9/9/9 - And yes, today is my birthday!

Today wasn't an especially significant birthday for me. But the date was memorable - 9/9/9. Ten years ago I had a 9/9/99 party, which was unusual and memorable. I was doing open mic poetry in Chicago then, so my husband Clinton and I created a performance space in our home. We rented sound equipment and lit it as best we could with the lamps we had. We invited friends, family, co-workers and neighbors to join us that Thursday evening, and they did! We had musicians, a dancer, and lots of poets. We even had featured performers, just like the real open mikes do. When I look back, a lot has changed with some of their lives. Melanie, who hadn't performed in a while before that, has gone back to singing and playing guitar at cafes and folk festivals. Janet did her first public east Indian dance. She went on to perform in full costume as part of a Bharat Natyam dance troupe, then branched off to become her own choreographer, mixing her graphic designer skills in her dance presentations. Shelley (Miller), one of the featured performers, joined me in a duo called Moon Lodge for a couple years, then went on to be part of the faculty at the Old Town School of Folk Music with two CD's, a website, lots of videos on YouTube and a performance schedule of her own. You go, Loud Girl!!!

But some sadness has since happened, too. Connie, who did Native American drumming and led us in singing along that night, has succumbed to a brain tumor. JJ Jameson, who was a lovable curmudgeon of the Chicago poetry scene turned out to be an escaped felon and was returned to prison in the Boston area. (Currently, there are friends from his church trying to get him out on parole and bring him back to Chicago. There's also a documentary out there all about his life called "Killer Poet.")

So here we are again! Another birthday with nothing but "9's" in the date! I had been thinking of what I'd do this time, but finding the energy and money to get the house really cleaned up and fixed up - we have issues - just didn't seem possible, given my crazy schedule. So I got together with friends at lunch - Melanie the singer was one. And for dinner Iwent to Wildfire in Glenview with my husband Clinton, My brother Mike and his gal Kymm. The place was packed and there seemed to be other folks celebrating their birthdays throughout the room. Mike's birthday was Sunday, 9/6/9. So we exchanged gifts, ate too much, drank a bit, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! All our dishes were outstanding, including dessert.

Clinton surprised me with some appropriate gifts. He continued the theme from my last blog entry, which was about seeing the film "Julie & Julia." He dug in the pantry and found my mom's copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. I thought my mom owned it, but I couldn't remember if I had it or not (she died 8/14/99, shortly before my big party). It was exciting to look through her worn copy from 1970. Throughout were clippings of recipes from newspapers, notably from the St. Petersburg Times back in the 80's. That meant she took it with her when she and my dad went off to FL for the winter months. A time capsule. Clinton continued the theme by buying me Julia Child's autobiography, "My Life in France" which looks wonderful - lots of photos.

So how has my life changed in the last ten years? In that time I've been a poet, a singer/songwriter, a novelist, a college teacher, a jewelry designer and a collagist. I still have my full-time job in educational publishing, but it keeps changing, mostly getting more technical and less hands-on. Wish I could find the time to pursue all my creative interests simultaneously, but that will have to wait for retirement, which is now only five years away. My Etsy shop, the galleries where I have my craft work, and the ones I'm trying to get into will help supplement my income in the years ahead. I look forward to more creative adventures, whatever they will be. Maybe I'll get that novel published and bring my compositions together in a CD some day. I finally have ideas for drawings, so I'd like to try my hand at that again soon. I'd better get busy, before I run out of time!