The Bestest Birthday Ever

I was seriously set to have my first depressed birthday. You know how people get to a certain age, after which they'd rather not spend a day thinking about how old they are, how many good times will no longer be had, and how close they are to their dying days? Yeah, I thought maybe 37 was a good year to start that. As Oliver's Daddy says "37, halfway to heaven". I've finally reached a turning point. Prior to 37, birthdays were for imagining the incredible possibilities and discoveries my future held. Here at 37, I'm starting to have an equal amount of college fund, IRA, and mortgage payoff thoughts. I suspect that from here forward, the concern will outweigh the wonder. My Albert Brooks is kicking my Kicking Bird's ass. Notorious B.I.G. is so far out of the picture it's not even funny.

But then, we went and had a simply phenomenal day. AK got paid. I got paid. She took me to breakfast where I'm sure I ate something nice but mostly I had about 6 cups of coffee. This increased my productivity a great deal and served as a legally stimulated rose-tint lens for the rest of the day. I finally got new tires on The Monster Truck. I had a very humourous McD's lunch with my twinkies. I had a pocketfull of Lux profits and shopped casually (change'um heap big tires take many moons. . . ) for my loved ones' Christmas gifts. I was reminded of my childhood, because we alwyas decorated the Xmas tree on my birthday, so that was always the beginning of the season. I must admit that, AK's dramatic lawn treatment and contrary (or meteor-hunting, you decide) light-up animated lawn buck (he looks skyward and shakes his head slowly from side to side) notwithstanding, I'd not yet caught the Christmas spirit. Shopping for gifts got me in the spirit of giving.

I finished the RC body I'd painted for the CFX Pro's Only Contest/Secret Santa, and posted pix for my fellow pros, furthering the whole sharing-is-caring vibe. I planned tomorrow's (today's) Pittsburgh RC racing trip with buddies. I had the most MARvelous birthday dinner, which included, believe it or not, what The Guiness Book of World Records has documented as The World's Most Expensive Ham. And it was worth it. All 3 of my puppies had a loud barking, tail-wagging good time at the dinner table making up songs and singing them. Mostly with no food in their mouths. AK paid many bills and sighed mighty Sugar Mama sighs of financial relief. I just can't say how many things went horribly, terribly, downright depressingly RIGHT on December 8th this year.

All that followed up by a perfect day of RC racing with my RC racing buddies. We all finished our races, were blessed by the Traction Gods, and for the first time ever I actually hung with the fast guys. I came in last, but I came in last in the very competitive fast truck class which may be more of an accomplishment than coming in 2nd in the less competitive stock class. And it was a CLOSE last :).

I will close today with an excerpt from the IM conversation AK and I are cyber-having as I blog. . .

BringsCrickets: Ben: My favorite book is this book--Timmy Turner!
BringsCrickets: Lovessss t rrrrr uuuuuu ck! Love struck.
BringsCrickets: That's how you make people get married!
Lapper808: Thats funny. Sounds like Milo Monologue
BringsCrickets: Ben keeps trying to marry Milo off and send him off to get his own home so he can stay and live with Mommy by himself.
BringsCrickets: Milo is interested in this idea and has announced that he'll be getting a house in Indiana.
BringsCrickets: Where he will become a "liver" when he grows up. That's someone who just lives.
BringsCrickets: I explained that in order to just live he'll need money which will require some marketable skills, but he has time to figure that stuff out.
Lapper808: Milologue: Very authoritative, medium-to-high volume diatribe. Partly unintelligible, wholly imaginative.
BringsCrickets: LOL
BringsCrickets: Often begins with "Seeeeeee . . ."