982, when my Great-Aunt Alice died, the few personal belongings she had in the nursing home came to me. Among them were a couple of pieces of jewelry, a photo album and some larger loose photos, her art portfolio from when she was drawing in the 1940s and 50s, and her father’s collection of writings. Her father was a writer and a sports reporter in Chicago during the post-Civil War days through the late 1800s. The story of her father and mother I’ll save for another blog, but I’ll tease you with this: His writings included several semi-pornographic poems circa 1877.  Yup, there’s really nothing new under the sun,…

This summer I’ve been wrangling with my sisters, PJ and Kate, over coffee. They claim that I don’t know how to make a decent cup of coffee–my coffee is “weak and bland.” I argue that when they make coffee it tastes like something dredged from the bottom of the Mississippi River. When we were on our wine-tasting trip in California last month, I woke up early on the first morning, so I made the coffee. They each poured a cup, doctored it with (ewww!) Italian sweet cream creamer, and promptly whined on the first sip. “Nan, your coffee sucks!” or “You do not know how to make decent coffee, sister!”…

No, not the movie from 2001. I’m talking about the song from 1960 by Ben E. King and the Drifters. I just heard that song on the car radio yesterday. Wow…how can you beat that music? I was a little girl when “Save the Last Dance” came out, but some of my clearest childhood memories are of hot summer days in the 1960s, spent playing in our front yard while my big sister had the radio on at full volume. I can still smell the Sea & Ski suntan lotion and see PJ and her friend lounging on the porch. Music, a chatty DJ, and ads for Rambler automobiles, Pepsi…