Kage Baker always made as much of a to-do about my birthday as possible. Not only did she like any excuse for a party; she felt that the older one got, the more one ought to celebrate one’s natal anniversaries. After all,  it took such a long time to get there … By the time Kage died, we were spending a solid week on each of our birthdays.

Today is my birthday. Not only does it fall on a Saturday (which automatically and legally extends a birthday to 2 days, in case you didn’t know that, Dear Readers) it comes as it always does on one end of the 4th of July weekend. Which means my birthday can be extended to 4 days with no trouble at all!

I don’t require a lot of pomp and circumstance to celebrate, even on the day itself. But I have had a wonderful day so far! My family is in a lovely mood, even the pets. I woke up to a fresh bouquet of Japanese irises. There were jelly doughnuts for breakfast, and there will be perfect enormous steaks for dinner. It’s cool and breezy here, and the neighborhood smells of barbecues. I had over 200 birthday greetings on my computer this morning.

And today I am 64 years old. This is an age in the realm of science fiction! To prove it, I have platinum in my heart, artificial plastic lenses in my eyes and my birthday congratulations arrived electronically on a screen on my desk … from all over the entire world. Just contemplating this is an enormous gift all by itself.

Plus, 64 is a magical birthday. It was a marker foretold by  the Beatles in the Golden Year of 1967, on the Golden Disk of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Which is itself 50 years old this summer. All Beatles fans look forward to this birthday, and I get to celebrate it in the 50th year. As Kage would have said: Boss!

The one crappy thing that is happening today is that my keyboard is being recalcitrant – moving too slowly and freezing, so that if I type at my usual speed, letters are doubled or dropped and in general it comes out like Etaoin Shrdlu translated into Klingonee. This is making me insane.

So, Dear Readers, I’m going to go eat leftover birthday doughnuts, and wait for my birthday steak, and just bask in general in the soft summer afternoon. And listen to Sgt. Pepper. Thank you all for your many greetings, and may you all have a lovely day as well.

And to help you on your merry way, here is Happy Birthday in Welsh, sent to me by my good friend Tom Newman. Thank you, Thomas bach!

Penblwydd hapus i ti, Penblwydd hapus i ti,

Penblwydd hapus annwyl Kathleen…

Penblwydd hapus i ti!!