I woke up with my friend Steve yelling at me from the front of the apartment.
“Get up, my Mother’s bringing you breakfast.”
It was the start to a very pleasant day. I’ve never been one of those people who freaks out about how old I am when my birthday rolls around. The ages 30, 40, 50 and 60 came and went without so much as a twinge. After all, there’s not a lot you can do about it. For some reason 65 
gave me a little pause. That’s a big number I told one of my friends recently. There was no deep depression though, no regret that I had missed something in my life or wish that I was in a better place now. It simply gave me a moment of reflection, a minute or two of thinking back over the good and bad moments in my life. By the way, as far as I can remember, the good far outweighed the bad. My friend Cyndi asked me on my recent visit home if I was happy with my life. I told her that if I died tomorrow, I would die a happy person. I have experienced more of the world than most and have been blessed with great friends, wonderful parents, an amazing Sister and people who truly love me. You can’t ask for more than that. It was a great birthday starting with that breakfast. A lazy day enjoying the company I was with and ending in a swashbuckling movie in 3D, “The Three Musketeers.”
The next day, the writers’ group met. We discussed an excerpt from a book that Katrina is writing. She is working with NaNoWriMo an acronym for National Novel Writing Month. She has selected a topic dear to her heart, farm life in Minnesota. The writing was rough but Katrina has a talent for taking her first drafts and turning them into masterful pieces in edit. I found it hard to critique the piece not knowing what went on before and after the six pages we were working on. Still, I can tell the book is going to be wonderful. Katrina brought me a bottle of Pisco called “Demon of the Andes” (thanks a lot, I can feel the hangover already LOL) and Kathy bought me a piece of cake and coffee from the café. They then sang Happy Birthday to me in the Peruvian fashion. It was fun.
Friday morning I met Larry for coffee and we caught up on all the things going on in our lives. Larry’s daughter is still having problems with her divorce and he is a busy man with teaching and trying to get some writing done. We will be meeting on Fridays in Barranco for awhile. His class schedule has changed and he has very few free days. It will be nice to visit my old neighborhood and walk the malecon there.
I’ve finally made it through the 80 chapters and am ready to start working on the novel again. I noticed that Lourdes hadn’t started her investigation into the drug trade at one of my villain’s bars yet. So, I’ve started a new chapter with her sitting in a nice bar getting ready to ask for a cocaine contact from the bartender. She will be wearing a cleverly disguised wire. I haven’t decided yet whether it will be the bartenders or the waitresses who are distributing. I’ll let the characters talk to me as I’m writing. I’m going to spend the next five days concentrating on the book. I need to finish this edit and get it out there, Agents beware! I’m also ready to start writing the second book in the series and polish up the prequel I have written. My number one goal now has to be getting published.