It looks like the Jon Katz Birthday Festival: Joy, Redemption, (and Resentment?) is not going to last three days. I was lucky, I made it to one and a half.

My conscientious and artistic wife spent the whole day tending to my every need and wish, but that is enough for her, she is on fire to get back to work.

I love that about her, she is incredibly loving, but she belongs to nobody but herself.

I milked it and got great meals, flowers, loving, a play, and a pint of juicy whole bellied clams in Bennington, Vt. where I didn’t expect to find any.

Maria bought me tickets to “Shakespeare’s Will,” starring Rebecca Mozo, who was terrific in her performance as the hapless Anne Hathway, the wife of William Shakespeare.

We are grateful for the Old Castle Theater in Bennington, under new management and cranking out some of the best theater we’ve seen for years, and for $25 a ticket (half of what the whole-bellied clams cost Maria.)

Our local theater company changed focus and the pandemic halted everything. Vermont has a lot of sane people, and there are hardly any new cases of covid, delta, or otherwise. God bless the people of Vermont. They won’t take our theater away.

But I don’t be eating whole-bellied clams too often.

I had a quite wonderful birthday and I am grateful for it. Time to stop appreciating myself and get on with my 75th year. I definitely qualify as an old man.

My daughter Emma is in San Diego with Robin and her husband Jay, they are visiting his family. She called to say hello, we hope to see one another again this year.

Thanks for all the good wishes, they are appreciated. I loved the way my new red Zinnia looked and I wanted to see it against the backdrop of our newly painted blue house (not quite finished.)

We’re going to finish the first coat, apply a second one, and then move on.

Mike,  the Amish horse, maybe returning, he is welcome to our South pasture again.

I might be able to guilt-trip Maria into taking me out to dinner tomorrow, but it isn’t looking good. Onward.