The circle of life

Last night, I attended a dinner party in honor of my birthday. At one point, some stroganoff dribbled down my chin and found my shirt. Not a rare occurrence. I never mastered the Philly Lean (the way you angle to avoid cheesesteak grease or pizza sauce from dripping on you).

While this is a somewhat common occurrence with me, in this instance, my companion leaned over and gently dabbed at the offending substance. No one’s done that in decades. It reminded me of the Seinfeld bit about the circle of life. When you go to a movie theater, the ushers are either acne-plagued adolescents or doddering seniors. You begin life at the velvet rope and return to it at the end. I’m back to having my chin wiped. A milestone birthday?

Last year should’ve been the milestone (60), but didn’t seem like it because nothing changed. This year had a different feel. For one thing, I received a lot more birthday greetings. I attribute that to joining Facebook last year, and everyone can see your birth date. So, that produced a couple dozen more well wishers.

And, enough to generate a possibly statistically significant sample from which to draw trends. Twelve greetings, or about 25% from all sources, incorporated the phrase “and many more,” or some variation on that theme. At this point, was the question raised that there would be?

I posed that at the dinner table. Talk about a buzz kill. But, a lively conversation ensued. I concluded that one should live their life exuberantly and carefree today, because tomorrow is never assured. But, that wasn’t the conclusion because my companion added, “Like you haven’t been?”

Point taken.