Nickel-Uno

"An eerie, intermittent croak - it sounded like a cricket with a cold - was picked up by radio recievers around the world last week.It came from beyond the stratosphere and signaled an epochal breakthrough into the new age of space exploration."

That was me.

Okay, that was "Sputnik I". But we had the same birthday:

4.X.1957 the Russians would call it; October 4, 1957 by our reckoning. Fifty-one years ago today.

All things considered, I've had a better run. The old Soviet spaceball lived about three months, reentering the Earth's atmosphere in January, 1958. The Missile Gap was here. I wasn't nearly was threatening, taking several years to so much as walk and throw avocados for the first time, although when I did I was deadly, according to my parents. I was Hawkeye with a fruit, able to knock down young toddlers (my little sister) on the fly with casual indifference.

I don't know whether I've changed that much, I'm afraid.

Mojo and I had a lovely birthday Saturday. We spent Friday lolling about until afternoon when we headed up the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge to the Bonneville Spa for a relaxing day of soaking and massaging and just doing nothing and listening to the rain. We slowly made our way back to town today, stopping at the Portland Chinese Garden for tea and a quiet wander.

Here's a selection of pictures from this beautiful garden: the main pool,
Lotus in the rain.
Tea and ricecakes.
Raindrops.

Finally home, to work on Maxine's bedroom, cook, read and just enjoy the quiet until the little peeps got back with their beloved nanny Jen and her inamorate Toni. Thanks, Jenny and Toni! Some tasty birthday pumpkin pie, savory and sweet with whipped cream.And then a slumbrous bedtime, and a quiet house.

One of the two of us born on that October day in the late Fifties lived fast, died young and...well, there wasn't much of a corpse, good-looking or otherwise. All things being equal, I have to say; I think I got the better deal.