Birthday Pictures

Happy 83rd Birthday Buddy !
This photo taken at the surprise party held for Buddy at Davey's Hideaway, Palm Springs, Ca. Seen here, Buddy and Buddy Jr.

Buddy thought we were having dinner with Chuck and Gayle at one of our favorite little places in Palm Springs, Davey's Hideaway. Pictured: l to r Buddy, Buddy Jr., Kym, our assistant, Chuck, and Lezlie.

Lots of friends were there, here just a few!

Happy Birthday Buddy!

Beginning...Again..Happy Anniversary

Seventeen years ago, on Wednesday, August 12, 1992 Buddy introduced himself to me at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas. I had just been hired to perform there and he had seen me and wasted no time making his move. And now here we are celebrating at Club Trinidad (one of Sinatra's hangouts) in Palm Springs with a bunch of friends..sitting in with the band, and drinking martinis. Buddy was going through a horrible divorce then (the playboy bunny) and me..I don't know..I just wanted to sing. And here we are...still together...and good.

Our club is absolutely and completely gone. All at once I feel so free and happy, and then, want to weep with sorrow. Tonight when we passed it, coming from Trinidad, I couldn't bear it. The landscaping lights were still on, I have left them on till the end...and Sam the homeless man is still watering the plants...I must let them die?

But we have much to do, imagine having the luxury (necessity) to be able to (have to) sort through everything you have accumulated over the past 17 years or more? Now the decision is what to take to England, what is worth the storage or shipping and what must simply go. Why must I be so sentimental? What is that about? How can I be free when I must be tied by my heartstrings to all this old stuff? For example: What to do with the earring collection left to me by my dear auntie Alice (pictured with her fat spoiled dog Smarty)? I loved that earring collection as an eight year old. I used to spend hours looking at those earrings. Auntie Alice was a waitress in Spokane Washington, and because she had to wear a uniform, her only form of self expression was her earrings. And did she express herself! I thought they were beautiful! So upon her passing, because everyone remembered how much I loved them, I was given the "collection," which for 30 years, 3 husbands and innumerable houses and moves, I have managed to bring them along with me..but now? Will auntie Alice's earrings make the cut? Will they be going to London? My dear beautiful Auntie Alice who would have never thought of going so far around the world, so far away from Spokane, Washington. Could it be that her precious earrings might?

The Eve of the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives

Tomorrow morning, August 11, 2009, on the steps of the Riverside County Courthouse our new life begins. One life ending, another beginning. The grieving is over for the most part. All of the feelings of grief when a loved one dies, disbelief, denial, anger, acceptance, (and not necessarily in that order) we went through over the past months. And now, tomorrow morning, our land, our little building, our business will be gone.

It won't be the only property, the only dream sold on the courthouse steps tomorrow morning. There will be many others. But we are lucky, it is not our home. Tomorrow morning there will be many homes that were lived in, worried over and lost. Homes that had been paid on for years, painted and improved. Homes that were loved and cared for will be sold on the courthouse steps tomorrow morning and the next morning and the next. Homes with children living in them today and not tomorrow. Children leaving their homes, and moving on. Worried mothers and fathers, many..most, absolutely helpless to keep it from happening. Yes, we are lucky, our loss, as sad as it is, is just a building with a business. We have not lost our home.

So this is a briefing of the current state of affairs, where you are coming in on this story of Lezlie Anders and Buddy Greco. But the real story will unwind over the next weeks and months. A story of two people meeting each other later in their lives, a bit scarred, a bit weary. Seventeen years ago today, August 10, 1992, I walked off the plane in Las Vegas and two days later Buddy Greco would introduce himself to me. That is when and where this story begins. Two people starting over. Two people on an adventure 17 years ago. And here we are, starting over again, and about to embark on the greatest adventure of our lives, together.