Today I went to a memorial service for my ex-boyfriend's mother, who died about a month before my mother. She also had dementia, but at 90, she outlived my mother by 9 years.

Because he invited me, I made a point to go. I was feeling kind of jittery about the whole thing because it's been 20 years since we were together and I knew I would know no one there. More importantly, I knew his wife would be there and most likely would not be pleased to see me.

The memorial was held in a beautifully renovated barn on the property of an Episcopal church in the beautiful wealthy countryside of North Salem, NY.

So, confession: this is the man I should have married.

Coincidentally, we both are writers, we both began our writing careers as journalists and we both have a parent (my mother, his father) who was a professional artist. His father was a pretty well known painter of horses and achieved quite a bit of success.

They were horse and dog people, they rode in local fox hunts, traveled widely, entertained a lot and lived a comfortable life that seems out of a story book somehow. And they stayed together.

Their son and I have remained friends. He introduced me to his wife and daughter, and while his wife shook my hand, she most definitely did not seem happy I was there. I told her i was sorry for her loss (it was her mother-in-law) and really didn't talk to her after that.

I enjoyed hearing R. speak at length about his mother, and then about 5 other people spoke, each one giving their unique perspective on the kind of person R.'s mother was.

They had some great o'douerves afterwards. I could never spell that word, but you know, SNACKS. I briefly sampled some of the food and then decided to quietly leave as I didn't want to make anyone super uncomfortable.

It was all kind of bittersweet and of course it made me think of my mother. More than that, it reinforced this feeling that a generation of people has passed, and that a new generation has taken their place.

Other news from this weekend, I sold quite a bit of yarn since Friday night and have a total of 5 packages to walk to the PO tomorrow on my lunch break. I love using the pick-up service where the USPS will come to your door for the packages, but I don't want the truck driving on my new asphalt, so for now I prefer to bring them to PO myself.

Here's some of the yarn i just sold.



I picked up another piece of framed art from area gallery and left another one for her to frame. I may not frame too many more. We chit-chatted for about an hour.

Today turned out to be a brilliantly sunny day and I REALLY have some yardwork to do, but didn't want to get all dirty prior to the memorial service.

Last night I made a cauliflower soup which also called for 4 or 5 cups of fresh spinach; instead, i used 3 small wads of frozen organic greens I wanted to use up, and i guess it was too much greens, cus after pureeing the soup it looks more like pea soup than cauliflower! It has no cheese or milk in it but instead I used a cup of cashews to thicken it up.

Today I stopped at Whole Foods on way home from memorial and picked up some goodies; i try to only buy things there that I won't find elsewhere, or else their house brand, which is cheaper.

Made a big salad for dinner and then walked around the block. In for the night.