I had my 36th birthday this last week. I had a nice birthday. The folks I work with in CVCA’s Guidance Department game me this piece of cake, which was very good – it had about 1/2 inch of frosting on it. The best part was that the black balloon was inflated when they gave it to me, but it had been taped to the fork, not tied, so it slowly deflated. I found it rather amusing (and tasty). The folks in Guidance sang happy birthday to me, and they sang it a second time with the accompaniment of one of the counselors who plays a mean harmonica. It meant a lot to me.

My birthday fell on the same day that second-quarter grades were due, which is hectic. The two people I most closely work with on grades let me go at 3:30 before the report cards were printed, which was really nice of them. I used the time wisely – I played an hour-and-a-half of the computer game Civilization IV in CVCA’s History Club with Ombudsman. Mer came and got me around 5:00 and we went home.

I wanted a quiet night, so that is what I got (thanks, Mer!). We watched an episode of what is probably my favorite TV show – Quantum Leap. It is the (fairly) new season 5, and I am happy to be seeing these again. I just love Quantum – it starts out tense, gets worse, and then Sam and Al save the day. It should be hokey, but I really enjoy it. What a great show. After the show, we went upstairs to the office and listened to Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me online, and it was a great show – they had Weird Al on as a guest, and the news stories were really funny. We finished the evening by Mer giving me a really nice back rub (I have minor back trouble, so it was much appreciated).

So, all in all, it was a pretty darn good birthday. An odd thing about turning 36 is that I still feel like I’m in the 18-22-year-old range in my head. There are times when I find it hard to believe that I’m 36. I suspect that is one of the reasons that people start to forget how old they are – you feel like you are 20, so you have to stop and think about when you were born. Oh – also odd is that for the first time, I am now twice as old as all the students at CVCA.

I’m grateful for the years, and I’m really grateful that I have a fairly easy life. I am blessed indeed.