birthday traditions

I've never been a huge fan of birthdays.
Once you've sojourned beyond the furthest reaches of that carefree, vaguely defined demographic too young to care subsequent birthdays pull into the station bearing freight, their rumbling approach inspiring more trepidation than joy.

Many years ago, when I was still safely enclosed by the borders of too young to care my pal Zim drew up the best birthday card of all time.

It had a touch of Busby Berkley, with a recognizable me in tophat and tails waltzing up a long, numbered spiral staircase leading to a platform where the Grim Reaper reclined seductively on a circular bed.

The past few years I've muffled the ominous hissing and clanking of the yearly stop by recruiting Meggsie to wait on the platform with me. Her birthday's the day before mine, and while folding them together doesn't [i]actually[/i] make me younger, it does short circuit morbid introspection. Rather than my complaints about creeping mortality inspiring long faces and knowing nods, everyone laughs uproariously when Meggsie cries "old".

Andrew Weil notes the only cultures whose people verifiability live longer than the average promote respect for elders and a social mix of ages.
Who knew that youngfriends(tm) promote extended lifespan?

We forayed out to our traditional sushi dinner, which seems to me uniquely suited to celebration. Delicious, exotic, formally appealing, impossible to make yourself and expensive enough to discourage regular indulgence- it is the perfect birthday meal.

With the Fuss parked with Auntie Burl & Fiend and with Uncle Timmy in tow (in spite of his abiding indifference to sushi) we made a fine evening of it, the repaired to the chateau for movies and cake.

Devra provided the latter, a positively Seuss-ian three layer deal that looked like a Who's top hat. Songs were sung, candles were extinguished, it was a fine how do you do.

Alas, I retired before the witching hour- as I noted to the disappointed revelers, the Fuss waits for no man.

And sure enough, he rousted me at 7am. While I regret missing the festivities, he is a daily reminder of the virtues of an early curfew.

Sorry for the lack of Fusspix lately, but the battery on my camera ran out and I can't find the cable dealie for it. I'll update the flickr as soon as I uncover the rascally cable.