The week gone by — May 30

On By BillIn Uncategorized, Weeks Gone By

I assume that the point of turning 49 is the same as turning 9, 19, 29 or 39 … or 59, 69, 79 and so on.

It’s the last one before the next one.

Of course, when the next one comes next year, they’ll be throwing parades in my honor. (That’s what I tell myself, anyway, although the actual reason is far more important, since it’s Memorial Day.)

At least 49 is a good Yankees year, the Ron Guidry year, because once we get past Hideki Matsui at 55, if no one comes along to make numbers in the upper registers famous, the pickings will be slim unless Clint Frazier can work out at 77 or I can live long enough for Aaron Judge at 99.

What … you don’t assign value to birthdays by the corresponding number from a player on your favorite sports team? Well, why not?

With my birthday falling on a Sunday, my parents are here for the day itself, instead of coming Memorial Day weekend. Assuming the weather holds up in Indianapolis and Charlotte, we’ll watch the Indy 500 early this afternoon and the Coca-Cola 600 tonight, with dinner from my favorite local Italian place in between along with cake, ice cream and gifts.

My birthday was on Saturday last year, a couple months into the world having basically stopped. The festivities consisted of Suzi and I getting takeout and my parents joining us over video for cake and ice cream.

This year, we’re all here, all fully vaccinated, and life here in Massachusetts is getting back to “normal” is happening faster than seemed possible even a month ago, even if I don’t know whether I’m fully ready for it. (In another aspect of “normal” life, it was 90 degrees the other day and we’ll be lucky to hit 50 this weekend. Welcome to New England false spring … if you like the weather, wait five minutes.)

So even if this birthday is a last one, the road to the next one is already better than it was a year ago.

While it would be amazing if all of you sent wonderful gifts from wherever you’re reading this, I’ll be more than grateful for a donation to my upcoming 5K fundraiser.

WHAT I WROTE

I got an unexpected baseball history lesson in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Renata let me play in her sandbox over at Buffalo Sauce Everywhere to “get real” about how I’m …  me.

A year ago, we needed walks. Now, we still enjoy them, and will keep doing them, but one of our regular walks has come to an end.

STUFF I READ

Eleanor and some of her friends wrote about navigating friendships in your 20s.

Jeff made a new, completely real, not scammy in any way friend.

For T.B.C., Monty writes about a first of a different kind.

Five minutes save Austin’s entire day.

Pea Green is giving her vegetable garden another try.

Fran learns what careers come with low car insurance bills (and which ones don’t).

Savannah provides an important Wally update.

Cass is about to become a homeowner.

Rosie just got on an airplane for the first time in a long time.

Jackie in Italy shared a good thing from the past year.

TWEETS I LIKED

I can absolutely see her doing this.

Cookie dough

I could watch this approximately forever, but I literally just realized the magic of it … you could know nothing about baseball and still realize something is going horribly wrong.

If all movie reviews were like this, I’d enjoy them a lot more.

https://twitter.com/oldhossradbourn/status/1397685226986524675?s=21

I can’t wait for my first vaccinated flight, and if you don’t run into the paywall, here’s the piece she’s referring to. It’s a fun one.

https://twitter.com/helaineolen/status/1397359494863151104?s=21

Vee is … not feeling optimistic about the future in Alberta.

https://twitter.com/veefourthree/status/1397752122012147716?s=21

Nope, I’m not insanely jealous. Nope, nope, nope.

16 thoughts on “The week gone by — May 30”

  1. Happy birthday, Bill! Also thanks for sharing on the blog — so happy to have you on and can’t wait for next month’s collab 😉 oh and I’m not sure if we’ve had this convo, but if you like Cookie Dough, have you had Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked?? So good 🤤

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