CHAPTER NINE

 

THE PROMISES

 

 

     Although I have been living in the same duplex for thirty-four years, it does not look like the building we bought in 1963.  After our divorce my finances improved and I found out that I was a good manager and then there was the Teacher’s Credit Union always willing to lend me money for my frequent and various projects.

     First I put in a swimming pool with a Jacuzzi and solar heating.  Best money I ever spent.  By the edge of the pool a graceful figure of a Thai priest gives his blessings with an enigmatic smile and my  neighbor’s huge avocado tree is dropping it’s fruits into my  pool.  Weather permitting I swim thirty minutes every day while I am having my talk with my Higher power.  We women like to make time count and to do at least two things at a time.  As a third activity, I admire my flowers and plants by calling them by their names.  I say hello to the lush hibiscus in different colors, then to the dainty impatience, to the red, pink and variegated geraniums and  to the rusty and yellow nasturtiums I grew from seeds.  I greet the elegant fuchsias, bow to the exotic Chinese magnolias and smell my roses which always remind me of my grandmother’s sweet flowers.  I view the different specimen of cacti I transplanted from my son, Paul’s, garden and the thorny Emperor of the Desert with its small red blooms.  I take in the Ficus Benjamina and the potocarpus and the passion flowers on the vine.  I salute the pink azaleas and the red lilies, the fragrant star jasmines and purple and blue hydrangeas, whichever of them is in bloom.  I even have a rose garden on the front. 

     This is from a woman who did not know the names of half a dozen flowers fifteen years ago.  My relationship with nature changed as part of my spiritual quest.  I am in awe of having such a close friendship with so many blossoms and  plants.  My favorites are the bougainvilleas and although they are finicky about living in a pot, the ones in the ground are thriving.  I have this orchid cactus called Epiphyllum which brings forth brilliant showy dark red flowers for about five minutes of the year reminding me that life is short.  I am really not a good and knowledgeable gardener and I do not even work in the garden a lot as I dislike the hot California sun but I love to look at my garden with a passion.

     Quite a few years after building the pool I took on a good sized remodeling project.  I added a beautiful large bathroom, big enough to rent it out by the hour joked a friend, with a dressing room to house my Emelda Marcos Memorial shoe collection.  I doubled the size of my dining  room  turning it into a den.  Soon after I doubled the size of the kitchen enriching it with a high ceiling and three french doors.  I have put in skylights all over the place and doors to the garden from every room.  I guess I had visualized an Italian villa except my home started out as a California bungalow. 

     All this largess is decorated with furniture “with experience”,  my finds from browsing the thrift shops.  I love my home and I was told that it is ME and that it expresses my personality and I take it as a compliment.  It is a little quirky but then again so am I.  I would not touch a decorator with a ten foot pole. 

     I have cherished pieces from my travels.  From Hong Kong I brought a piece of ikot (regionally woven Chinese silk) and covered a red chair with it.  I snatched two icons from Hungary, one is Aaron, the first Chief Rabbi from the Bible wearing his epaulets and holding a tablet depicting the twelve tribes of Israel.  Whoever heard of a Jewish icon?  Well, I have one and the artist who painted it told me that she was challenged to create it.  My other icon is Saint George slaying the Dragon. An eclectic collection.

     My sofa was made by my Uncle John, God bless his soul, thirty-five years ago and survived a few recoveries.  My prized possessions are three paintings by my friend Beulah bursting with colors and ready to lend cheer  to all corners.  One of my thrift chic favorites is a dressmaker’s form that is supervising my kitchen dressed in a colorful country skirt, a vest and a large floppy hat.

    

     I have twenty-five needle points decorating my walls, all made by my agile fingers and complimenting a dozen needlepoint pillows. I gifted away another dozen pillows.

     One of my most cherished pieces is an antique sewing table, a gift from Daniel.  Colorful thrift shop rugs adorn the hardwood floors and lots of books are everywhere.  This does not intend to be a catalog of my possessions but instead some additional paint strokes to testify to the transformation I underwent during the last fifteen years.  From the wretched way a drunk lives, I have created a lovely home.

