I can’t believe he is gone. We didn’t have enough time with him and now the house is too quiet. I find myself wanting to check on him or thinking of getting him his special food at the market. Poor dear Hugo had not been doing well as of last summer. He didn’t want to walk, couldn’t get in the car and wasn’t interested in his dry dog food. He walked in circles and seemed to get lost in the house. He had been slowing down for the past year or so but was much diminished when we picked him up from the kennel after our trip to Scandinavia. Continue reading
Farewell Hugo
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At long last the new music building in the Lewis Arts Complex is ready and the university celebrated with a weekend of festivities and special events to inaugurate all the new rehearsal and performing spaces. The theatre and dance departments brought in famous special guests from outside the university community. The music department showcased all our in-house talent, featuring faculty and student performers from the orchestra, glee club, jazz ensembles, as well as Richardson Chamber Players, So Percussion, Plork, new music by the Sound Kitchen faculty and grad student composers and more in performances that took place all over the campus. 
Michael’s brother Ev was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. It was an emotional and surreal day. A retired three star General in the Air Force, fighter pilot and decorated Vietnam War hero, it seemed not insignificant that he died on March 15, the Ides of March and the day of Julius Caesar’s assassination, and was interred on the day of the solar eclipse. 
Was it really four years ago that we went to Australia for the International Congress of Voice Teachers and an amazing travel adventure? It was time again for the ICVT meeting, this time in Stockholm. I would present my menopause research and Michael would come along for a Scandinavian tour. 
So after a few weeks of good health for all, and the promise of a relaxing summer, it all started again. Michael had an appointment the first week of June with his breast surgeon for a 12-month check-up. The day before he went, he felt a teeny, tiny something in the area of his mastectomy. But there was no more breast tissue there. What could it be? Probably nothing, said Rachel, the breast specialist, but we’ll do a sonogram just to be sure. Humm, the sonogram looked a bit suspicious, so we should do a biopsy, just to rule out, you know, anything bad. 
I just got back from the cardiologist and passed my echo and stress test with flying colors. So this tale has a happy ending – now for the story itself: I had signed up for the April monastic retreat at IMS, but was on a long waiting list after the lottery. I also signed up for the May retreat with Kamala Masters, Debra Ratner and Mark Nunberg and figured if I got into the earlier one I could transfer my registration. 
It was shortly after the election last November when I was reading Buddha Dharma Magazine that I saw an add for a Meditation and Well Being Study at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. My initial intention was to do something positive that would be of help to others in the face of the devastation and helplessness everyone was feeling in reaction to the election. So I embarked on a very long process of application and vetting for the study. 
It was intercession and Michael was taking the orchestra on tour to Prague, Vienna and Budapest, again – all different students, so it is a new experience for them, and Michael never tires of showing them those beloved musical capitals. I chose to go in the opposite direction and have a vacation on a beach with my sister and treat myself to another Backroads bike trip. (The picture is taken up at Kilauea Volcano.) 
Just as I was taking a picture of Michael and me, standing on the top step at the Trenton War Memorial with 2000 folks inside and 4000 more spread out below us, a photographer from the Newark Star Ledger snapped this shot of us – a not-selfie! What a wonderful day it was to share all the outrage, heartbreak, frustration and desire for action that so many of us have been feeling since election day with a crowd of like minded souls. 
It was Fathers’ Day back in June and tic season was in full swing. Michael was taking a tic off his chest and checking for others when he noticed a small hard lump near his right nipple. What is this!!!!???? The next day he went right to his Dr. who calmly said he should probably have it taken out, and recommended several surgeons – seemed straight-forward and simple enough. Well, it was far from that simple.