We lost a friend to pancreatic cancer yesterday.  It was very sudden and shocking.  He and his wife had been very helpful in our Paris research, and I am glad we were able to share some of our photos with him when we returned.

It’s funny when you have a blog—how much do you share?  You can’t pretend everything is roses all the time.  Well, you can—plenty of folks do, but is that fair?  To make your readers think that’s something that exists?  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

My grandmother is improving every day.  That’s really good news.  Thank you for your kind words and thoughts.

The problem with pancreatic cancer is that so often it isn’t discovered until it is too late.  But two weeks from diagnosis isn’t fair.  It just isn’t right.

We went over to some mutual friend’s of Jim’s last night and just hung out. It seems that the older I get, the more often each life experience makes me reflect back on other similar experiences.  I thought about how many times I’ve been hanging out with friends or family after somebody passes away, trying to hold it together, chatting about what happened and thinking about the person, but yet also doing other things—watching a game, playing with the dog, talking about other things happening in life.  I thought about how many more times in life this will happen too.  I think I’m lucky that it hasn’t happened too many times, but will probably become more common as I get older.

And as a musician, there’s always the question, will you play at the service?  And the answer is always yes, of course I will.

I think of this Ron Weasley quote often in hard times.  (Yes, I’m quoting Harry Potter, that’s how I roll.  It’s usually either that or LOTR.)  In the Order of the Phoenix, Hermoine is telling Harry and Ron what emotions Cho is going through.  Ron says “One person couldn’t feel all that.  They’d explode.”

And that’s true.  So I’m going to distract myself and share with you some pictures from the past few days.  Mostly of my cat.  I will finish writing about Paris soon.  But not today.  I’m good at compartmentalizing, and I’m going to look at pictures that make me happy and think about how glad I am to have known Jim as long as I did, and how I hope that when I get to be his age I have had a life that is even one quarter as interesting as his was.

The most wonderful time of the day:  feeding time.

Close up.  Sometimes I am struck with joy and amazement that a creature such as this exists.

USAF Band of Mid-America concert in Lafayette Park Saturday night.  I misunderstood what we were attending but realized I prefer jazz band to a “band” any day so I was actually quite pleased.  The weather was great for an outdoor concert. (Saxophone player on the far right is Derek, engaged to Adrianne, both of whom attended my wedding.)

Up close with my forehead.  That’s Jen next to me.

Country fried steak from Herbie’s.  A delightful brunch with Melissa.

I would like to try this!

Fancy Instagram filter.  Jen recently joined Instagram and she texted me and said “you have so many pictures…of your cat!”

So that’s where I am today.