Another Shameless Birthday Post

One of these days I'll sleuth around and find out why South Pasadena High School has these numbers in the sidewalk. But for today I'll just use this one to mark my 46th birthday!

I'm hopelessly obnoxious when it comes to birthdays. Everyone's birthdays. Even birthdays of people I don't know. (Yes, I'll sing along in a restaurant when someone is getting serenaded by harried waiters and well-meaning friends. I'll join in from across the room even if I don't know the person. I might even get a little misty-eyed.) That's right, I'm a full-fledged (birthday) card carrying sentimental fool and proud of it.

Birthdays don't always yield the best presents, and sometimes they roll around in the middle of one of those chapters in your life that, if written, might begin with lines like "the primroses were over" or "midway in our life's journey, I went stray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood." or even "as Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

Life is funny like that.

But birthdays offer a great chance to celebrate, ponder and plan your next big plot line. One with a brand new number on your jersey. So, dear readers, on this day of my birth you are ALL instructed to party hardy and eat cake! I'll be the one in the corner of the restaurant with a silly hat, a "46 is the new 30" T-shirt and an inferno of birthday candles just waiting for a really good wish. (By all means, sing along.)