Happy 4th of July, Everybody!

It’s been an interesting time since I was last here on the blog!

Here are a couple of things:

I came to the sudden decision that I was going to give ALL the cats (except my own and Little Blackie, and Billie Jo, who’s missing her 2 back feet) to the Animal Shelter for adoption. I wanted my life back.
After about a day of thinking this, I decided I’m only taking them to the Shelter to get low-cost spay/neutering. That there’s no way most of these cats will ever get adopted because they are too old now (people tend to want to adopt kittens) and the thought of them living in cages indefinitely broke my heart. (Out here in the Hinterlands there are TONS of cats. In fact, I know of 2 other women here in the village that also have 16 cats. I find this astounding. And they both seem completely okay with having so many cats.)

Anyway. The cats consider this their home — especially the fosters, who have been here well over a year — closer to two. They are so happy to no longer be living in a car. They are really happy, loving cats.

So I will figure out how to have a life (not the old one I used to have) but a life, nevertheless!

You know, when I used to take care of that 99-year-old blind lady — she had 3 very large Labrador Retrievers and 2 cats. Her doctor told her that taking care of all of those pets was keeping her mentally sharp and emotionally involved.

So maybe that’s why all these many cats found their ways to me — to help me, well, not “stay young” but mentally engaged for years to come! We shall see! (I mean, this is aside from the fact that I ADORE all of them.)

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Okay. The other cool thing!

I finally got a chance to chat on the phone with my birth mom. It had been a while since we actually spoke on the phone (Christmas) — just texts and greeting cars, etc.

She said she was just on her way out to Walgreens to buy me a birthday card. So I said–

ME: “Do you know how old I’m gonna be???”

SHE: “No… not really…”

ME: “65!!! I started Medicare on July 1st.”

Dead silence.

Then —

SHE: “Shit. I can’t believe it. Are you serious? You’re 65?”

So it was kind of nice to share that feeling of utter disbelief with my own mother. You know, the fact that BOTH of us are now really old…

Me and Cherie in a bar in Jackson, Ohio, 40 years ago…

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Tomorrow!!

Nick Cave and Colin Greenwood! The tour resumes in Paris. 2 sold out shows, back-to-back.

There are still tickets available for an upcoming show in Italy on July 16th. You can buy tickets here.

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Also!

The other day, I was trying to find the password for my WIFI router. I searched through all my desk drawers trying to find it, but what I found instead were about 10 years of my life that I had sort of forgotten about.

Notes from my dad. Tons of Christmas and birthday cards from family, friends, a few from people whose names I no longer even recognize.

Many pages of notes from when I studied basic Greek; and from when I studied Galilean Aramaic (similar to Hebrew — it’s the language Jesus of Nazareth spoke); and TONS of notes from various French lessons. Yes. The French never stops. But what is curious is that I used to know LOTS more conversational French than I remember now, even though I still study a little bit of French every morning… It’s insane.

It was also kind of heartbreaking, going through these desk drawers — this feeling that I’m losing track of most of what has been my life.

But then, yesterday, I was with my favorite client who is back from Florida and she said something remarkably similar (at age 88), about how we can’t go back and re-live our lives, and we’ve already lived most of what we intended to experience, and we can’t know what the remaining future is bringing.

It really sums out how I feel these days. She and I had a good talk about all that and I felt a little better about things, in general.

I’m working a double today — yes, 2 shifts on a National Holiday. (heavy, heavy sigh.) And tonight I will be with her again. It’s the last time she’s on my schedule for the rest of the summer!!

I’m not going to tell her that, because I don’t want to disappoint her. But if they ask me to take any last minute shifts with her this summer, I certainly will. We’ll just see how it plays out, gang.

I can’t stress enough how, being with her, just never feels like work. We talk for hours about the most amazing stuff and the time just flies.

Anyway.

The trip to NYC is looming large! I leave for the airport Sunday morning. AND– as luck would have it, I will be alone in the hotel until Monday.

Aaarrrghh….

Sandra wasn’t able to get a train ticket between Rhinebeck and Manhattan because all the trains were sold out!! Holiday weekend!!

Darn it. So, we’ll see how it goes. I’ll have an afternoon and an evening all to myself in a neighborhood that I used to know very well (just off of Columbus Circle). I will probably get too nostalgic, but that’s just me, I guess. No escaping it.

This is how Columbus Circle looked back in the 1980s:

In the 1980s, I worked for Ralph Ginzburg’s publishing company. The offices were about one block from Columbus Circle. I often spent my lunch hour roaming around the neighborhood. (If you don’t know NYC, this area is also really close to Central Park.)

Ralph Ginzburg was a great man to work for. I really, really liked him.

He was the last US citizen to serve time in a federal prison for publishing/selling pornographic literature. (The actual charge was using the US Mail to ship obscene materials — even erotica was illegal back then.)

Anyway. I have tons of great memories from that neighborhood. I was also doing my singer-songwriting thing in the West Village back then, in the evenings and on the weekends. It was a huge part of my life when I worked for Ralph. So this area I’ll be staying in will be just FULL of so many memories, and I will be all by myself for one day/night.

Needless to say, I will post to the blog from my phone while I’m in NYC.

Me, in NYC, during the time I worked for Ralph, in the mid-1980s — and, btw, he was VERY supportive of my songwriting. He and his wife both thought I was a great songwriter:

And here’s a popular song of mine from that era:

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Okay. I better scoot or I’m gonna be late. I’m seeing my favorite 94-year-old Japanese man today! It’s sushi and sashimi time! Assuming the Peony Bistro is open on the holiday!