     As a modern woman and mother to two computer geniuses I also own, use and perhaps even have grown fond of a computer which I keep in the same room where I store and use my mother’s old Adler sewing machine.  I need so much help keeping my computer tame that I think Number One Son, Peter, is hoping I will go back to needlepoint very soon.  Over the computer is a wall of family pictures looking down on me. I hope they are impressed by my limited computer skills.  My home is also art in progress just as my life.

     All this remodeling was a challenge to behold; dealing with the construction people, putting up with the dust, dirt and mess and forever missing deadlines.  As Irving pointed out,  the experience taught me tolerance but mostly, it  drove me crazy.  It is behind me now... until the day when mysteriously a plan starts to percolate and sooner or later a new project is under way.  I am afraid I am a sprinter in a marathon world and I want it built yesterday. Right now my book is my project and it doesn’t let me idle.

     Although my first trip to Europe was marred by fights with Tony which were further aggravated by my escalating alcohol consumption, I still managed to catch the traveling bug and over the course of the next twenty-seven years, I journeyed somewhere every year, I have visited thirty countries; France, England, Austria and Hungary more than once.   Most of my travels were accomplished on a shoestring;  I used charter flights, inexpensive hotels, rented apartments and then hit upon the home exchange scheme which turned out to be the most satisfying.

     I feel the account of my life would not be complete without including some of my adventures.  A few of these trips I did alone and the rest were in the company of friends or with the man in my life if I had one.

     In 1971 while our divorce was still pending, I went to visit a friend in Toronto and was also able to spend some time with my Aunt Kato and her family and then visited with Sofi, an old high school friend.  I arranged for a ride to Montreal where I was peacefully meandering around McGill University when, all of a sudden, I found myself in the midst of a revolution!  The separatists were demonstrating demanding Montreal’s secession from Canada.  I had no idea what was going on since I do not speak French but it looked dangerous and I was not going to hang around.

     This was followed by a trip every year and in 1980 an exciting opportunity was offered to me for a house exchange with a young couple, the Chadwicks, who lived in Forest Hill, a suburb of London.  My friend, Ilana, and I flew out of the Stripped Down Inflatable Terminal which looked like it was stitched together from left-over parachutes.  We were flying Freddy Laker’s last plane,  perhaps his only plane, across the Atlantic.

     Eventually we arrived at the Chadwick’s three story, one hundred and fifty  year old home and were greeted with their hilarious list of instructions.  This included references to the best undertaker nearby  (free set of glasses for six stiffs) and whom to call if we developed a yen for a menage a trois.  I wish they would have let us know how to put on the heat and I am still convinced they took their phone directories with them.

     The house was great but nothing worked.  I felt as if I was back in Budapest.  The bathroom even had an oversized tub, the kind you can not  read in because you float.  An electric teakettle sat next to the bed.  Oh, the British, they are adorable!  We went shopping at the greengrocer and the news vendor, getting the feel of our new neighborhood.  Ilana managed to drive the Çhadwick’s car with a manual shift, a block or two, but unfortunately she still insisted upon driving on the right side of the street. 

     If the Chadwicks thought they lived twenty minutes from Victoria Station as they claimed, they were sadly mistaken as Forest Hill was an hour from London.  The very next day we purchased train and subway passes and began our explorations at Picadilly Circus.

     We attended the theater every day, seeing ‘Annie’ and enjoying ‘Don Quixote’ performed by the great Nyurejev.  We went to the National Theater many times and visited the  British Museum where we had sampled toasted spaghetti sandwiches in the cafeteria.  Definitely a first.  The tea they served us at Fortnum and Mason’s was very elegant.  We took in the Victoria and Albert, the Tate and the National Gallery and marveled at two  one-man exhibits by Andrew Wyeth and Salvadore Dali. 

