Birthday Boy

Yesterday was my 57^th birthday. It was a perfect day.

The day started with Helen wishing me a happy birthday, and giving me the sweetest card.

Headed out in the morning with a couple of things to mail at the post office. This absolutely meant that I had to stop somewhere for coffee. As a retired guy, price matters.

I could have gone to the nice place for breakfast and coffee for about $15, or just get a fancy latte at Starbucks for $5. Went instead to McDonald’s. Got pancakes and a pensioner's coffee for just under $4.50. Can't beat that.

The second trip out was to attend a little thing at my old school for a longtime colleague who is joining me in retirement. It was great.

Afterwards I parked at the waterfront for a lovely 5k run.

It was a busy night at the White Belt Jiu-Jitsu class. There were 25 people on the mat. It was a little strange, in that the instructor was away and the class was being taught by Madeline.

During the lesson, she did maybe 7 or 8 demos. For each one she needed a partner. There were three other Blue Belts present that she could have chosen. One is an experienced young woman about Madeline's own size. One was a young guy a bit bigger than either of the girls. The third was me, an old guy twice her size.

Our usual instructor usually uses the younger Blue Belts for demos, as he's trying to groom the future generation. Madeline has no such motivation. Who did she use, and why? She used the girl once, the small guy twice, and all the other times it was me. I took it to be a vote of confidence in my technique.

Later, for the Blue Belt class two more arrived for a total of 6 on the mat. Several of us recalled the first slice of the night's technique well. Our instructor wanted us to continue into the second slice, but he demoed it last time incredibly quickly. We wouldn't have been able to do it, except I had reviewed the online video before heading to class. It isn't a hard one, so I taught it.

We were done our drill with lots of time to spare, so we rolled. I ended up with each of the other three guys. It was good fun.

Climbing into the car, my phone rang. It was my wife telling me that she'd ordered and paid for sushi, and could I pick it up. I love sushi, and was happy to comply. We had a lovely, late supper.

It might just have been my best birthday ever.....