And You Run and You Run to Catch Up with the Sun

I was going to let my birthday today pass unmentioned, but my family has already outed me on Facebook. I never told Facebook my birth date mostly to avoid friends and "friends" wishing me a happy one because their computers prodded them to, but it turns out there's no avoiding family.

Thanks.

I'm not a birthday grump. I used to be, when I was a younger man with frustrated ambitions. That's when I adopted Pink Floyd's "Time" as my unofficial birthday anthem and established the ritual of morosely listening to it on my day. So I was startled a while ago to realize I'd grown up to be pretty happy and content, having accomplished much of what I'd hoped. (I think I also realized that some of my ambitions were stupid.) It took longer than I might've liked but I got there. The idea of contentment took some getting used to and still doesn't quite sit right with me. That's fine. Some ambition and angst are good for the soul.

I still keep my "Time" ritual; in fact, I just played it. The difference: now it makes me smile.

.

In case you're unfamiliar with my birthday song. I just noticed that "Floyd" is one of those words that, if you stare at it a few minutes, starts to look very weird.

Still, I think there's something silly about making a big deal of someone's birthday after the age of 20 or so. Everybody's got one. I don't need gifts, I'm a grown-up; if there's something I really want, I can go buy it myself.

Maybe I am still a bit of a birthday grump. It's hard to separate from my natural ground state of general grumpiness.

My daughters surprised me with an early-birthday visit home last weekend. In addition to the gift of their presence (all I needed of course), they gave me a home-sewn reversible cooking apron with a black-and-white starship Enterprise print on one side and a colorful Marvel comics print on the other. Wonderful!

They also got me one of these:

I could name at least four of my readers who need no further explanation. For the rest, here's a hint:

The 21st Century version of the Enterprise Comm Panel doesn't do quite as many neat things as its 23rd Century counterpart but it's still pretty cool. When you push the white button it emits the "hail" whistle. It also has a motion sensor that can be set to sound off either a "red alert" klaxon or Star Trek's sliding door "swoosh!" when someone walks past. I've mounted it near my office door and it always makes me smile, although sometimes when I forget it's there it scares the chitlins out of me, too.

My kids get me. Who wouldn't be content with that?

Tonight Karen and I will have a nice dinner and slice into half a birthday cake (we ate the other half with the girls on Sunday), and I'll open a few gifts from her and my extended family. I do appreciate the gestures. Today I turn fifty-three. It beats the only alternative.