Four Dozen Years

I turned 4 dozen years old today. For some reason 4 dozen doesn't sound like as big a number as 48. I guess I could celebrate the 27th anniversary of my 21st birthday. I remember celebrating my father's 45th birthday and thinking "Wow, Dad's getting old." You know something, I was more right than I knew.

My dear wife is fond of telling me "You are only as old as you feel." I usually respond with "Well, I feel old."

I can usually sum up my feeling about my age with my favorite line from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark - "Its not the years, it's the mileage."

In keeping with a long standing tradition of mine I took the day off today. I have not attended class or showed up for work on my birthday since I was in 9th grade. In high school and collage my birthday fell either on a weekend, spring break, or for two years on snow days. Once I got out of school and started working I found that I prefered to take the day off. Sleep in, have a "bad for me" breakfast, watch a movie, read a book, play golf, nap, whatever. It's a day off to do nothing.

This morning I had to skip the sleeping in part. I had to have the van over at the repair shop at 7:30 this morning. So I delivered the van then got a couple frosted donuts and a large white chocolate cappuccino for breakfast. Then I watch a couple hours of the first season of 24. I wandered out to the golf course this afternoon to hit a bucket of balls and work on my putting. It was really windy or I would have played a round. The family and I went out to dinner at a Chineese Buffet and then came back home. We're watching a couple episodes of season 2 of Babylon 5 and then we're having homemade carrot cake to celebrate.

It's been a pretty good day even if it meant I had to get a year older. But like I told my mother in law a while back "Birthday's are good for you. The more of them you have the longer you live."