Third birthday

Emily, me and Tami

Today is my third birthday, or re-birthday, three years from the bone marrow transplant (my fourth) that saved my life.

By whatever name, I'm very happy to celebrate it by just having a normal day: writing, walking the dog, playing tennis and even paying bills and going to the store.

Thank you, Denise.

I took a little trip over the weekend to mark the occasion. It wasn't specifically planned as a birthday weekend – and we hardly even mentioned it – but it just seemed like a good time to go.

I flew to Pittsburgh and then drove with Emily to her house in the mountains outside of the city. Her husband, Mike, chef extraordinaire, met us there, and Tami and husband John came from Philadelphia.

We took a couple of nice walks but mainly stayed warm inside by the fire, doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, reading, talking and eating. Nancy wasn't able to come, but we talked to her on speaker-phone. (I admit to making a very small contribution to the puzzle, putting a few pieces in here and there but leaving the rest to those with greater powers of concentration.)

On Sunday, I drove with Tami back to her house in Cherry Hill, N.J., and the next day took the train back from Philadelphia to Springfield.

There was a lot of travel time, but I didn't mind, because it gave me a chance to put a dent in the absorbing book I'm reading, Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom."

And so here I go, feeling good and toddling off into my fourth year.