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Saturday, November 19, 2011

Birthday #59


     There are benefits to not being good with numbers and I’m reaping one right now. I thought this was the year I hit the big 60, but I now realize it’s only my fifty-ninth birthday which I thought I’d celebrated last year. Because I have difficulty accessing that part of my brain where mathematics lurks like a creepy spider I get another year before leaving behind my fifties. Twelve months that I thought I’d spent but hadn’t. Quite a gift, but what should I do with it?
     Those who know me well have little difficulty believing me capable of such a mistake. In school I was a dullard at math; numbers were just beginning to make sense  when the government instigated something called “New Math,” to help us compete with the Russians, who’d recently launched Sputnik and were about to take over the world and make us drink vodka and eat stinky black fish eggs.
      Actually, people tell me I look much younger than I am. Either they’re just being nice or there are benefits to having a fat face—fat puffs out the wrinkles. If I start losing weight I’ll look like a deflating zeppelin. But there’s another reason I’m often mistaken for someone younger: I possess a disarming sense of immaturity that is so rare in one my age that it’s often mistaken for youth. In short, I’m childish, and I work hard at staying that way. 
     My son gave me this birthday card. I don’t generally post humor pictures but this one rattled my funny bone, and since many of you are bloggers you might also find it amusing.

      
     So what should I do with this extra year? Sky diving? The only way to get me to jump
out of a plane is to set it on fire. Learn another language? I haven’t mastered or done much with this one. Oh wait, of course! I know what I’ll do, if I can summon the nerve. I’ve never done anything like it before and it will be f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c….  

12 comments:

  1. Tease! Congrats on your extra year. It's much better to use it now than in your "old age" and diapers.

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  2. I'm not sure who in our family started it but we'll say, for instance, on our 59th birthday "Happy 60th birthday!" To which the honoree will say "But I'm only 59!" Which we respond with "Yes, but it's your 60th birthday." This, of course, is based on believing that the day you were born was your 1st birthday. Whatever the age - Congratulations!

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  3. You are reverse aging? Wow!!! Congrats!! Truthfully I think you need to travel..... anywhere and everywhere you can. Happy birthday buddy!!!!

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  4. Ha - I'm doing that same trick with fat & wrinkles AND I'm childish. People are often surprised by my age. Not me - my bones FEEL my age quite a bit.

    So anyway, happy birthday! And quit teasing us - what are you planning to do with your extra year?

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  5. You're leaving us hanging. No fair.

    Happy birthday! After 29, we all stop counting.

    PS Remember when they were going to teach us all the metric system? That lasted about a week or so.

    xoRobyn

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  6. Oh, now I don't feel quite so weird! I did the same thing a few years ago - for about 6 months or so I thought I was 45 when I was "only" 44.

    Alright, when are you going to tell us what you will do with the "extra" year? Happy birthday!

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  7. I believe it was George Carlin who had a routine about how lifes' progression SHOULD be: We're born old and gray, then we're young and vigorous, then we haven't a care in the world, and finally we leave this world with an orgasm. Finding an extra year might not beat George's version, but it's sure better than the one I'm working on.

    Happy birthday big guy!

    S

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  8. Visit Sacramento!!!

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  9. I have to stop and think, "How old am I now." That never used to happen. Of course now I only concern myself when someone asks me how old I am. I invariably surprise them.

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  10. Happy Birthday! (thanks for your nice comment on my poem)

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  11. Joyeux anniversaire from France.

    Come on....tell us...quick!

    SP

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  12. When I turned 70, I seemed fine with the fact that I was now 3 score and 1 decade old. But my 71st birthday would have come and gone had I not called my doctor's office to schedule an appointment. The girl at the desk looked at my chart and said, "Oh, congratulations! You're 71 today!" and I heatedly exclaimed, "I am not!" Guess that's as close to losing as year as I've come. Are all of you still wearing jeans and listening to Dire Straits or even Led Zeppelin? The "new" old...

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