L'Chaim!

To Life and Happy First Night of Passover to all who celebrate!

My apologies for not writing for more than a year and a half. The year 2006 was tough. I figure that hardly anybody sees this, and those who were hounding me on a Yahoo! Groups list have finally gone their own ways, so I can write my news here.

Well, relating everything to "The Queen," my queen died one year ago next week--that is the first night of Passover, 2006. Since tonight is the first night of Passover, 2007, it seems like a good night to remember my queen....my beloved mom. Her name was Irene Agnes. Irene is Greek for "peace" and Agnes is Latin for "Lamb." So from the moment of her birth, she was designated as the Peaceful Lamb. That designation really tells who and what she was. My mom lived up to her name. She was always teaching me to be aware of another person's feelings or point of view. She never wanted to be the cause of another's consternation. She was a truly wonderful person, my best, friend, and I miss her. Not wanting to be a downer, but since nobody reads this (except the forester who keeps wanting me to look at his blog), I think I will spend a number of posts reflecting on my mom. The queen of my life.

And speaking of Queens in Life, "The Pirate Queen," a musical from the creators of Riverdance and Les Miserables starring the fantastic Stephanie J. Block premiered on Broadway last week. Stephanie played Elphaba, the wicked witch of the west, in the Stephen Schwartz musical "Wicked." The official cast recording of the play will be made on April 30th, so hopefully we will be able to purchase a copy in June. Hopefully, I will write more about this subject, too. (Just FYI, the musical is about the life of Irish sea pirate, Grace O'Malley.)

Thanks for reading!

IRamat2