     It was raining throughout the entire month and out of my extensive  wardrobe I wore only two pair of wool pants, a few sweaters and my rain gear.  I also nursed a cold until July, but who cared?  We were in London.  Well, almost in London.

     I was invited to partake in a typical Sunday meal by Bernie, a neighbor and the President of the Streatham Rugby Association.  We had lamb roast, green peas, potatoes, carrots, gravy, cabbage and mint sauce, all of it delicious.   As it was Sunday, Bernie was ‘a bit blown’ but he was a gracious host and confided in me that although one of the rugby players had dropped dead, the annual Association barbecue went on as scheduled.

     Shopping was wonderful.  They had Ladies Glove Week at Liberty’s.  We bought English floral scents at Floris and visited Foyles, the world’s biggest book store.  I purchased snuff at the last existing snuff shop as a present for my sons, in five different varieties.  I discovered the perfect gift for my mother  wool bloomers at Marks and Spencers and fell in love with some exquisite curtain material at the Lewisham Shopping Center.  Needless to say, I never made the curtains.  I still owe myself a cashmere sweater from Harrod’s which I was too cheap to buy.

     We went to Brighton and since it was still raining, there was not a soul in the famous deck chairs but the antique shops were nice and the fish and chips crispy.  On our only clear day we took the British Railroad to Bath and had tea in the Pump Room where Thackeray, Fielding and Jane Austen used to sip their beverages.  Another outing took us to Cambridge and the famous Wren Library.

      The month was up much too soon.  I was still searching the house for the phone directories to look up my former love, the elusive Isti, when it was time for us to return to blessed and SUNNY California and dry out.

     The Chadwick’s enjoyed a great stay in my home.  On their way to Las Vegas, their one year old daughter swallowed an American copper penny and they just turned her upside down and shook  the penny out of her. The Herald Examiner published an article about our exchange and I was convinced that this was the best way to travel.  It was a wonderful trip and I cannot wait to visit London again and again and again!

     One day my friend Rochelle called and said.

      “I want to go to the Soviet Union, do you want to come with me?”  I had not quite rid myself of my fear of the Iron Curtain but  I was an American citizen and a proud owner of a U.S. passport.  I loved that passport with all my heart  because in Hungary we were never permitted out of the country so were never issued passports. 

     I decided to go with Rochelle and this trip and we chose to join a tour as that time, in 1977 the Soviet Union was too difficult and vast to wander around alone.  Rochelle had been in psychoanalysis for many years and one of her issues had been that she was afraid to travel and would never go anywhere.  Even if she was getting better, what  inspired her to make her first trip to a place as distant and difficult as the Soviet Union, I will never know.  Come to think of it, I have no idea what made ME think she was cured of her travel phobia in the first place. 

     By the time we had a layover in Amsterdam, Rochelle was in the grips of a huge anxiety attack and was having difficulty breathing as her asthma reared its ugly head.  I must say she had learned something in analysis because she said to me.

      “I have to talk about it.”

      So, she did...for hours and hours.  All I had to do was listen which I did willingly.  It was mostly stuff about the terrible vacations she had as a child with her dysfunctional family.  By the time we were ready to depart Amsterdam for Moscow Rochelle had talked herself out of her panic attack. 

     Once in Moscow -- machine guns in sight --  we were bussed to the Hotel Rossiya, the world’s largest hotel and the size of several city blocks right on the Red Square.  The rooms were on a par with a very modest YMCA and every floor had a ‘barishnya’, a sizable lady of a certain age who kept a sharp eye on our comings and goings.  The hotel’s restaurants were quite a walk away and the food was appalling with offerings such as lukewarm thin cabbage soup with lard floating on top, yogurt, half leavened black bread and dry cakes.  But who goes to Russia to eat?  I had my stash of nuts and raisins brought with me from home to keep body and soul together.

