The mongoose is your dear old aunt (Happy birthday to me)

First let me apologize. I know I've been missing for a week, and I don't have an outstanding reason, except that my monitor decided to go rogue and become the matrix. It's now covered in flickering lines, spots and other vision-obstructing paraphernalia. The good news is that my life-(and blog-)saving friend brought me a monitor to hook up to my laptop at home. The not-so-good news is that the coming week is filled with birthday celebrations, so I may be missing a little more.

My sister's birthday is Thursday, and my birthday is today. Thweep! (That's my noisemaker.) I love birthdays. I was up at 5:30 a.m, and out on the road by 6:30, two sisters in tow (they're on holiday; I'm just idle), all three of us wearing party hats and accepting kind wishes from strangers. There were a few nasty don't-these-three-idiots-have-anything-better-to-do looks as well. We just blew our noisemakers at those people: Thweep!, beyotch. We're having a party.

So yes, I love birthdays as an occasion to celebrate life, learning and love. My mother started that tradition among her three girls growing up: we treat the birthday person well, acknowledge that on that day it's not so much about us and a bit more about her, and we use it as a time to take stock of life, thank the universe (she would say god, and would grimace long-sufferingly at me for saying 'universe') for what we have, and purpose to be better people in the next year of life.

I'm getting old, y'all. Sometimes I'm in the middle of a story, and I'll hear myself saying something like: "that was ten years ago, in Venezuela, under the old presidente", and I feel like an old seafarer back from a lengthy voyage. It's great. I feel learned - with two syllables, and I also now call teenaged boys 'son', for which my friends laugh and point at me, and deservedly so because really, that's not necessary.

So I'm young and still learning, but old enough to do so with some clarity, so that the lessons stick instead of bouncing off my thick head to be lost forever. Clarity is great. Life is wonderful. Long live (the uncompromisable goal of) absolute world peace.