One From the Heart

David's 75th Birthday

 I am writing this on the 17^th of March 2015—my 74^th birthday.  Good wishes are coming in from Facebook friends and others.

I received some actual cards; here they are on my mantel with a gift of roses.  The greetings are from four people who represent  215 years of friendship.

I have a date later to have dinner with my daughter, my son-in-law, and my four grandchildren.  I will take some pictures and post them here if I can once with this blog is published.

I told the plumbers who came to install a new radiator in my dining room today that it was a birthday present. They said they had never delivered a birthday gift before.

Some of today’s chance occurrences  gave my birthday a special significance, especially since the past year has not been without its challenges.

The words  “time” and “remember” kept coming up.

When I went down into the subway stop at 79^th Street and Broadway after an appointment this morning, I saw something I had never seen there before.  Here is a little snippet.  (I kept it short because I know that Blogger won’t let me upload more than a few seconds of film.)

After that, the words of that song played over and over in my head all the way home.  They are so emblematic of my marriage with my David.   Here is the whole song, sung by the incomparable Tony Bennett at the age of 78—the age David is now:

On the way from the subway to my front door, I passed the flower shop on my block.  They put out blossoms for people going by and have a signboard with quotes that change every day.  Here is what it said when I walked by with those song lyrics in my head.

When I sat down at the keyboard to write this blog, I had a plan for what I thought I would write.  But my experiences up till that moment had been pretty powerful and those, in conjunction with what happened next, made me jettison my previous idea.

I always play music while I am working at the computer.  I have a peripheral drive with literally tens of thousands of songs on it.  I play them on shuffle, so I never know what is coming next.  The first one to come up today was “Time Heals Everything,” from the Broadway show Mack and Mabel, which debuted the year David and I were married—1974.   Here it is sung by Bernadette Peters:

I hope you don't find this too sentimental.  I am a sentimental person.  And today, a random series of events told me that this is what I had to say.

Annamaria Alfieri

I Lost my Mind in Savannah

We have been traveling, Harold and I. I didn't tell you I was on the road because that's one of the things I don't feel comfortable revealing on the World Wide Web, like my birthday, or my Social Security number, or the number of my bank account. It just doesn't seem sensible, even though the gun club meets at my house when I'm gone, and my son checks in twice daily to feed and exercise the Rottweilers. You hear stories, is all I'm saying. Bad things happen. So I kept mum. You may have noticed that I had some trouble getting on the internet while I was gone.

We left a couple of Sunday mornings ago with an actual itinerary, more or less: most importantly to see beloved relatives in Florida and Mississippi, but first to spend a night in Savannah. I visited Savannah with my sister and her cat, years ago, and we had such a good time there that I wanted to show Harold the city. So we blasted out of the house and down Route 29 at the crack of dawn. As usual I began to think about the things I was supposed to have brought with me and might have left behind. First thing I recalled was the camera, still hanging on its peg in the closet. Never mind. I had my new smartphone. I would take pictures with that.

Toothbrush? Yes. Sunscreen? You bet. Underwear enough for two weeks. It wasn't until the following day,  as we were crossing the bridge to Savannah, that I remembered the email from Hotels.com confirming the prepaid reservation I'd made at the boutique hotel where my sister and I had stayed. In my mind's eye I could see the reservation confirmation clearly, still sitting in the printer at home. Not, alas, clearly enough to read it.

I don't know what you do when you panic. What I do is forget proper names, as for instance the names of hotels, streets, and acquaintances, and then after that I start on ordinary nouns. "Where is this hotel?" Harold said. "What is the name of it?"

"I can't remember. But I know where it is. It's right down on the street by the river. It's an old cotton warehouse."

"What's the name of the street?"

"I'll know it when I see it," I said.

River Street Inn

For some reason he didn't trust me on this. "I'll just stop at the visitor's bureau. They'll have a map and the names of some likely hotels." Moments later he came out of the visitor's bureau with a handful of brochures and a map of Savannah. "The River Street Inn," he said. "That must be it. An old cotton warehouse."

"No, I don't think so," I said. "It doesn't sound right. Just drive." He began to look uneasy.

On our way to the street down by the river (East Bay Street, in case you ever need to know) we passed a Starbucks and some other things. Then up and down East Bay Street until I saw it, the same hotel where my sister and I and her cat had stayed, the East Bay Inn. An old cotton warehouse, brick, with tall windows and a parking lot around to the side. We parked the car and went in.

We had no reservation there.

I had reserved us a room in some similar hotel by mistake, and paid for it, and now we had no idea where it might be.

The desk clerk was charming, warm, and helpful. "You can use our computer in the lobby, if that will help," she said. I sat down at it and poked the keys. No good. I couldn't figure out what to do at that point. I was now in full panic mode and terrified of going crazy in front of Harold. You know how it is. It's bad to alarm your significant other.

But, wait. What I needed was to get back on my own email on my own laptop. "Let's go to Starbucks," I said. So we stashed the car in a nearby parking garage, took my laptop and retraced our steps to Starbucks, stopping three or four times to ask directions of kindly passers-by. With a good, stiff drink of java under my belt my faculties began to return, and by the time I booted my email client I realized that I didn't even need an internet connection. The email from Hotels.com was right there in front of me on my laptop. "The River Street Inn," I said.

Harold did not say "I told you so," bless his heart. As nice as the East Bay Inn was, the River Street Inn was even nicer, with a view from our room of the boats on the river. They wanted us to park the car in the very garage where we had left it. We went on to have a wonderful time in Savannah. So all's well that ends well.

So far so good. Am I going to do that again? Don't know. I'll just have to take very good notes from now on.

Kate Gallison