I'm 444!

I turned 444 months old today. Such a nice, round number, don't you think? It sounds less 'practically forty' than the conventional way.

Give or take a few, that's 2,268,840 hours, but I don't want to think about that too much because I'd feel older than Yoda. I don't know why 444 sounds better, but it does.



This chick at work, she had a picture on her desk, and I thought it was a kid sister. No kidding. I wasn't trying to flirt or anything like that, but the resemblance was striking. So one day, in casual conversation, I asked if it was her sister or what.



It was her daughter. I guess I'm a bad judge of age, because I would not have guessed this chick to be over 25. She's 37, and said I'm officially her best friend for being wrong by so many years.

But I don't feel like 37 is old. Sure, in some respects, my efforts to extend adolescence have failed. For my birthday this year: a vacuum cleaner from Mom, a dishwasher from my kid brother, a replacement of my broken primary eyeglasses from Dad, all of which I was delighted with. See also a garden hose and spray nozzle. These are not presents that would delight the uber-young at heart.



And I occasionally get set straight on how much of an old man I am, too, when I am actually trying to flirt. Like the time I was chatting up a chick who really was all of 24, and thought I was doing okay...until she made a comment about older, heavier men and realized she considered me thoroughly in the 'older' and 'heavier' categories. Clearly, even if she thought I was sweet, she's not in the market for an aging Clydesdale.

My ex left a happy birthday voicemail message for me. Which isn't wrong, it's not like I'm not glad to hear such tidings from any quarter, but it surprised me.



And Em gave me a box of soap slivers from Sunshine Soap Company, very cool. She could even sniff and name most of them. 'That's cucumber-melon,' she'd say, and when I smelled it I was like, 'Yeah, it is, isn't it?'

I took Mo to the dentist in the morning. The abscess that got us into the dentist who did her oral surgery a couple months back, I thought, had come back. But it turns out to be a different deal. She did awesome, absolutely rock-star, and let the dentist do more looking and inserting of mirrors than I would have imagined possible.



She did a little dance when it was time to go, too.



Then she had a seizure at school. Not a big one, but still.



Things had settled to nearly normal by evening, and I made pizza. Including an obscenely thick pepperoni with layer on layer of cheese and pepperoni and huge, doughy handles. I made a more normal-scale prosciutto and three-cheese pizza, too, as Em doesn't do pepperoni and prefers olive oil to alfredo sauce (which was what I used on the testosteroni pie).



Mo capped off our dog walking by bolting from me and leading me on a half block chase after running out into the middle of the street without looking. I hollered, there was a time out involved, and I'm pretty sure I said a few things that would get a call from school if she repeats them.



Mom cooked fried chicken last Sunday for a birthday dinner, and Dad is taking us out next weekend. So it's the usual, Trigger's Birthday Week bonanza, I guess.



And Mo has started asking me, more and more, 'Camera please!' She wants me to take picture after picture, which I do...