We stumped the astrologist.

Last January, when Baltimore Style magazine published a self-interview we did with ourselves (that's redundant, isn't it?), an amateur astrologist contacted us. She was super-nice in her note (as she is, no doubt, in real life). Intrigued by our age difference, she wondered what the stars might have to say about why we got together. She asked our permission to char our astrological lives. Sure, we said, and sent her the information we had about our birth dates, times and places.

We heard back from her recently. Apparently, figuring out a 1964 Libra and a 1947 Sagittarius ain't easy.

"To be perfectly honest with you both," she wrote, "I can not make heads or tails of what I see."

Our charts, she told us, have spurred her to acquire more formal training in astrology so she might meet challenges like ours. So, one day we might hear from her again. I'd like that. My curiosity hasn't waned.

Or, perhaps there's another astrologist who would like to puzzle us out, to look into the heavens, and to see how our lives are arrayed.

Strange Bedfellows

Sitting around the little bistro table in our kitchen yesterday, the morning discussion over coffee and the newspaper careened from Clint Eastwood’s empty chair to the resurgent Orioles and then settled on two urgent topics in our household.

Medicare. Pearl Jam.

It’s like that in our house: the collision of ages often makes for interesting table talk.

Although the magic Medicare age is almost upon me, I’ve been avoiding it for months. All those brochures that come in the mail trying to sell me supplemental insurance? Most have gone into the recycling pile. So finally yesterday Michael opened the laptop to medicare.gov and read aloud to me from “What is Medicare?”

After our brief lesson in donut holes and Parts A & B, we turned to Pearl Jam. Michael was heading off yesterday afternoon to the two-day Made in America Music Festival up in Philly, where Pearl Jam headlines tonight.

He’s been a fan for a while. Me? Not so much. But on Friday night he asked me to watch last year’s “Pearl Jam Twenty” with him, which he bought in anticipation of the concert.  The movie  recounts the band’s beginning in 1991, follows its roar into the national consciousness and celebrates its 20 years together.  

I watched mostly as a favor to Michael, but I found myself totally smitten with these guys: their independence, their fierce loyalty to their work and yes, even *some of * the music.

It’s like that in our house: I learn more about stuff I never expected to care about because my younger husband keeps opening the world to me. When the movie was over I told him, Dang! I’d like to go to the concert too now!