Happy Birthday, Piano Lady

My dear friend, piano duet partner and Broadway show companion is 57 today. I love June 2nd, because for 20 days I can tease her about being a year older than I. And 20 days from now she teases me back. Each year we talk and wonder how we got to be this old.

In tribute to that, I share these lyrics I received in an e-mail this morning:

Some of the artists of the 60's are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate their aging fans!

Herman's Hermits- "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker!"
The Beatles- "I Get By with a Little Help from Depends"
The BeeGees- "How Can You Mend a Broken Hip"
Willie Nelson- "On the Commode Again"
Paul Simon- "Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver"
Procol Harem- "A Whiter Shade of Hair"
The Temptations-"Papa's Got a Kidney Stone"
Helen Reddy- "I am Woman, Hear me Snore"
Abba- "Denture Queen"
Bobby Darin- "Splish, Splash, I was Havin' a Flash"

Then I Googled "June 2 birthdays" to see who shares her day.

Did you know Wayne Brady is only a year old than my oldest child? Now that makes me feel old! Several composers were born this day — Elgar of John's beloved Enigma Variations, Glinka; King Henry VIII. I'll bet you didn't know Henry VIII was a composer! Jerry Mathers - The Beav - is 59 today! And Sally Kellerman is either 70 or 71 today, depending on which account you read. She looks darned good, and has a second career as a singer. So the Piano Lady is in good company.

The Piano Lady has started her second career and is very successfully bringing music and happiness to lots of kids, from 2 to 20, in Westchester County. She has a wonderfully supportive and loving husband, a beautiful daughter who just finished her first year of college, and twin teenaged sons who persevere and accomplish and succeed. She has had more than her share of challenges in her life — when I feel my life is hard, I call her and get a dose of reality. If you're a regular reader here, you'll remember that PL's mother passed away recently, so this is her first birthday without either of her parents. In my long and tortuous journey through college, I'm very lucky to have landed at Florida Technological University/University of Central Florida where PL and I sat down at side-by-side pianos and our history was born.

Here are a couple of images from our NYC trip last October.

If we smile real big, will you ignore the fact that we're aging? (And that I'm wearing a really unflattering sweater?)


Oh, the things we do to show our teenagers that we're hip.


Happy Birthday, Honey. I love you. I'll see you in October.