[MD] A guy in his 50s examines the coming storm

[John Carl]

So yesterday was my 50th birthday.  I didn't go anywhere, see anyone or do
anything.  I stayed home with my boy, my youngest, Josh.
Lu went on a women's retreat, my girls are away at school and there was
really not much choice, since we had nobody else to watch Josh for the
weekend.

I thought staying home and meditating upon my mortality would be the
preferable way to spend my birthday anyway.  I'm not such a huge fan of
hoopla and party hats.  So that's what I did.  My brother would have come on
over, but there is a huge storm coming our way, he says, and he had to get
his crop in and  some wood split, so I mostly sat around contemplating my
messy place and said my goodbyes to summer from a sitting position.  Not a
bad way to spend one's birthday, tho when told, my friends and family all
commiserated with me over my being alone.  But I don't consider that being
alone.  Alone is when you don't have friends and family to sympathize.
 Alone is when you don't have a boy to teach and raise and help dis spell
the gloomy thoughts of the long  winter coming.

I also have the MoQ discuss, to keep my mind occupied, and I want to thank
you all for being here and giving me something to think about besides the
fact that  9 dollars and 31 cents I've got in my pocket is basically all my
money in the world.

And thanks RMP.  Thanks for the words which are worth more to me than mere
quantities of money could ever be.

"Another metaphor that occurred to him was that he'd been on a tightrope all
of his life.  Now he'd fallen off and found that instead of crashing he was
flying, a strange new talent he never knew he had."