On Turning 53 Today

Today, September 4, 2005, is my 53rd birthday. I will not rewrite the post that I had written a year ago on my birthday, in which I had explained the rather unusual circumstances that had surrounded my birth. Here is a picture of me, with my mom and my brother, François-Xavier. I think that it was taken around April, 1953, and I was still not a "well" baby by then (I still weighed only 4.5 kgs, or about 9.9 lbs by the time I was 7 month old - sorry for the poor quality of the picture, the original was not that great, and I tried to doctor it up, to the best of my ability, on Paint Shop Pro):


I still do not find this birthday as traumatic as my 50th, even though I am nearing 55 at a rather alarming pace. I often think that I do not feel one day older than when I was 18, except that I hope to have gained some wisdom over the years and, of course, I am aware that my body is not quite what it was 35 years ago.

I had a decent pre-birthday couple of days:

1. Marty sent me a lovely bouquet of fresh-cut flowers at my office on Friday. He told me, when I called him to thank him, that he wanted me to enjoy the flowers a bit before my birthday and that it was always fun to get flowers at the office.

2. My friend Mary-Jo (with whom I had had dinner Friday night, after not having seen her since last May - she had been out of town since late June, among others on a 25 day trip to South Africa and Namibia) stopped by yesterday morning and presented me with some farmers' market flowers, two presents from Namibia, and a birthday gift.

3. Rick and Claire sent me also a very nice bouquet of flowers, which arrived yesterday afternoon.

4. last night, Marty cooked me a very nice Indian dinner, and gave me a few birthday gifts, which were both fun and very nice.

Later on today, we are going to see The Constant Gardener, and he is taking me out to dinner afterwards.

My mother also called me from France to wish me a happy birthday. So, it's been quite nice so far.