On aging

On my 21st birthday, back in 1964, I got a spaghetti dinner – red sauce cooked for hours with a nice tough cut of chuck that makes a tasty meal. Almost every birthday since then I've had the same meal, cooking most of them for myself. One of those little personal traditions we have. This year we'll have it with an antipasto, some beer bread, a salad, some sturdy vino, and an Italian lemon ice, my wife's contribution. I always enjoy it; some years there will be only a couple of people, some years eight or ten. This year there's me and herself, my primo and his daughter, who stands as kinda a quasi-daughter to me, then friend Mike and his friend. Should be fun. The old annometer is clicking over another 365, or 366 this year, to make me 66 years old. My wife points out that this is two-thirds of the number of the beast. I'm not sure what her point is. We swear we will live the next month on lettuce dressed with lemon juice and clear spring water, to make up for the self-inflicted damages of the gluttony season that runs from T'giving until now. Próspero año nuevo, y'all.