One of my favorite writers asked, on FB, when (ignoring the calendar) we felt like the seasons changed. I think she was going for a weather-related feeling, but to me, it is the calendar, and not the official dates. Summer is Memorial Day to Labor Day, duh. Fall… well, undecided whether it goes until Thanksgiving or New Year’s (maybe “Christmas” is its own season). Winter is definitely Jan to… hmmm… when does spring start? April Fool’s Day, maybe.

It’s been a year and a summer since my baby left me, and that gets capped off by our wedding anniversary, August 31. This year was our 9th, and the second one since he left. It continues to piss me off that, although we were together for 27 years, we got less than eight years of marriage. But at least we got that almost-eight years, and as I’ve written before, the wedding and the honeymoon and the marriage were fantastic.

How to celebrate such an event? Well, what we would have done is go out to dinner together to one of our favorite fancy restaurants, or he would have found a new one we hadn’t tried yet. So, a nice idea – but do I go alone, or do I go out with friends? Well, I love my friends, but why would I invite them along on what was always a private and lovely event? So… dinner alone. I waffled about restaurants, but realized one of our favorites was Ai Fiori and I hadn’t been there in a while, and it’s an easy walk from my office.

I spent the day at the office, but did wear my wedding ring, gift ring, and put on a wedding tie before heading over.

• Wedding ring: from Tiffany’s. Ours were identical, and we’d each bought the ring for the other. I thought about trying to wear his too, but he had skinny fingers and I don’t and I couldn’t even put his comfortably on my pinky.
• Gift ring: he had been searching for years for an emerald ring, and I’d promised that when he found one, I’d buy it for him as a wedding present. A lot of our honeymoon (in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean) was spent looking at jewelry, and he found a really nice one where the emeralds alternated with diamonds. We asked if they could build the same ring, but with sapphires, for me – and they did – so our gifts to each other were these almost-identical rings.
• Wedding tie – we wore identical ties at the wedding. We’d found ties at Jos. A. Banks, and I was about to buy them, when C came running up with the purple ones he’d found, better than the ones I’d about to buy.

I’d made an early reservation, but the place filled up around me as the meal progressed. I started with a “Royal Blush” – grey goose vodka, mint, lime, morello cherry, delamotte champagne. The cocktail glass was presented to me with the cherry at the bottom, and the (quite clear) vodka filling up the glass – then they poured the champagne into it, making it froth and mix up. The result:

It was really good (also really expensive). They also presented an ‘amuse bouche’ of a crunchy corn cylinder (basically a Bugle) filled with some sort of corn filling. I made sure to ask whether it was finger food or not (it was).

I actually wasn’t hugely hungry, so I started with the salad (gem lettuce, summer beans, fennel, wild grains), which was delicious. They kept coming around with bread – I had three pieces. Fun note – first, the service was wonderful and very attentive. Second, I was trying to be thoughtful and reflective and not, for instance, read my Kindle, or fool around on the phone, but I did pick up my phone from time to time and every time I started to do something on my phone, a waiter would interrupt me. I suspect they did that deliberately, and bravo to them.

For a main, I had the spaghetti: blue crab, lemon, bottarga, calabrian chili. That was delicious, if a bit heavy with all the buttery stuff. I also had it in my head that if I was still hungry, I could get the octopus appetizer afterward, but I knew I wanted dessert, so by the time the spaghetti was done (I also had a glass of wine after the cocktail, quite nice), I knew that dessert would be probably more than enough.

I had the “bomboloni” (raspberry sugar, vanilla sugar, chocolate fudge), wasn’t quite sure what I’d get. Ended up basically with little doughnut balls, rolled in sugar and presented with two dipping sauces. Really good, but also kind of heavy with the oil after the spaghetti.

During all this, of course, I was enjoying the view of the restaurant and thinking about the many many wonderful meals that C and I shared together in places like this, and how wonderful our wedding was, and our marriage, and our life and how extraordinary it was that I got to have that for half my life. If I took anything away from the grief counseling I had last year, is that grief is all sorts of emotions rolled together, and that it’s perfectly OK to simultaneously acknowledge and appreciate the perpetual sadness and regret that he’s gone, and also enjoy and celebrate our anniversary and not feel guilty about having a good time. This was a terrific way to celebrate, and I’m sure I will do something similar in future years.

I did want cake, at some point, dammit, and thought about going to Milk Bar, but was stuffed enough to just give myself a mental coupon to go get some actual cake later.

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So, where are we? Yesterday was our last summer half-Friday, so back to work for real as the weather gets colder. I’m playing with QUO for their first concert, and the first rehearsal is this Wednesday. (hmm, should probably get my horn out of the case this weekend, huh) I’m assuming I’ll keep playing with QUO barring conflicts. I’ve also been asked to play with the Doctors’ Orchestra in December. They’re doing Mahler 1, and I loooove Mahler 1 – it’s actually the only Mahler symphony I know well. I played it at Peabody, am delighted to get to do it again. What’s nice is that if you commit yourself to playing with one orchestra, that implies the practice time and getting-into-shape stuff, but adding another orchestra or sub rehearsals or show gig on top of that isn’t really more work to get in shape. Sure, maybe a bit more practice, but honestly, most horn parts don’t require a lot of woodshedding.

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My dad’s coming in for a few days, primarily so we can do what we did last year – drive up to Rhode Island for a gathering of his high school classmates. We’ll spend the night and poke around Providence. We’ll also be going to a celebration of life for my friend Marie, who passed away a few weeks ago. That will be in PA, not far from Trenton. I’ll be singing at that, so also need to get my voice in gear.

I’d met Marie very early on after I moved to Philadelphia, when she and I got cast in No Sex Please, We’re British. Also cast – Mark, who became her husband. So became good friends with both of them, played at their wedding and so on. She was a hoot of a human being, larger than life – she never did get to play Mama Rose or Mrs. Lovett, but, boy, did she want to. Marvelous performer, warm, a terrific mom. The last time I saw her was when they came in for C’s funeral, which was tremendously thoughtful of them. RIP, my dear, and thank you.

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It looks like I’ll be able to do another weekend in Provincetown – not for my birthday this time, but a couple of weeks afterward, and am setting that up. Have received an invite for Thanksgiving, so have to plan out fall travel and holidays. And am looking forward to that.

The apartment is now in my name, and if I push things forward, I could resolve the estate by the end of the month. Cross your fingers.

And happy ‘fall’!