KEEP ON SWINGING

It's been a year, folks. One year this weekend. One year since I actually cancelled patients (oh my god Loss of income, big irritation to patients, lots of rescheduling, something I never do)....to meet this "Island Man" named Alan. With one "L". And he was late due to traffic. And he was tall, due to genetics. And I was so nervous I still don't remember one word I said. What's to say? "Hi, I'm Kay, I love hot dogs and Tolstoy and Woody Allen and I'd rather read books than travel and I'm only slightly koo-koo and I'm always thinking about the worst that could happen and I'd love to see you with your shirt off......." ???? !!!!

Oh, God. Those Match.com things are SO difficult. I don't have any idea what he said, either. He'd worked for the state in energy for twenty-four years but I thought he told me he'd worked in salmon.I went around telling everybody he worked in salmon. He was sixty-five, near sixty-six. I was sixty-four, never sixty-five.

At lunch's end, he bent down to kiss me and I blushed and he said, "Oh, look at you! You blushed! Just like a little furry thing!"

I had to get back to see a four o'clock patient. But I couldn't find my car.

We've seen each other every single weekend since. Every. Single. Weekend. Since.

In June of this year, we became spiritually tied to each other (married) and we wear rings on our wedding hands. They are like us. Beautiful. Well, handsome and beautiful. Anyway, this picture is taken not long ago at the Sawatdy Thai which is the first the first middle-of-the first-weekend restaurant we ever frequented. Something about spice.

The above picture was taken in my oldest daughter Kelly's yard. Alan had a conference nearby and off we flew. Kelly, whom I raised from the time she was...ten? eleven? along with her sister Erin, are my daughters, and I love them both immensely. There are many many pictures taken at Kelly's which, though adorable, are simply not fit for public viewing. Dancing, dancing, dancing to the music. Kelly, her friend Carol and me....and, of course, Alan, who won not one, but two, dancing contests, just like John Travolta in Saturday Night Live, when he was young. Jumped up, twirled around, landed in the splits, used one arm to spring himself back up and....you get the picture.Whew, I would have loved to have been there. Well, we went to the market, brought back food and ate. California watermelon, berries, avacados, string beans, raspberries, strawberries, CORNDOGS, salmon, chicken, oh my god, we ate, we ate, and we danced it off each night.

It's been one slam-dunk of a summer. Watch the sun go down at Alan's sweetheart of a bungalow with it's straight-across view of Mount Rainier. Dining with dear, dear friends. Tolerance up, expectations down. Learning each other. Laughing. Loving each other's familles and friends. Knowing we don't have limitless prospects but that even makes it better, somehow. We'll keep our heads down. We'll keep our eyes on the ball. And we'll keep on kissing and swinging.