Since my way-too-close waltzes with the Grim Reaper, I've eschewed birthday gifts and have asked instead to have birthday events. My beloved friends and family have jumped to the challenge. Last year hubby and son took me to Wentworth by the Sea where I looked out on the ocean, ate a gourmet meal and thanks to my brother calling ahead - a one and a half hour massage at the on-site spa. This spa has a heated floor so your tootsies don't get cold on the way to and from the shower. And because it was my 50th my girlfriends took me to Boston where we dined at Legal Seafoods and went to a female impersonator night club, You can't buy memories like that. Yesterday the same friends took me to see "Menopause the Musical in Boston." OK the place was packed with women who for the most part were my age or older. There were only about two men in sight and we all pondered what amount of TNT it would have taken to get our husbands launched into the audience. The play is great as everyone who has seen it knows. Who can resist "I'm having a hot flash, a tropical hot flash" sung to the tune of "We're Having a Heat Wave"? "My personal summer, is really a bummer, I'm having a hot flash."

OK the day was fantastic but I could tell my girls were not digging my attempts to go gray. My best bud Kath asked, "Can't they just dye it gray?" Would that it were possible, I'd so be there. But I'm feeling myself starting to cave. I had the two-inch stripe of gray growth at my roots which is making the blond look yellow. And I'm just so looking like my Great Aunt Anna - don't ask. I need some encouraging words or advice to fellow gray growers out there. HELP!