■

On Friday 3/30, I left for Maine with my girl friend J, whom I met when I was a graduate student at Ohio University in 1978, to celebrate our 51st Birthday together: mine on 3/31, hers on 4/8. She is the only friend I have maintained contact with from that period. Last year we went to see the musical ‘Menopaus’ together.

We decided to do something special this year because we both became cancer survivors last year. Her enlarged ovaries were detected at an annual check up late last summer, and she went on to surgery that removed her ovaries and uterus at BWH only few days before my esophagectmy. A biopsy afterwards turned out to be malignant; she became a cancer survivor without knowing she had a cancer.

It was a beautiful spring-like day with mild temperature and blue sky. After eating dinner in Brunswick and getting potato chips and strawberries for a long chatty night with wine, we arrived at the cottage on Orr’s island.

In the dark, we fumbled for a keyhole with the key that I believed to be the one, but it did not work. Finally I decided to call Mark in Tokyo (It is very strange that you can make an international call using your cell phone from a remote island in Maine just like that).

Mark said, “I hope you did not bring the leather key holder.”
“What? We always carried the cottage key in that holder.”
“Don’t you remember that we decided to put all the keys on the metal lobster
key ring last December? “
“No, you never announced that to me.”
“You must have seen that I used it the last time we used the cottage.”

Last year, I was so sick that I never used the keys myself. I was always in the car, waiting for Mark to open the door, turn up the heat, and unload the luggage. Even though I vehemently denied seeing the lobster key holder, I started remembering seeing that key holder somewhere. . .

We have a very good neighbor friend with whom we entrust an extra set of keys for an emergency. Unfortunately, they were not at home then, and I left a telephone message with them.

J and I got on a car again to look for a motel at least for the night. Luckily an inn was where I had remembered to be, and we could settle in an inexpensive inn within 15 minutes’ drive. Off course the neighbor called in about 30 minutes (if only we had waited there long enough, we could have spent the night in the cottage…), and I arranged to pick up the key next morning.

At least the motel was pretty nice and the bed was comfortable, but we had to shell out an unnecessary expense.

The rest of the weekend was beautiful. We walked around the rocky Maine beach, did shopping at LL Bean, had an informal dinner of assorted store bought sushi, soup, fishcakes, and Birthday Tiramisu _

There is something very soothing about Maine. Even though the trip was only for 48 hours with an unexpected twist, we both felt very refreshed. I hope that our 51st year is not as eventful as the last one.