I decided to take a household inventory of pens. Why? 

Well, Peter believed you can’t have too many pens. He also insisted that they be the kind of pens where the ink smudges and the tops get disconnected, especially when in the pants pocket of the user.

Peter also may have been the largest consumer of yellow legal pads in history.  Every time he had a new thought, he started a new pad.   So, I also have a large inventory of started yellow pads.  I am rather fond of them.

I write on my laptop.  I use a pen to write a check (rarely) and birthday cards (semi-rarely).  I own 82 pens.  Thanks to Peter, it looks like my descendants will never have to buy one.

I have been a widow for four and a half months.  I have trouble getting used to that term. Isn’t “widow” used to describe my mother’s generation?

I’ve made some progress.  Although I am still lonely every day, I get through more days without tears. I still expect Peter to walk in from the next room.  Often, I dream about him.

Here’s what’s better.  I find that rather than relive the difficult final days of Peter’s life, I am thinking more about all the great years we had.  Today I talked (via Facetime) to the person who was the bike mechanic on the first organized bike trip we took.  That was in 1985.  We traveled by bike for the next twenty-five summers. 

Every morning when I put on my wedding ring it feels like we are still connected.

That helps.

My closest buddies in our condo building gather for birthday and other celebrations.  Among us, three women have February birthdays, so we decided to do one event, an afternoon tea, for women only.

A tiny bit of social normal-ness can go a long way during a pandemic.

One member of the group asked the three birthday celebrants to submit a baby picture.  We were each given the photo above at the event. Of course, those of us with February birthdays knew our own picture, but we had a great time discussing who was who and why we thought so.

We had a gorgeous cake, a large tea selection and a fancy table setting. We chatted and laughed like silly teenagers. 

Leaving out the men was a brilliant idea.

P.S.  I’m on the far left.

Today is my birthday.  I am embarking on my last year of being “old”.  When I turn eighty-five in 2023, I will be in a new category called “old-old”.  There is no denying that I am not what I used to be.

On the other hand, I start every day with exercises, including a minimum of thirty pushups, and plenty of stretches.  I walk several miles a week. I lift weights three or four times a week.  I used to tell myself that I had to stay well so I could take care of Peter.  Even without him, I prefer to stay well.

The other day I had a checkup with my breast cancer radiologist.  Among other things, we talked about losing Peter, and when he asked how I was doing, I told him that I am sad, but doing well.

He replied, “You’ll be fine.  You are a strong woman.”

Let’s hope he’s right.

From time to time, I do some downsizing.  My goal is to make it easier for our children to deal with our “stuff” one day.  I’ve done a pretty good job.  For example, I am now down to five tablecloths, still a lot for someone who rarely uses one.

This week I tried to downsize my pile of Mother’s Day cards.  I’ve been a mother for almost fifty-one years and the kids never forget to send one.

In the pile was a birthday card I got from Jeremy on his birthday. The message, “Happy My Birthday”.  At the time, he had been a father for about a year.  He wanted me to know that now that he is a father, he understands how much “work” children are and therefore thought he would thank me on his birthday for having him.

When cards are from your children, downsizing just doesn’t work.

My car is garage-less.  Most of the time that’s OK.  With advance warning of a snowstorm, I cover the windshield with a tarp.  Except when I forget.

The windshield was uncovered this past weekend when we had a doozy of an ice storm. On Sunday during prime sun time, I spent 45 minutes scraping my windshield with the defroster running. I was reminded of an old song, sung by Dinah Shore.  “…Oh a house is just a house without a man—he’s the necessary evil in your plan…” (https://bit.ly/3LelRQ1) I couldn’t get the song out of my head.

Having to scrape ice off a windshield by myself is just one of a million reasons I miss having my man around the house.

Why am I always behind in my reading?

I read for my classes.  I get the newspaper delivered because I can’t imagine breakfast without it. I read for pleasure, and just finished The Love Songs of W.E.B.Dubois at 790 pages.

And then there are the subscriptions…

Peter and I have subscribed to The New Yorker forever, to Gourmet until it stopped publishing, to Boston Magazine, the Scientific American and The Economist.

The last two were for Peter, and although it is almost four months since he passed away, the magazines still come. I used to look at The Economist occasionally, but never opened the Scientific American.  Now, I read and like both.  (I can still hear my boyfriend of sixty years ago saying, “Waste not, want not."

As I said, I’m always behind in my reading.

Last Saturday, Massachusetts had a snowstorm that everyone was comparing to the blizzard of 1978.  Our boys were six and eight for that one, and we were without power for a few days, bringing milk home on sleds because we were forbidden to drive unless we were doctors. Whoever had food would share it with neighbors.  It was a memorable adventure.

With some Covid and transportation anxiety, a friend and I decided that we wouldn’t let Saturday’s blizzard stop us from attending a concert we had tickets for Sunday afternoon at Symphony Hall.  We would go by subway with fresh N-95 face masks, stay in our seats for intermission, etc. 

The concert was superb, and we were feeling very content with our decision. Our good luck continued as we had no wait for the subway.  But there was a huge crowd at the station where we changed trains for Cambridge.  And no trains. 

It seems that all was stopped because there was “a person on the tracks under a train” at Harvard Square.  We thought of walking (too long) or calling a friend to come get us (too presumptuous) so we joined the crowd at a corner to wait for a collection of buses that eventually scooped us up, and took us on a very circuitous route to Harvard Square.

Despite a great deal of effort, we never found out what happened to the person under the train in the Harvard Square station.

I love my plants.  When we relocated to Washington, DC in 2017, the movers told us that it was illegal for them to move plants across state lines.  So, my favorite fern moved to DC in the back seat of our car.

It did fine when we came back to Cambridge until we moved to a corner apartment with verrrry cold winter windows. Too late, I realized the plant was suffering.

I moved it away from the cold corner.  I apologized to it daily.  I cut back the dead fronds and added some fresh organic soil.  And while examining it on Saturday, I spied two new green heads peeking out of the soil.

I’ve set aside a corner of the apartment for plant urgent care.  In it now are a very sad basil plant that still smells wonderful, despite its minute leaves and a post-blooming orchid that might just possibly come back.

And we thought raising children was hard…

I love my plants.  When we relocated to Washington, DC in 2017, the movers told us that it was illegal for them to move plants across state lines.  So, my favorite fern moved to DC in the back seat of our car.

It did fine when we came back to Cambridge until we moved to a corner apartment with verrrry cold winter windows. Too late, I realized the plant was suffering.

I moved it away from the cold corner.  I apologized to it daily.  I cut back the dead fronds and added some fresh organic soil.  And while examining it on Saturday, I spied two new green heads peeking out of the soil.

I’ve set aside a corner of the apartment for plant urgent care.  In it now are a very sad basil plant that still smells wonderful, despite its minute leaves and a post-blooming orchid that might just possibly come back.

And we thought raising children was hard…