New Zealand

Today is the 8th anniversary of a major turning point in my life. On February 19th, 2008 my plane touched down at Queenstown, New Zealand. I was accompanied by nine other women from my hometown in Boulder. We had signed up for a "LifeCraft Journey for midlife women" which was designed to help us find answers to two fundamental questions: "What do I really want?" and "How do I create it?"

The trip came during an unhappy period of my life when I knew I needed to make changes and possibly end my marriage, but didn't have the guts to do it. During this journey of discovery I was surrounded by an amazing group of women who provided a nonjudgmental sounding board as I poured out my feelings and explored my options. This trip, and the love and coaching by Carol, Nancy, Colleen, Robin, Ginny, Jackie, Terry, Barb and Laura helped me find the clarity I needed to define what I really wanted, and to make some difficult decisions. And then they supported me as I created a new life.

Thank you for being there! I'll be drinking a toast to all of you this evening!

Birthday celebration

My 60th birthday was last month and I celebrated it in England with my friend Ruth. I wrote about it here

I celebrated my birthday again yesterday in Paris surrounded by friends old and new. We went to La Cabane à Huitres to eat more oysters, foie gras, cheese, dessert, and some very very special wine.

Here we are starting out with our oysters:

That's Eleanor Beardsley, NPR correspondent on the left, Odette Lefevbre, my Parisian friend of 35 years, and me.

After the oysters, we moved on to foie gras accompanied by a 1971 Sainte Croix du Mont (a sweet white Bordeaux wine that goes particularly well with foie gras).

After the foie gras, we had cheese - a brebis (sheep) cheese from the Pyrenees. And to go with the cheese, Francis opened a very very special bottle of wine - a bottle of Medoc from the year I was born!


Francis actually opened the bottle of wine ahead of time: the rule of thumb is one hour for every year . . .



The wine was DELICIOUS! Everyone in the small place joined us for a toast!


That's Monsieur Ponce in the background - he is the 96 year old regular that I've mentioned before.

A wonderful time was had by all!


Special thanks to Francis for the gracious gift of a very special wine. And thanks to Lauren and Odette and Emma and Julie and Eleanor (who had to leave early to work) for helping make this a very special occasion for me!