     The guide showed us a few sights like the church with the onion shaped domes, Gum’s department store which was  void of goods, and we had the honor of standing in line to see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin resting in his mausoleum.  He was very small, almost like a child, and the guards demanded complete silence from us as a sign of respect.

     It was physically and psychologically demanding to visit the Soviet Union but in many ways they made it easy for us.  You go where they take you, you listen to what they tell you, you do not ask any questions and you eat what they put in front of you. 

     Even after completing  four years of Russian language studies required of me in college, I could still barely read ‘Cyrillic’ but I was certain I could negotiate the street signs and subways so off we went to find the Moscow Synagogue.  After hours of wandering around we finally stumbled upon the Temple, thoroughly fenced in as though it had been under construction  and with no sign of life anywhere.

     Rochelle had friends on an exchange program living in Moscow.  The man, an atomic scientist, was barely allowed inside the Atomic Institute.  Issues of ‘Scientific American’ were considered classified documents.  This American couple invited us to their tiny apartment but adamantly refused to discuss anything remotely political, particularly human rights.  We whispered in a nearby  park about state secrets such as the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables and about the croup rapidly spreading in the child care center.

     The women looked terrible, overweight, many of their teeth missing, their legs criss-crossed with protruding veins, all carrying heavy baskets and packages.  Some were employed as street sweepers, cleaning the roads with whisk brooms.  I acquired a library card to the National Library where the most recent sets of English language encyclopedias were twenty years old. 

     On we flew to Kiev, where I became obsessed with bumping into my long lost father.  Leningrad is the most beautiful city I have ever seen.  The pastel colored eighteenth century buildings lining the banks of the River Neva are a sight to behold.  The Hermitage Museum was very crowded and under these circumstances it was difficult to enjoy any art.  I do remember fabulous Gaugins and a slew of impressionists but the time allotted for us to view them was too brief so it was a disappointing experience.  In the front of the Hermitage, gypsy women with their babies panhandled, a strange apparition fairly common in the Soviet Union.

     I bought a small woodcut and a petite watercolor of Leningrad and at the border I was almost forbidden to take them out of the country.  They were certainly not valuable as I paid only a few rubles for both items in a book store.  We ate ice cream while strolling on the Nyevsky Prospect, a pastime I recalled reading about in Russian novels and went to the circus which was surprisingly good and funny if a little stinky.  We visited Petrogorsk,  Peter the Great’s Summer Palace, which was a lovely palace with fountains and gilded roofs.  Peter’s nightshirt and nightcap were respectfully folded on his bed while his book and eyeglasses rested on a small table nearby.

     Rochelle had a cold and she was right about not being a good traveler.  She was miserable and I felt guilty -- God knows why --  trying to fetch her tea and food to help make her better.  On our final night in Leningrad we enjoyed the Kirov ballet.

     We next flew to Sochi, a charming resort by the Black Sea. The sea was warm, and it felt good to finally relax.  A bunch of Hungarians occupied the room underneath ours and they were drinking, bursting out in song  and playing cards until dawn, making sleep an impossibility for Rochelle and I.  Finally I phoned them (they did not know me) and blasted them with the most colorful and vile Hungarian curses my Mother never let me use.  It worked like magic and five minutes later, all was quiet.  They must have thought God had spoken to them in Hungarian.

     Leaving the Soviet Union was not easy.  The customs officials searched my luggage minutely even though I had bought only a balalaika for Paul and a bottle of vodka.  Maybe my being born in Hungary and traveling on a U.S. passport rubbed them the wrong way.  Some of our traveling companions were lugging around huge samovars with the bills of sale from the Soviet state stores  and still they were forbidden to take the samovars out of the country.  I did not know it then but Rochelle smuggled out a valuable icon as a favor for some Russian refugees living in California, hiding it in a box of chocolates.  I would have been terrified so I am glad I had no idea.

    It was an interesting trip but I have no desire to return to Russia.

