65.
I’ve got my Medicare card, but it still doesn’t seem possible. How could I be that old? I watch some middle-aged couple demonstrating basic ballroom steps on my public TV station and think how much I loved dancing and how much I’d like to get back into that someday.
Someday? How many days for ballroom dancing do I think I have left? And first, I’d have to drop the 20 pounds I put on over the past three years of taking care of my mother and turning to tasty food as my one consistent sensual comfort.
I went out yesterday and had lunch with a couple whom I’ve known snce college, but, as my mom continues to slip away, I’ll have even fewer opportunities than I have now to indulge is freedom and comfort. I have to believe, however, that I will have another life to create for myself when she’s no longer around. She’s already 89. Chances are that I’ll live to at least that age. Hell, Chita Rivera is in her seventies and still going strong on the dance floor. Well, I’d still have to lose at least those 20 extra pounds.
On every birthday since I started blogging in 2002,I’ve posted a photo of myself. I started blogging about the same time my mother began to become more dependent on me. She changed. I changed.

So, I was born on March 11, 1940 at 3:42 a.m. My early birthdays were big parties with lots of friends and relatives. We were a part of a large extended family. Yesterday, my mother unearthed this photo from my seventh birthday:

There will be no party for me today. I’ll take my 92 year old neighbor on our usual Friday grocery run. Maybe I’ll rent a video. Pick up some kind of special dessert.