My birthday was this past Tuesday. Nothing extraordinarily special happened really. My mother took me out to lunch and got me a gift. I got to pick the restaurant (which is not really a gift). Whenever we do lunch, neither one of us likes to pick however since it was my birthday, she made me pick. There are some unwritten rules about going out to eat when my wife is not with me. I cannot pick a place that she would like to go to (since she would be missing out). If that cannot be avoided (say my mother picks the restaurant) then under no circumstances can I go to a restaurant that she (the wife) has not been to yet. I did this once, it was not pretty. There is a minor corollary to this rule that states that I cannot order anything that she would have liked to have tried (at least a bite off my plate). These rules are so engrained into my mind that I do not even consciously think about them, I just react. Keeping these rules in mind, for my birthday dinner with my mom I chose Red Lobster (the wife is not big on seafood) and I ordered the shrimp jambalaya. It was pretty good. These rules have caused me to expand my normal ordering habits.
Once we were done eating, my mom drove me back to work and gave me my birthday present which was a pair of shorts and a pullover shirt (seen modeled below).
The picture is a little crooked as I had the son take it this morning. I have not owned a pullover shirt in years actually having converted over to button up shirts some time while I was in Texas but everything fits so I don’t have to exchange it.
This is my 41st birthday which means (among other things) that my age is a prime number. It has been (4) years since I was last prime. I take comfort that next year when I turn 42 that I only need to wait (1) year until I am prime again. The prime couples are rare (well prime numbers are rare actually given all the numbers but prime couples are obviously even rarer). I forget when I first started appreciating being prime. I doubt if it was when I was 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 or even 13. It might have been 17 or 19 but I just don’t remember. It doesn’t matter, I am prime now and that is all that matters.
The wife keeps promising me that I do have a gift coming but I am beginning to have my doubts. Unlike the past several birthdays, she is working now. This means that she does not feel like she is using my money to buy me a gift (her words, not mine). If you add this to the fact that I am a hard to buy for person and that she is not particularly good at buying gifts you can see that my birthday is not usually a happy time for her. All I ever want on my birthday is the same thing that I want on Father’s Day, namely a nap. I did not get a nap this year since I worked until late. So rarer yet is the prime birthday nap I guess.
Jon
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