 

     On the spur of the moment Daniel and I decided to take a cruise to the Holy Land, visit Greece and Egypt and finally ending up in Rome.  This was our second cruise together and since we survived the first to the first one to the  Panama Canal without killing each other,  I had high hopes that we could do it again.

     The first leg of our trip to Athens was uneventful apart from TWA losing my luggage with all my cruise-bound finery.  I took it rather well  although the thought of spending two weeks in my jogging suit was appalling.  Luckily by the following day my luggage had decided to join us.

     We spent a couple of days traipsing around Athens, climbing the Acropolis  and admiring its beautifully  illuminated splendor.  To do in Greece as the Greeks do, we sampled rolled grape leaves stuffed with lamb followed by sweet and sticky baklava.  We took the funicular to a monastery overlooking the city and I wrote our names with a felt tip pen on the stone balustrade. Sometimes we behave like teenagers, it is wonderful!  We checked out the Flea Market.  I also have to report that Athens is a beautiful city but the taxi drivers will not stop to pick you up for love or money.

     The next day we boarded the Star Odyssey and were off on our new adventure.  I was a history major and walking the grounds of the Acropolis meant a lot to me.  This was followed by a visit to Meteora’s Monasteries “of the air”.  On the high crest of fantastically eroded rock formations are perched numerous ruined monasteries dating back hundreds of years.  We visited one of the cloisters and although it was strenuous climbing hundreds of steps up and down, it was well worth the trip.  Wisely Daniel chose to forgo  the climb.

    Back on the ship I attended a Friends of Bill meeting (AA meeting named in honor of one of the fellowshp’s founders, Bill Wilson.)  A few people attended, particularly interesting was a feisty lady in her eighties.   Her name was Lou and she was from Texas--on her honeymoon, swathed in a gold lame leisure suit and flashing a very large diamond engagement ring.  We went around the room introducing ourselves and stating the length of our sobriety.  Finally we came upon Lou who looked like she had her last drink just an hour ago.

      “Oh.”  said the blond lady without a touch of modesty.  “I am a legend.”

      It turned out that she had thirty-four years of hard-earned sobriety and was a delightful woman.  Just shows that appearances can be misleading.

     The next day we anchored at the island of Lesbos which was blanketed with a million olive trees.  Instead of owning real estate on the island, ownership is designated by the olive trees one owns.  We made our obligatory visit to the charming church and museum and wandered the perpendicular streets in the village of Hermon.  I bought a walking stick for Daniel practically over his dead body since he did not want to admit that his legs were not working too well.  Ouzo is the famous liquid “treasure” of Lesbos but alas, since I do not drink I did not sample it.

     In the morning Daniel proudly reported that he had engaged the services of the ship’s “personal trainer” undoubtedly with the intention of getting his knees back in shape.  I took the news  with a healthy dose of skepticism.  The man has enough exercise equipment cluttering his house to open a gym but he refuses to exercise.  We are beautifully compatible in this regard as I despise exercise, too.  Within a couple of days Daniel’s “personal trainer”, a lovely Irish lass, was bitterly complaining that he did not want to work out and only visited the ship’s gym to shoot the breeze.

      “This is my man!”

      I thought.  By the end of the week his “personal trainer” was totally demoralized and ready to jump ship and go home to Ireland  to her mother.

     We tied up at “blessed by the Gods” Rhodes and admired its’ beautiful acropolis and then we sailed on  to Cyprus, the birthplace of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love who rose from the waves.  Botticelli’s masterpiece “The Birth of Venus” was painted here.  The Greeks and Turks (37%) exist in a state of uneasy peace on this beautiful island  We strolled through the House of Dionysos which was filled with mosaics.

     That night we were sitting in the ship’s theater waiting for the Cabaret to start when I went back to our cabin to fetch a sweater.  Upon my return Daniel introduced me to the woman seated beside him.

      “This is Doris.  Her husband died this morning.”

