Whew! Just finished getting my steps. Now it’s time to go to work, but first, a sincere thank you to all the people who sent me birthday greetings either by mail, email, or blog comment. The fact that people care enough to reach out like that is both surprising and gratifying. Why surprising? Because I never expected that to happen to a scrawny little girl from Bisbee, Arizona, who dreamed of becoming a writer when she grew up.

So here’s a look at how my day-to-day life looks. I crawl out of bed and get dressed. I grab my thermal cup of coffee and sip that while I scroll through my on-line news feeds and answer emails, using that time to charge my watch so I’ll be able to count my steps. In the late morning I make, serve, and clean up our breakfast. After that, I get my steps. In the late afternoon, I make, serve, and clean up after our evening meal. In between I handle whatever help Bill needs and let Mary in and out. She’s a doxie. She’s getting up there, and our German shepherd-sized doggie door is a bit too tall for her four-inch dachshund legs.

In the afternoons I work, which is to say, I write. Whether it’s writing the blog or a book, it’s still work, and yet it doesn’t feel like it. They say that if you find your passion, doing it doesn’t seem like work. I discovered that truth in that saying when I started writing that first never-published novel in 1982. It was true then, and it still is.

In other words, I regard myself as a pretty ordinary kind of person, so what happened to me this past Saturday evening was pretty remarkable. I had been asked to be an auction item (lunch with me) at Medic One’s annual fundraiser. Saturday was very dark and stormy around here, and I headed for the auction venue with more than a little dread.

It was held at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Bellevue, and it was huge. The crowd in the hallway outside the ballroom was overwhelming, and I was grateful to be escorted inside so I could be seated before the room filled up. My hostess and the person who had procured my auction item, was long time friend and Seattle media icon, Patti Payne. Over the course of the evening she introduced me to many of the power brokers who were on hand. I was actually seated next to a businessman whose company didn’t buy group insurance from me back in my insurance-selling days.

When it was time for my item to be auctioned off, I was introduced as “J.A. Jance, a Pacific Northwest literary treasure.” To my astonishment, the ballroom broke out in a round of thunderous applause. I believe my lunch went for something in the neighborhood of $3000. I’m not sure because, while it was being auctioned off another person from back in my insurance days, someone else who didn’t purchase anything from me, came up and introduced himself.

At this point in my life, I’m grateful for all the people who didn’t buy insurance from me. If they had, I might have ended up staying in the insurance business as opposed to living my dream.

One of MedicOne’s main centers of interest is training new medics. At this point they have two classes of twenty participants each underway, and one of those current trainees was seated at of the hotel’s banquet tables.

When I’m walking in the house, I don’t use a cane, but when I’m out and about, encountering places where the footing may be uneven,I bring my cane along for safety’s sake. When I was ready to head home that night, the auction was still in progress, but I was done. So I pointed at the young medic trainee seated at my table and asked if he would mind walking me down to the lobby.

Turns out it was a good thing I had both my trusty cane and the blessing of a supportive arm. At the door to the ballroom, there was one of those plastic thresholds used to cover electrical extension cords. Without assistance, I might well have taken an undignified tumble.

On the way out, my escort told me that his grandmother is a huge fan of mine and that she had been thrilled to hear I was going to be at the event. As a result, when we got down to the lobby, I had my daughter, who was driving Miss Daisy that night, take a photo of the young man and me together so he could give it to his grandmother.

It was only nine or so when my daughter dropped me off, but by then the windstorm was already tuning up, and it’s a good thing we came home when we did. By the next morning, two huge trees had fallen—one on my daughter’s street and another on ours.

But it was still a magical night—a night of being treated as a celebrity. That’s not at all how I see myself, but when I’m treated like one, it feels pretty damned special.

Now it’s time to stop writing the blog and see what Twink and J.P. are up to.