day among days

It is my birthday.
Collect ten bucks from every visitor to The Heelers Diaries.
Ah, if only life were like this.
I woke this morning to a phone call from the Spanish Professor.
"What age are you?" quoth she.
"I'm 43," I said without hesitation.
There came an effusion of Hispanic enthusiasm.
"Wow. You never told me before. Why wouldn't you tell me? Why are you telling me now?" quoth she.
"I've grown," sez me.
When she rang off I lay in the bed listening to the sounds of life flowing through the old Chateau.
In the hall Doctor Barn was having a mild disagreement with his son Ryan aged four.
I heard Ryan in high dudgeon saying: "Right then. I'm going back to bed. And I'm not getting up until I'm ten."
This was a most cheering beginning to my day.
In the afternoon I met up with my sister Yogic Marie and sister in law Executive Jackie for coffees at the Newbridge Silverware cafe.
It is a good cafe.
It has Russian waitresses.
Ah, they'd invade you soon as look at you.
The conversation was light.
Jackie told me she knew the sister of the lad who fired me from the Leinster Leader.
"She was a right bitch too," said Jackie. "I gave up playing basketball because of her."
Yes truly, life is local, as they say in the Johnston Press.
Later this evening the family gathered for a formal ceremony to wish me a happy birthday.
Formal ceremony?
A chinese take away actually.
But heartfelt for all of that.
One snatch of conversation I want to share with you gentle readers.
"James and I were discussing that Hallelujah song that's in the charts at the moment," said the Mammy. "You know the one. Everyone's recording it."
"It's a lovely song," put in Businessman Tom. "It's like a prayer."
The Mammy nodded.
"I told James it was a prayer," she said. "He thinks it's about sex. But I heard a priest on the radio today from Glenstall Abbey and he was explaining all the Biblical references in it. So really I think it is a prayer."
Businessman Tom was broadly supportive of this view.
"Of course it's a prayer," he snorted. "I've had lots of sex and nothing ever happened that had anything to do with that song."
My sister Marie's husband Farmer Edward leaned forward.
"Yes," sez Edward, "but when you'd be doing it, would you not sometimes shout Hallelujah."
The noble Heelers thought Edward's remark was worth the price of admission.
"Well," sez I, "that one was worth waiting 43 years for."
Doctor Barn had been attending the debate with sober mien.
Now he spoke.
"It's a Leonard Cohen song," sez he. "Leonard Cohen often has Biblical references in his songs. But I don't think you could call them prayers."
The voice of reason.
We'll leave it at that my warm hearted confreres of the internet.
I'm 43.
It's a great age.
Great in the sense of wondrous.
The new 21 really.

Whatever age we are is the best age to be.

See y'all again soon.