Happy Birthday to Decrepit Old Me

You may officially wish me a happy birthday! I celebrated yesterday, and let’s just say that there will be a social security check coming in the near future. You do the math.

So it was a wonderful day—lovely cards, e-cards and Facebook posts wishing me a happy day, a prosperous year, good health, long life, clean fingernails, and something about memory loss… I forgot exactly what. It was great to be remembered by so many people, and I enjoyed every single message.

My husband, the Center of the Universe (CoTU) took me out for a fun day’s adventure. We went to Soulard Market, which is a wonderful indoor/outdoor produce/meat/spice market. We walked up and down several blocks in the neighborhood and had a fantastic lunch at Bogart’s Smokehouse on South 9th St. Wow! We love barbecue, and this was an amazing—I said AMAZING lunch. Don’t mob the place, we still want to be able to get in there when we want. Mmmm… the brisket and the pulled pork were both great, and the sides were wonderful, too. Yeah—I kind of dropped the diet notion for today because it’s my %*#&#@ birthday. Wanna make something of it?

Anyhoo, we were driving home (skipped the museum plan in favor of a nap) and I thanked CoTU for not taking me to Denny’s for a free meal. I might have complained just a little about turning 62. CoTU commented that when we met I was a kind of ‘chipper young thing’. (These are words not normally in his vocabulary.)

I said, “Yeah, and now I’m old and decrepit.”

Boldly, he said, “That’s okay—it’s only going to get worse.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m working out almost every day-- that’s not a great observation to make!”

“No—that was a compliment! Like saying I love you more today than yesterday, but less than tomorrow. Um… but the opposite.”

“See,” I answered. “So it’s the opposite of a compliment, which in our language is called an insult.”

“I don’t think it applies,” he replied. “At least not to me.”

“Right—men can age and not worry about it. They think they’re attractive no matter how out-of-shape and wrinkled they get,” I observed.

“Wait—are we talking about ME now?” he asked.

“Would it matter? I mean we thought we were old at 50. Now we look at those pictures and think we looked pretty good. So in ten years, we’ll look back and wonder what we were complaining about at this age, too. Let’s just enjoy it while we can.”

“Okay. Want to stop for dessert on the way home?” he wondered aloud.

“Your pickle was dessert,” I advised. “Save room for dinner.”