About That Birthday

"The fountain of youth is dull as paint

Methuselah is my patron saint

I've never been so comfortable before

Oh, I'm so glad that I'm not young anymore"

-Alan Jay Lerner, Gigi

I mentioned Peg bringing me a wonderful birthday weekend a few posts ago. Sixty-one. No special anything associated with that one. "Another day older and deeper in debt", to quote Tennessee Ernie Ford. We've sworn off buying fancy gifts for each other, in this new austerity we're living. And besides, if we want something badly enough we just buy it for ourselves.

So on Saturday the 12th, the day before the big day, we brunched and then pulled ourselves together to drive over to the Livingston Country Club in Geneseo, a place we've never visited about an hour west of the lake condo. The drive through farm country was spectacular as always. The clubhouse was incredibly loud, an acoustic nightmare in fact with all impervious surfaces. Filled with men who'd just finished their morning 18, drinking and yukking it up. And Yankees are so, so loud. They shout stories when they're three feet apart. When they laugh it's an explosion directed to the ceiling. It's all sort of obnoxious. We ate lunch outside, which was the better option despite the heat.

My golf game was forgettable, as always. But amazingly, the Nationol Warplane Museum in Geneseo happened to be hosting their annual airshow that day. A Hornet flew overhead as it set up for the next maneuver. An F-35 repeatedly buzzed us, then flew overhead with some unnamed (or at least I couldn't tell what it was) World War 2 fighter in a two ship formation that probably required the Lightning II to drop full flaps to fly that slowly.

I'd show you a video, but this shitty web host won't allow it.

I complimented Peg for arranging such a display for my birthday, and she acknowledged it took some pulling of strings on her part.

Afterward we drove into Geneseo, yet another beautiful New York village straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Those places exist, friends, just not in the South. Their annual city festival was taking place, mostly crouched in the shade because of the heat. We found a two hundred year old home converted to an inn downtown, and adjourned to the air conditioning for a toddy.

Then it was home again, back through that spectacular farmland to catch the late afternoon fading light above the lake. My blood pressure drops just thinking of it.

Tomorrow's a big day, with two hearings (one in person, which is why I'm here), then a car swap and back to the farm before my flight physical the next day. I'd planned to fly back to NY Wednesday morning, but there's some delta sierra weather heading our way, and if I have enough gas in the tank personally I may just take off around sunset and fly home. I do love flying at night, despite Peg's reservations about not having a place to land if the propeller stops turning.

Selah.