Wishes do come true

As you can probably tell from the noisemakers and the festive hat, today is my birthday.

Since today is my day, I’ve carefully laid out everything I want to do today. I started by sleeping in late, for what is a special day if you can’t catch up on the Z’s you’ve missed in the previous 365? Unfortunately, a stuffy sinus woke me this morning at 2:30 and I tossed and turned till 6:30, when I finally fell back to sleep. Got up at 7:30, so technically, I did indeed sleep in. Doesn’t much feel like it, but the clock doesn’t lie so it looks like my first birthday wish came true.

My second birthday wish is a full, productive day working in the shop. I already know this one will also come true, because it’s been a week since I mowed the lawn and the lawnmower is in my garage workshop. You’re thinking, just skip it, right? No can do. I’ve been out of town for the last three days, and I see that according to the weather forecast it’s going to rain for the next several days. The lawn, already ignored too long while I was gone, is now very tall. I’ll be lucky to get the mower through it as it is, and if I wait till after three days of rain to tackle it then I’d be better off just to prune it instead of mowing it. But, technically, since I have to go into the shop and use a shop tool to get the job done, it’s productive shop time. Birthday wish number two: check.

And my third birthday wish is to have a steak dinner just the way I like it. Regular readers and longtime friends and acquaintances know that I’m the cook in the house, so this wish is also destined to become true before the day is out. Nobody cooks a steak exactly to my taste the way I do so, technically, when it comes to birthday wishes I’m three for three.

The key to a truly happy birthday is to make your wishes attainable. World peace? A shiny new sliding table saw? Return my hair to its lustrous dark brown? Nah, no thanks; I’ll stick to the simple, attainable basics.

And when you think about it, my three birthday wishes coming true aren’t all that bad – since today’s election day here in W.Va. and my wife has no school, some of the house-stuff I was going to do was already done when I rolled out of the sack. Today is going to be a gorgeous day, much too beautiful to spend indoors, so working in the yard won’t be such a bad thing and, after all, it really is something productive. And then there’s that steak to look forward to tonight.

In all, looks like a great birthday. As long as I can stop yawning.

Till next time,

A.J.