HAPPY 53RD BIRTHDAY!  Okay so Friday and Saturday sucked and I was blue both days and just wanted to crawl under the covers but today was good.  Church (boring) breakfast (good) then home to play with the NYC.gov finance department website and Zillow and look for house values etc.  Got lots of birthday telephone calls today - and made one call to my friend Maud in Sweden (hi Maud!).  She sent me the loveliest knitted scarf - she knitted it herself - and so I had to call her and thank her.

In case you don’t know, Maud lives in Sweden and she and I have been pen pals since 8th grade.  We “met” in November 1970 and over the years have kept up a correspondence.  We’ve never actually met face-to-face but we’ve kept in touch - sometimes more frequently than others - and it’s really quite exciting to have such a long-term friend.  She and her husband have a beautiful family that just got bigger with their daughter marrying this summer (I shouldn’t be blogging this since this isn’t my news - Maud I hope you don’t mind).

Then I went to my parents and went to dinner with them.  Now I have to tell you about the restaurant.  The food was good.  Everything was good but I have to tell you what impressed me the most.  As we walked up the restaurant, I opened the outer door to let my parents in.  The owner? manager? opened the inside door and could see that my mother was having difficulty seeing since it was so dark compared to outside.  He held the door, told her there were no steps and just sort of very gently and kindly guided her so she wouldn’t stumble.  Then he had one of the waiters escort her to our table.  That was a very nice thing to do.  There was nothing condescending or enfeebling about how he did it; it was just done in a purely gentlemanly way. 

Then I came home and got more calls.

Yay for being 53!