      I stared at him incredulously.  Was this a bad joke?  But as it turned out, Doris’s husband, who had been quite ill when they boarded ship, indeed had passed away that very morning.  While I found it a little strange to find her sitting in the first row of the Cabaret, she reassured me that her husband “would have wanted it this way.”  Well, different strokes for different folks.  I reassured Daniel that I would do the same in case he suddenly decided to embark on a one way journey to the “great beyond”.

     The next day was a big one:  Jerusalem.  I could not help but think a lot about my first trip to Israel in 1977 during a sabbatical.  I was very much in the grips of heavy drinking and my alcoholism marked my visit .  I was forever preoccupied with the thought of where my next drink was going to come from.  During this trip I visited my three cousins and went to the cemetery to lay a stone of my grandfather Samuel Fischmann’s grave.  I picked up a rabbinical student on the beach in Tel-Aviv but chickened, but it was only an innocent flirtation.

       In Jerusalem it is customary to write a prayer to God and leave it between the cracks of the Wailing Wall.  I wrote

      “Dear God, please help me to stop drinking and please take care of my children.”  Now eighteen years later I know that my prayers had been answered.  I was sober and my sons were fine.  Since I was a true believer in the power of the Wailing Wall, I spent the next few days writing a letter to God and even convinced Daniel (a skeptic) to do the same.

     We anchored at Ashdod the day before Rosh Hashanah, a very special day to be in Israel.  Jerusalem was beautiful with it’s gleaming white  buildings in the sunshine.  It stands as a symbolic city of the world’s most influential religions; Judaism, Christianity and the Moslem faith.  We had an excellent guide, Ruth, with whom we visited the Old City, Hebrew University, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, and Bethlehem, the birthplace of David and Jesus.  When we arrived at the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) I was ready with my letter which contained not only the  list of my wishes but thanks for my sobriety and  my good life.  I could not fail to notice that the men and women were separated by the Wall.  This reminded me of the shul in Ujfeherto.

     We spent Rosh Hashanah in Egypt.  This was a very strenuous twelve hour day but thanks to our guide we saw as much as was humanely possible to see of Cairo in one day.  We started out with the Pink Mosque where the prophet Muhammad Ali is buried.  Then we were  transported to the  famous Cairo Museum where we feasted on Toutankhamon’s extraordinary and fascinating treasures.  The highlight of our day was our excursion to the Gaza Pyramids where Daniel climbed upon a camel and trotted up the hill.  That man is full of surprises and I will never forgive myself for failing to take a photograph of this amazing feat.  The Egyptians definitely have a funeral complex but even though we had a wonderful lecture on the subject I am still not sure why they built the Pyramids unless it was just a ploy to keep the folks busy.

     Cairo is a tremendous megalopolis with fourteen million people living together and every one of them hanging their laundry from the windows.  I was beginning to long for my home and garden.  Security was very strict and our buses traveled in escorted convoys, our guide made an effort to keep us together at all times.

     And so we sailed to Naples.  There was always a lot to do on board but never enough time to do it all.  We particularly enjoyed the lectures of a Professor of History from UCLA who prepared us for the ancient civilizations we were about to visit.  In Naples our motor coaches took us to the excavations of Pompeii.  Unearthed from beneath twenty feet of volcanic ash, Pompeii was revealed to us as the sophisticated and elegant a city as it had been two thousand years ago.  By this time poor Daniel was having a lot of trouble walking and we were ready for a much deserved rest. 

     Two days later we tied up at Citaveccia, the port of Rome, and started our obligatory sightseeing extravaganza.  I swear I will never see the Sistine Chapel again!  This was my third time in the Vatican but I found it hard to enjoy art while “pressing flesh”. The Chapel is always very crowded.

     The Coliseum was fun and finally we settled down at the Hotel Sofitel  off the elegant Via Venito.  We spent a few days wandering around Rome checking out the familiar sights  the Spanish steps and the Pantheon.  I enjoyed the beautiful and very expensive clothes in the boutique windows and shopped a little in the La Renascenti.  The last days were a little “iffy” since we were both tired and had experienced just a little too much togetherness.  Daniel is such a sweetheart since he chooses to remember only the good things about our trip and I have a lot to learn from him.  Ultimately it was a great trip and I am ready for the next one.

