While still Wednesday, it is late and, for all intents and purposes, my birthday is over. That’s another one in the books – 64 of them now – and while I bemoan the advances of age and the mandatory observation of the passage of another year with the day, it was an extremely nice one. My daughter and her boyfriend came over, my son and his wife along with my three awesome grandchildren came, and my lovely niece as well. Every Wednesday here is “family night” where all that can make it, come over to eat and laugh. We get pizza every other week and on the off-week Teri makes something. So, this week, the graces of the universe smiled on me – my birthday fell on a Wednesday, everyone was able to come over, and it was an off-week.

Now I think pizza is probably in the top two of all things ever invented – I simply love pizza. But it was nice to not have to go out to get it tonight. Since it was my birthday, it was my choice for food and I selected Italian grinders. (Note: this is Rhode Island; they are grinders here. Elsewhere, they could be heroes, subs, torpedoes, or hoagies.) We get all the ingredients and the fixings, along with chips and the like, and lay it all out and let folks build their own sandwich. It was awesome! And of course cake for dessert!!

I am always put off when my kids buy me something; they are working hard to build their lives and money is often not plentiful, so this year I asked them to consider getting me something I would not get for myself: red licorice and peanuts. And they listened!! I sit here munching on licorice and nuts intermittently while typing – it is great!! Each are a rare treat as they are snacks I just never buy for myself but truly enjoy.

And in my last post, I talked about Teri’s gift to me – the digital watch. And I have to say, each hour that goes by, it grows a little bit cooler. I mean, it was cool right out of the box, but as I begin to discover all it can do, I am really getting hooked. I think I mentioned that I had little interest in what my heart-rate is? Well, as I see it on the watch, it turns out I am interested in it! And now I am anxious to see how it moves around as I do in the yard, and especially when I get back in the woods hiking. It is also cool to have the news texts pop up on the watch. Even though they start on my phone, and the phone sends them to the watch, with the watch I don’t have to do much of anything other than look at my wrist, as opposed to going over and getting the phone to see what just cane through. Pretty cool. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, It receives call too! I haven’t tried answering one yet, but I will. Of course, since all this is via Bluetooth the phone has to be close to me for it all to get to the watch, so it doesn’t replace the phone, but it surely supplements it.

I entered the day unhappy at adding another higher number to my age, and I am exiting the day smiling and content after having basked in the joy of my greatest accomplishment of my time on earth: my family. Perspective dear reader, perspective.