A very special birthday

I've never been a huge fan of birthdays and anniversaries (blanket apology to those whose birthday I've forgotten over the years ie everyone except Ingrid). I'm not sure why. Maybe they feel a bit artificial? Let bygones be bygones? Each and every day should be celebrated? Life must be lived forwards?

All the same, October brought a few tears of melancholy and joy as I looked backwards.

Today Ernesto celebrated 8 months of life with a marine-style one arm crawl. Juan turned 32 a couple of weeks ago--we didn't pay that much attention. Ingrid marked 10 years at White & Case with (yes, another!) promotion. Scott hit 40 … a couple months ago, but we partied last weekend.

I left my (actually 'his' now!) beloved bike with Scotty in Stockholm. Over a period of 3 years and 5 months I rode it over 21,000 kilometres, close to 1,000 hours, in 14 countries, surviving 6 crashes. 3 of the latter involved my brother JD. My 2nd ride was a flip over a fawn. The fawn and I were OK but my helmet split in 2. There were also God-only-knows how many near misses. The day after an outing south of Beirut part of the route was bombed. 

It was the wrong bike for a lot of the type of riding that I do--it will have a better home on the smoother roads of Sweden--but I loved every (ok, almost every) minute on it. In sharing with it the 1001 screw-ups a budding cyclist can make, I learned most of what I now know about riding, particularly rule #5. Also, it's not an exaggeration to say much of my post-tumour recovery took place on this bike.

Another anniversary approaches
It's been 1 year and 11 months since I was diagnosed with the GBM 'Terminator'. Thanks in big part to the lessons learned since, today I received another heartening MRI result: all stable. My brain, at least, remains fit to fight another day. 

Tally it all up: a collective 88 years of celebrations this month. That's 88, a number the Chinese associate with fortune and good luck, the Japanese with infinity, amateur radio operators with 'love and kisses' (but let's forget the Neo-Nazis use it as an abbreviation for 'Heil Hitler').

Whatever the number means to you, happy 88th birthday!