Exceeding the limit

October 6

I have spent the last week or so in California. I am starting this post at 30,000’ on my way back to Texas. I will finish it this evening because I want to include a picture of the wranch.

I was back in Encinitas to celebrate Jen’s 40th birthday. JP arranged to have a bus pick up a group of 25 friends and family for an outing to some Temecula wineries. We primed ourselves with celebratory salutations to Jen and to each other with plenty of champagne, as befits a party bus. Tanka, our bus driver who must have a second job herding cats, kept us on schedule visiting three wineries, one of which served a tasty lunch, and finally back to Jen and JPs home where the party continued. Happy Birthday, Jenny!

October 9

Birthdays really are something special. Among other things, they mark the day we take our first breath, that first surge of life-giving oxygen. What a momentous occasion that is! Free of mother’s warmth and nourishment and steady heartbeat. That first breath kickstarts our life as unique little people with a world to discover.

Here is a thought game that comes to mind: Imagine reversing time and going back into the womb, back to that moment of conception, and back further to our parents conception, and following this continuous stream of life back in time again and yet again to the early humans. Don’t stop there! Keep going back, through primordial life forms until you reach that first chemical reaction that started the ball rolling! Think harder, we can drive our proto-genesis back further: all those rocks and atoms and stars and explosions – all held the ingredients of life. We are nearly back to the Big Bang now. Break on through to the other side!

There were some milestone birthdays this year. Norm gets the prize for most breaths taken. Ninety years! Keep leading the way! Spence clocked in eighty years this past July, as did Marilyn. And both still going strong. I celebrated my seventy-fifth birthday in June and was fortunate to join Upama for hers last Sunday, with many family and friends – and delicious Indian food. It might be impolite to mention Letitia’s age, so I composed a little ditty for her:

I heard that Letitia wanted to feel alive
So she jumped in her car and went for a drive.
She drove so fast
everyone she passed
Said she’s exceeding the limit of sixty-five!

I mentioned Jen already and there was son Michael who turned thirty. Thirty!?! Hard to believe. And then, closest to that first breath, at six months, there was young Dash Hebard. Cute little guy with a dashing cowlick, his smile revealed he was enjoying this new world.

Of course, everyone had a birthday this year and I wish you all the very best and many more breaths to come!

The house is coming along. More on that tomorrow…or the next day.