“When I Was Forty-One, It Was a Very Good Year…”

Note:  I wrote this post back on Thursday to appear today.  I’m giving myself a birthday weekend present of a spa weekend in one of the nearby spa towns.  That’s right, in my birthday suit on my birthday.  I’m also unplugged, off the grid and out of the loop all weekend, so that’s going to be my state at the time this goes live.

I’m 42 years old today.  Oh man, what I wouldn’t give to be 41 again.

Really, the year of me being chronologically 41 years old turned out to be the red-letter chronological age year of my life, so far.

It was my 41st birthday precisely a year ago which set in motion the set of events and circumstances which has resulted in my life being so much different here on the day of my 42nd birthday compared to my 41st.

On my 41st birthday itself, I was about two weeks past being cleared for being able to be left alone without anyone near me 24/7, as six months had passed since my last unconsciousness event.  My present on my actual birthday was a fishing weekend not far from Poplar Bluff.  But it would be close to a month after my actual birthday that I got a belated present, from benefactor(s) who I still do not know for sure to this day — Even though I have theories, I think they and I would agree that my theories about precise individuals are best kept between my ears.  I’ll say that I believe it was only one person, and he is one and the same as he who gave me my 40th birthday present of a weekend golf package at Valhalla in Louisville, a major championship level course.  I never got to use it, because one thing then another forced me to put it off, then July 19 came.  Anyway, you can all figure out by now that the belated 41st birthday present was the summer voyage, and something that happened while on that turned into a job offer and me coming right back here a mere month and a half after being through with the summer voyage.

I’ll also never get over the irony of the offer coming also on a July 19, the 2018 iteration of that date, one year to the day after the far less enjoyable July 19.  But it was an ideal way to break my life’s July 20 Curse, just like the Boston Red Sox needed 2004 (grrrr….) to break the Curse of the Bambino, or the Chicago Cubs (grrrr….) needed 2016 to break the Curse of the Goat.

Just for the record, it is extremely unlikely that the benefactor of the summer voyage had any clue that this job offer would happen;  It’s just something that fell out of the design, and was a matter of good “luck,” though like I wrote here in my review of The Witch Elm, we kinda sorta make our own good and bad luck, and said luck which brought be back here to Germany “for good” was a matter of a combination of pure fate and me accumulating the right networking contacts and history back when I was a St. Louisan.  That Magic Dex of mine.  No, my guess is that the benefactor thought that I needed this vacation and voyage to break me out of my mental doldrums, and then I’d come back and be ready to go back to work in St. Louis, perhaps for him, or for someone or some thing else, even with the physical limitations that were for awhile my new normal. (*)

On top of everything else, who knew that prime numbers could be so good?

Now, for you young folks who don’t get the cultural reference of the title of this post:

Furthering the irony here, yes, that was a 41-cent stamp.

(*) – In case you’re wondering, I really haven’t had much in the way of physical improvements in March, beyond the ones I’ve already told you I had over January and February.