Another Birthday on a bad day...

So one more year has gone by and we are in 5772 if one is Jewish, 2010 if christian, but what if one is neither, nor really much of anything and was born on the dreadful day for 3,000 in New York City? My 9/11 birthday has come and almost gone. I probably should say 'my birthday weekend' for I have had a great one. On Friday my dear little Elvira arrived with an enormous box of lovely huge strawberries as a birthday present (she knows how much I love strawberries... just like my Daddy), then Colin arrived with birthday cake (carrot cake, another favorite), so we had coffee and cake after the strawberries. Then on Saturday, my dear little Ana arrived with a bouquet of pink ruffled roses (one still shows the teeth marks of Sylvia Katt, who had it in her mouth about to bite it off when I arrived to shout "STOP THAT" at her). I will have to find a spot she cannot jump to if I want to see them all in good shape tomorrow. My gals are very good to me and I love them dearly. I even had a note from Jack from Brookings, Oregon... and a lovely one from Al, also in Oregon... one of the better corespondents I have ever known... always an answer to whatever foolish note he has received from me.

Then today I had about a two hour phone conversation with son Mark and the kidlets. I am so proud of all of them. Mark is a wonderful son, husband and father, married to a beautiful wife, who is also a great mother to the kidlets. And what can I say about the kidlets... not only a beautiful bunch of children, those three, but also very bright and adorable. Callie has taken the tests for the school she wants to attend for high school and has come out as one of the top two percentile in the country... but then, we all knew she was. She is far ahead of most of the children in her grade in school and now will get extra classes to keep her interested. Bella also is getting all A's in school and devoted to her dance troop, where she is doing extremely well. Charlie is now 4, although he looks more like a 5 or 6 year old... and as busy and funny as ever. They all sang Happy Birthday to me as an opening today... so darling! What a great family I have... how lucky I am... and busy, as I go Tuesday to read with my poetry group in the Yerba Buena Gardens down at Fourth and Mission. A lovely setting to perform with my San Francisco poetry family.

Now I shall close, make sure Sylvia is settled down away from my bouquet, and I shall settle down myself. I had a great birthday weekend... life is good. Love to all..............

To Add Humor to Injury....

Have to add this little bit: The last time I went to the E.R. at Davies (I broke my nose on my 'office' chair with steel feet and cracked two ribs), the dear little doctor who took care of me, sewed up the nose gash and told me they can't do anything for a cracked rib but tell you not to laugh or cough, was named David Crockett. Hurt my ribs to laugh, he was right. Since I had forgotten to bring a friends phone number to get picked up, he gave me a sleeping pill and put me in an empty room.

This time, I just sprained the right foot (they think... as usual), but I got my Percoset to keep down the pain... and took a cab home alone. As I looked at the prescription today when I was sending Anstasia over to Walgreen's, I finally found the name of the doctor who took care of me and wrote the prescription -- He is named Leif Eriksen. OK... so he is probably Danish (ends in 'sen'), but that's a pretty good pair of ER doctors to have... right? Next, Christopher Columbus?

Coincidence is ME, or perhaps US -- my sister Betty Rae's birthday is D-Day, my son Mark's is the day that JFK was shot, and mine... lovely day: 9/11.