This year has been weird. Weird weather for sure. We had spring in February. In March, after many blooming trees bloomed, we had a hard freeze. Down the hill behind our house, we have side-by-side redbud trees. One got its little buds froze off. The other didn’t. And, thank You, God, it didn’t kill this year’s crop of Calhoun County peaches. Then we had the dog days of August in July, and we are having September this month.
So, the weather is making the year weird, right?
It’s what I believed until yesterday. My seventy-sixth birthday happened then. It didn’t have to happen, but my beloved sister-in-law blew the Facebook whistle on me. Lo. Once it’s on FB, it’s real. Then my brother-in-law ordered up a parade, led by seventy-six trombones, to march around Edgemont Circle. And that’s when Number 76 clobbered me with the realization I am now closer to 80 than 70. Whoa! How could that be possible? I know some Landing Signal Officers who are in a state incredulity right now, especially the ones who graded my landings as, WLTBT, “Won’t live to be thirty.” But I did, and it’s true because it was on FB.
Then it dawned on my engineering brain that I could not have gotten to be 76 without aging. Now, last year’s birthday happened without any aging having happened whatsoever. There was no evidence to support the hypothesis that aging had happened. Of course, I will say my eyeballs were carefully trained to see only shaving cream when they found it necessary to look in a mirror. Oh, and the nose hairs.
This dealing with aging is suddenly traumatic. To help cope, for my birthday dinner, I asked for surf and turf. The Love of My Life, My One and Only Squeeze, and The Boss of Everything fixed chicken and beef. “That’s so much more appropriate for you,” she said sweetly.