I'm grateful to have lasted so long - In reasonable good health and nearly always good humour - With a fair number of good friends and an astonishingly large crowd of "Family." Still growing too -- we got babies showing up now.
Seems like a good age, I like both the numbers that make up 59, FIVE as well as NINE. I have a fondness for primes and a special fondness for 5 because it's so friendly, so reliable -- like a precisely ticking clock -- its multiplication table so gentle on the nerves that it takes no effort at all to know it.
As for 9! Whoa. It's got quasi-magical qualities, for which reason it is so often at the heart of number-puzzles. Its multiplication table isn't quite as obvious as 5's but it's still very cool. For instance the digits add up to 9 -- you know: 18 (1+8 = 9); 27 (2+7=9) etc. There's a lot of stuff like that connected with nine. My favorite number.
And the other thing I like about 59 is the sense of being on the brink of the abyss ... right John?
Part of my continual excitement about my birthday, every year, is that I never expected to live this long. I honestly didn't think I'd make it past 30. Yet here I am, close to being one year away from DOUBLE THIRTY.
Not quite there yet, but one year away. One measly year.
(and I may not make it. Who knows? There are no guarantees. Except the fact that there are no guarantees).
Wow.
59. And still Fine.
Wow.
