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I’m 59 today. That’s what I told everyone who wished me happy birthday. And I’ll be 59 tomorrow and the day after that. The next day I’ll turn 60, but we celebrated today. We also celebrated Eric’s birthday, which was last Friday. The family got together and ate all the things I won’t be eating, for at least the next four weeks.
I wasn’t shy or hesitant about digging into the prime rib, and John did his usual superb job on it. I’ll miss it, I think, but I kind of hope I don’t miss it too much. Anyway, today wasn’t a day to think about diets, although everyone was curious about mine, and I was only too happy to fill them in on what I know so far. I’ll know more a month from now, but for one day I was happy to live in my carnivorous past.
The extended family that was there today includes a lot of adults who have known each other a long time (but aren’t all related by blood). But it also includes a couple of small children who make us all feel younger (sometimes; sometimes they can make us feel older). Aiden and Kylie were especially attentive to the two of us who were celebrating, and it was nice there were two so that we got a break every so often.
Aiden spent a lot of painstaking time coloring a small stick with a piece of sidewalk chalk. “This takes skill,” he told me, “and patience.” He gave it to me as a very special present, and naturally Kylie had to come up with something similar. So she gave a rock a few quick strokes with the chalk and told me I had to take it home with me.
Then Kylie wanted to play Cops with me, which means that she chases me around the yard, and when she catches me she puts me in jail. There is no appeal. In fact, as the arresting officer, she tells me, “You were bad. What did you do?” And when I tell her I don’t think I did anything wrong, she says, “Yes you did. You stole something. What did you steal?” I tried to explain the Fifth Amendment to her, to no avail. |
