SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL

For the past three days I've felt like I've been in a bottle of soda and someone has shaken me to the point of nearly exploding.  Like every nerve is twitching and the essential tremor I've had for a number years is over taking me.  Soon people will think I have Parkinsons Disease.  (I don't).  We (my hospice nurse) and I think it's one of the meds that I'm on.  I just really hope we can get this stablized soon.

Today is a gorgeous day outside (June 27).  Twenty seven years ago I did something that Time Magazine said was nearly impossible for someone my age to do.  In fact they wrote that if you were a single woman over a certain age, you had a better chance of being struck by lightening or captured by a terrorist.  Well I fooled them.  I got married at the ripe old age of 49, on a day just like this - outside at a gorgeous county estate.  It truly was beautiful - the wedding and the day.  The marriage?  Well, let's just say the wedding was the best part.  But it wasn't all bad. My husband, Michael has been gone for thirteen years and after picking up the pieces of our life together I've moved on to a lovely house in the town where I grew up and couldn't wait to get away from when I got out of high school.  Don't believe that you can't go home again.  I did and I love being here.

I do miss some of the things about living in the D.C. area and I miss my friends, most of whom have also moved away.  D.C is a place for the young movers and shakers.  When I lived there I was in my late 20's and 30's.  I worked at Georgetown University and lived in Georgetown, which was a great place to be in the 70's.  That was also the time of Watergate and the Viet Nam protests and I was in the middle of it all!  In fact, at one point it got so wild I couldn't drive from my apartment to the university because all the streets were blocked, manhole covers were being thrown around like frisbees and there were armed policemen on every corner.  After realizing I'd never get there I managed to get back to my apartment building, ran into the lobby to use the payphone (no cells back then) to call the library and got back outside to my car, it had been moved across Q Street facing the wrong direction and all four tires had been flattened.  I honestly don't remember how I managed to get the car fixed, but I did and I fled to a friend's home in Bethesda to get away from the madness.  I remember feeling like a refugee (not that I have any idea what that feels like).  

Just another one of the chapters in this rather illustrious life I've had.  I should write a book.  Oh wait, I started one didn't I?  See with me it's not the getting started, it's the finishing that's the problem.  And when I really think about it, that pretty much sums up how I lived my life.  Start things, get all excited, get everyone I know pumped up about it and then sort of just let it fizzle out.  Why?  The only things I ever finished were the plays I was in.  I loved every thing about the theater; the auditions, the rehearsals, the performances, the reviews, the after parties.  I loved it all, never even occurred to me to drop out once I was cast - even if I wasn't wild about the part.  I did melodramas, Shakespeare, Neil Simon, children's theater, restoration comedy and did a couple improvisational workshops.  Oh the glory days!  The last thing I did was a workshop at the Orange County Playhouse in CA.  We did a showcase in Hollywood.  Unfortunately, no one bought my act.  Oh well, it was fun.
And I can say I went to Hollywood!

Now that my final act has begun, I have lots of time to look back and reflect on the things I've done, places I've lived and friends I have.  I'd say it's been a pretty good ride and one that hopefully has a few more miles on it.  Let's roll!

Stay tuned.