 

     Around 1991 I returned to my grandparents home.  The present owner, an old man, was very apologetic, trying desperately to justify how he came to own their house.  The rooms were incredibly filthy with flies buzzing  over dirty dishes and left over food. The garden had been neglected and the large olive tree I had loved in my youth was gone.  It was hard to imagine that this was the home where I spent so many  happy and secure days.

     During my visit my Uncle Sanyi, who lived in Nyiregyhaza at the time, took me to the Jewish cemetery where a dark marble memorial stood providing a final resting place to the Jews of the country who were killed in the Holocaust and had no other burial sites. I read the names carved in gold:

Breuer Ferenc            My grandfather

Breuer Ferencne       My grandmother

Breuer Miklos             My father

Breuer Erno                My uncle

Breuer Laszlo             My uncle

     I am aware of six other family Breuers who perished in the concentration camps but their names were not on the memorial tablet because no one in their immediate family had survived to see to it that their names were immortalized. Since then my cousin Frank  graciously arranged to ad the names of my two childhood friends Eva Schwarcz and Agnes Breuer to the list of names on the marble memorial.

     I spent most of my time in Budapest walking the familiar streets which had become gray and drab.  After the Communist government failed, many changes took place in Hungary. The streets had two names the name it had during forty years of communism often carrying ideological or Soviet connotations had been slashed through diagonally with a red line and underneath was the reinstated “old” name for the street.  For example, King Street became Mayakowsky (Soviet poet) Street under communism and now has been changed back to King Street.  It was very confusing and the new generation of taxi drivers did not know their way around any better than I did.

     There were anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans visible and I photographed a large “Heil Hitler” graffiti  on the side of the Gellert Hill.

     As I grow older the number of my friends dwindle away.  I am not sure if I will ever journey to Hungary again.

         My friend Irving used to urge me to write a Grateful List whenever I was in a foul mood.  I still do it from time to time, listing the people, activities and objects which give me pleasure and I am grateful for.  I would not change them for treasures of diamonds and precious stones.  I love the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous which  changed my life to a much happier and calmer one.  I love my children and grandchildren along with the rest of my family and my friends. 

     I love Daniel more than I thought I was capable of loving a man and I make him happy.  Well, most of the time.  Along with Daniel came the precious gift of a UCLA library card and parking sticker along with computer access to the library collection.  No wonder I am no longer worried about running out of books.

     I love listening to music but when I had my breast cancer, I could not listen for a few months as it was too emotional, too painful.  This has passed and I am back to enjoying the symphonies and operas.  I love writing in my journal and now I have poured a lot of  energy into this book .

     Daniel and I have taken up playing Scrabble, sometimes just the two of us and other times with friends or with my grandchildren.  It is fun particularly when this Hungarian refugee manages to beat her learned professor.  He is learned, no question about it, we are compatible in many ways and, in three years, I have not yet become bored with him.

     I am not very social and I do not like parties so a little socializing goes a long way with me.  I like my own company and as much as I love Daniel, a few hours with him fills me up and I am ready to be on my own again.

     We discussed marriage but the Professor likes to live in messy surroundings.  In his office there is a path running through his cluttered floor  leading to his computer and another one from his desk to the john.  All surfaces, the floors included, are covered with books, paper, magazines and junk.  Living like that would drive me to drink.  He has made some progress with his redecorating efforts but at the present rate he has another five years worth of work to get his home together.  At that time we can talk about a long engagement.  After all, my father had courted my mother for five years.  I  love to just date.  Luckily we live only a few short blocks from each other.

     I think I have made strides towards building a spiritual life and I now entrust my life to my Higher power.  It is elusive and mysterious, something I plan to work on until the end of my days.  I made peace with my God, but I will never understand Him.