This is Definitely Not 80!

The name of this blog is no longer accurate, I’m afraid. I wish I was “only” 80!

But…THIS IS 89! I just had my birthday on July 7.

Hard for me to believe I’m only one year away from 90…that can’t be right. Amazing.

And it’s even harder to believe that I started this blog almost ten years ago. I have been a way for a while and I don’t know if anyone is actually checking out this site anymore, but I am back and will be hopefully posting on a more regular basis now.

I look forward to telling you what it’s like to be this old and what I’m up to these days. I want to tell you about the art I’m working on now, my health and well-being, my son Frank, and the incredibly fast-changing world we are all struggling to deal with lately.

But first, I would like to tell you about my birthday celebration – or celebrations, that is, with my remarkable family and friends…

Here are some nice shots from a wonderful lunch that I was treated to last week by Barb Sileo and Mary Sileo at the Cherry Creek Grill.

For the third year in a row, they celebrated my special day so generously and fabulously with flowers and a delicious meal out. It could not have been more fun and enjoyable.

It included lots of wine and a decadent dessert (Banana Cream Pie).

P.S. I think it shows great maturity and lack of vanity on my part to include this photo with this goofy old-lady expression on my face.

This is our happy trio outside the restaurant.

Molly fell in love with Mary, loved being in her lap.

Flowers and all. How lucky am I to have such caring friends?

And they were not the only ones that spoiled me on my birthday week…

On the Saturday before my birthday Barbara Dines and I repeated our wonderful new ritual of going to The Populous hotel for cocktails and then on to the Brown Palace hotel to listen to live music! It has become one of my favorite things to do to celebrate with Barbara.

The Populus Hotel is a very cool, very unusual looking “green” hotel that opened in 2023.

It has a great rooftop bar, Stellar Jay, with an open-air deck and incredible views of the city. We go there for drinks and appetizers and then walk a couple blocks to the historic Brown Palace Hotel (which opened in 1892 – 133 years!) to listen to John Kite’s ensemble group of musicians that plays in the Grand Atrium on Friday and Saturday nights. Kite is a pianist who has entertained at the Brown for over three decades and plays a great repertoire of jazz, standards, and show tunes. I also love the saxophone player in his group.

Barbara treated me to the whole night and it was a very special evening.

I still enjoy getting a little dressed up for a night out on the town.

And Frank drove us, making it so easy…

Speaking of Frank… On my birthday, he took me out to breakfast at Snooze and then to The Denver Aquarium! What an experience. I had never been before and it is a really fantastic educational and visual treat, very immersive – they have gone to great lengths to create very specific natural environments for every variety of fish and other specimen on display. The building itself is a marvel, with a cave-like structure and huge tanks on both sides and even above you. It climaxes with an awe-inspiring shark tank and an area where you can pet stingrays and jelly fish. We spent the whole day there and had a great time.