It was with deep sadness …

It was with deep sadness that I received the call from Rosalie Pratt’s daughter, Sandy Jones, that Rosalie had died. The loss of such a good friend and colleague was staggering, but the thought that she was released from almost constant physical suffering made it easier to bear. And how grateful I was to have had those few days with her last October. I cannot express how much I will miss her. I tried to recapture a bit of our life and travels together, and have written my own eulogy to a most unusual, accomplished, and beloved woman. (click here for file)

I broke my right little toe

I broke my right little toe at the end of October while racing around, looking for the perfect outfit for Barry Hamilton’s and Ruth Klukoff’s wedding in St. Petersburg, Florida. And a most unusual wedding it was! I flew to Tampa with Kit Sailer, and we celebrated along with many other Summit High classmates of Barry’s and daughter Martha’s. I felt as if I’d gone back twenty-five years and was living on Badeau Ave. in Summit, NJ. But this time I was not THE MOTHER. I was just a friend. It was fun swimming in the ocean and sitting on the beach and going for a treasure hunt on the pristine island where the ceremony took place. Ruth’s Zukuki violin students provided the music in a perfect setting of sun, tropical flowers, and palm trees. The food was sensational and it wasn’t until the sun was a red ball on the horizon that we dispersed to continue the party with good conversation and margueritas. Warning: Never drink margueritas before entering a hot tub. They don’t mix!

An added plus from my Florida trip was finding Max Croft, a sensational web designer and professor of digital media at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He is responsible for the design of my site and I shall be forever grateful to him.

Several weeks later I returned to Florida to work with Max and to see Barry and Ruth once again. I also took a side trip to University Park (Sarasota) to see my old friend from music education convention days, Jane Beethoven, and enjoyed her luxurious pad. She’s still working in the field of music and publishing, dividing her time between Florida and Lugano, Switzerland. And she’s as beautiful as ever!

The month of November was spent playing in two Plainfield Symphony concerts and taking in some new shows and musicals to feed my NY theater addiction. If you’re interested, call me. I’ll tell you what to see and what NOT to see. There are some klunkers out there, too. But for $3 audience extra tickets, I can afford to take chances.

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Another celebration.

Another celebration. Daughter Cary came from Whidbey Island, WA, to officiate at her annual gingerbread house making party for neighborhood children, friends and relatives.(click here for pictures) In the evening she showed slides of her recent trip to Dharmasala, India, where she lived and worked with Tibetan refugees. It was a long and very interesting evening. My annual Christmas party. What will we do next year, Cary? No trips have been planned as yet, but I’ve just purchased a beautiful new Canon EOS digital rebel and long lenses, so I may be showing the slides next year. I finally put my film cameras to rest. But they are not forgotten or forsaken.

Cary and I were able to see two shows I highly recommend. “Souvenir,” about the relationship between the out-of-tune singer, Florence Foster Jenkins in the ’30′s and ’40′s, and her accompanist, and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” the funniest show on Broadway. As with so many actors and producers, Norbert Leo Butz, the co-lead with John Lithgow, lives in Maplewood.

The entire family is gathering at Martha’s for Christmas, and I can guarantee fireworks and lots of fun.

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I did a book reading …

I did a book reading and signing at Anne Quarles’s beautiful new home in Islandia, Long Island. What a lively group of women they were! About twenty cheered me on and responded most enthusiastically. I’m forever grateful to Anne for the great dinner and the heart warming response.

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