Birthdays

Today is my birthday. Today I am celebrating my existence on this planet, and the fact that I have managed to hang on for 62 years. If statistics don't lie, I should be entitled to another 16 or more years, if I take care of myself.

Compare that to our animal friends and I'm doing pretty good.

• I have already outlived the average donkey (and the scary crocodile) by 15 years.
• I am over 4 times the age that could be expected by the most optimistic chicken.
• The Queen bee, waited on hand and foot, only lasts 5 years at best, and her poor worker bees are doomed to a year, max.
• The pigeons that decorate my car survive only a third as long as I have (they have that coming)
• The ox (which I can be stubborn as) isn't so stubborn after all in the living department. Twenty years.
• The guinea pigs, dogs and cats and horses I've cleaned up after over the years (how's that for a prepositional construction, folks?) can't keep up with me. I will outlive them all--this a reminder to Jake, who woke me up this morning at 5 AM: I will prevail.
• And, to the squirrels that dig up my carefully planted daffodil bulbs: DIE! I can wait you out.

Of course, the box turtle has me beat: 123 years, which makes me wonder why we endanger life and limb and risk disastrous pileups to save them as they creep across the road in front of our cars. Squirrels we slaughter with abandon, apparently, but not those decrepit turtles.

All this aside, I am grateful beyond measure for every year I've had, or can expect to have. I am grateful for the family and friends who make these 62 years seem like the lifespan of a gnat. I am the luckiest person I know, thanks to all of you.