Thoughts for the day

Well, friends, today I cross that big 5-0 boundary...but it's also Sean Connery's birthday while we're at it, who is exactly 25 years older than I. And on a more upright note, today is the 100th birthday of St. Faustina Kowalska, who died in 1938, but is one of my favorite 20th century saints. I only discovered she was my birthday cousin years after I learned about her story.

Anyway, today also is the birthday of Regis Philbin and Tim Burton, Elvis Costello and the lovely Claudia Schiffer.

I am in interesting company with by birthday cousins!

Yesterday, the problems I have with my digestive tract flaired up, and my meds didn't take it down, so I went to ER to make sure it wasn't a heart attack. I get spasms involving my bile duct. Hurts in the same areas as heart problems, though, and since women's heart attacks are sneaky, and the meds didn't work as normally they do, I wanted to be safe. It wasn't cardiac, the pain backed down about the time I got all the bells and whistles in ER, but it reminded me of the frailty of life.

My mother only lived 13 years after her 50th birthday. But one of my grandmother lived 46, and the other is still alive and kicking. Life can be fragile, but it is often tenacious, too. And while you are alive, you have the opportunity to touch someone in a good way, heal a pain, say the right word - or be the pits. I prefer the first alternative, sometimes I behave like the second, but that's life. We just pick up the pieces and keep trying.

Because it's my bd, I am going to have something chocolaty today. But not in huge quantities, and not to be brought home (between my tummy and my diet, I just don't think I want to deal with the side effects of overindulging). But it is a milestone! And I want to commemorate it.

Home spa day. And this time, for real.