Another Year Counted

I've been pondering the passing of time as I think of something from my past and realize that it was 40 or more years ago. When I was a kid, 40 years seemed an eternity. I could not imagine myself 40 years later. Heck, I couldn't imagine even turning 40, but then I grew up with Jack Benny's always turning 39. Jack Benny? Talk about dating myself! Watching Mitch Miller on the black-and-white television. Listening to Andy Williams or Bobby Darin on the huge stereo console with speakers on each side and on which one could stack multiple records to be dropped and played one by one. Damn! Those things take me back, forget 40, but 55 years.

And I think I'm old when I ask if someone remembers the Caravan (Home of the Humpburger) here in Charlottesville. Or the Chinese Dragon out Fontaine Avenue Extended where a friend learned to tell the gender of an unborn child by whether the mother's face changed during pregnancy. I was abroad for my second pregnancy, but said friend nailed that older son would be just that, a son. Those things only take me back about 30 years.

If you've visited this blog before around this time of year, you've seen that with a birthday six months away from New Year's Day, I have a tendency to think I should evaluate any resolutions I made six months ago and/or make some birthday resolutions for the six months that start that day. Of course, my New Year's resolutions have fallen off in recent years. My sole resolution for 2017 was somewhat fuzzy in that it was to try to live up to the sentiment on a Spartan race t-shirt I got for Christmas: TELL ME AGAIN I CAN'T. I guess I was hoping that in 2017 I would be brave or braver, set goals or higher goals and, whatever, accomplish more or accomplish it better. I'm not sure why I might have been feeling that way, though it could well have been that I was feeling lazy about resolutions  and using the shirt was the easy way out.

As for birthday resolutions, I noted in last year's birthday blog post that I was going to keep them private. That suggests that I made at least one, but if I did, I've now forgotten it or them. That's actually a good strategy--keep them private even from myself. Or, more pessimistically, there are said to be some memory issues with aging, not that I am.

Resolutions to keep for the next six months, written down so that I can hold myself accountable? I'm in a work wellness program in which I can get $250 if I continue to eat the amount of protein I should 20 days each month and do something creative for eight hours each month. The challenge ends in December, so keeping with those could be one resolution. I'm registered to run a half marathon in November, trusting the sons who say that if I can run a ten miler as I did in March I can run three more miles and make it a half. Let's make that a second resolution. Given that these cover just six months, two seems a reasonable number.

So much forbirthday eve musings. Tomorrow, I'll get to see what the coming year holds according to The Washington Post's daily horoscope. That's sometimes good for a laugh.