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Monday, January 4. 2010
Happy Birthday!
Today I celebrate my birthday. No Monday Night Football — dang! There should be a college bowl game on, but I’ve run through the channels and all I get are game shows, Ellen DeGeneres and Dr. Phil — and he isn’t even a doctor!Well, Ellen DeGeneres is entertaining, but I’m switching to Ed Schultz over on MSNBC! Now that I usually work on Mondays, and the rest of the week, I miss all my favorite news and opinion programs. That’s the downside of having a job: it interferes with the fun things in life.
So today I goofed off for the morning, joined some friends at noon and then ran some errands with the help of a new friend who really wanted to be of service and spend part of the day with someone. He has a nice van, we got to do my business at the V.A. offices in Mission Valley, made a run to the beach, soaked up the warm sun and ocean-filled air and then hot-footed it back to this side of town to avoid all the after work traffic.
It’s been a beautiful day so far, other than no football on TV, but spending time outside, at the beach, it really doesn’t get much better than that! Especially in January!
Originally, I lived in Wisconsin and the idea of walking at the beach in a T-shirt on January 4th was tantamount to insanity. Actually, it would be insane, unless Wisconsin was having a very unusual heat wave.Oh yes, there are beaches in Milwaukee, WI, my favorite being Bradford Beach, right beneath the bluffs of Lake Park on Lake Michigan. I’m almost feeling nostalgic … but I also remember I can’t walk the beach in a T-Shirt on January 4th without catching the flu or pneumonia.
Ah yes! Walking at Mission and Pacific Beaches in the middle of winter wearing a T-Shirt cures any sense of nostalgia I might feel for Milwaukee. Not completely though. It’s almost impossible to find good bratwurst and kielbasa in San Diego — which might be a good thing for my diet.
Back in the day I lived close to a place in Milwaukee that made all sorts of sausages by hand: The European Sausage Factory. Man! I spent way too much time there, as my waistline will attest, but according to my brother Rick, who still resides in Milwaukee, the store no longer exists. Dang!
What I really miss about Milwaukee are my brother and friends. Too many to name, but all of them pretty special. Thanks to FaceBook, we can keep in touch. Technology ain’t so bad. Well, FaceBook can be a pain in the ass now and then and they’ve made our personal information more available to anyone who wants it — technology ain’t all that great.
So far though, this birthday has been very nice.
Later, some friends and I will be having dinner at Outback — love a good steak dinner! That will be a nice way to end a birthday! Outback has heart healthy fare … but more than likely I’ll be starting the meal with a Bloomin’ Onion! It will just go downhill from there. We’ll just keep this meal off the food log! Okay, we’ll add it, with an asterisk!
The best birthday present I’ve ever received: my brother Ken who shares this birthday, but he’s eight years younger! Back when we were little, Mom would bake a cake for me and a pie for Ken — what a way to enjoy a birthday! Of course Ken and I would have to have a piece of each! With ice cream!This birthday won’t deliver anything quite as special, it’s doubtful any birthday to come will equal that wonderful gift, but that’s okay. Ken is a gift that keeps on giving, year-after-year! In fact, it was Ken who sent the Grateful Dead-Opoly as my Christmas gift! And he doesn’t even like the Dead!
It’s a great birthday, despite the fact that I am yet one year older. When we’re younger, like in our 20’s and even 30’s, we don’t think about getting old. Life is, for most of us, a breeze. We don’t think much about things like disease and mortality. Maybe we should. Start putting away for retirement, pay attention to the doctors and health professionals who are telling us to live better, eat healthier and get more exercise.
In March 1996 I had my first heart attack, a wakeup call if you like and was damn lucky to be waiting for a cop to give me a ticket when it happened. He immediately got on his horn and called an ambulance. Within three minutes paramedics were on the scene and less than five minutes later I was in an emergency room. The cardiologist on duty said five more minutes and I would have been dead.So, anytime I can mark another day of life, another year of living, it’s a good thing. Who knows what tomorrow brings. It would be nice to see 55, 65, and even 75! Outlive both my father and oldest brother, neither of who lived to their 63rd birthdays.
But we don’t know. All we can do is live life as best we can, try not to regret and look and move forward — even if all that means is we get up and go to work and come home afterwards.
Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes on FaceBook and MySpace and Happy Birthday Ken! All the best people are born on January 4th!
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