The title of this entry is a reference to the fact that I haven't posted in ages . . . but also: Bring on the black balloons.

Yes, that's right.

On Sunday, I will turn . . . wait for it . . . fifty.

*sigh*

Half my life is over.

Shouldn't I be wiser by now? Shouldn't I have more dignity to go along with my gray hairs? (And shouldn't I have stopped that monthly Woman Thing?? It's unseemly, dealing with feminine protection when you're so old. Like wearing a miniskirt or something else equally age-inappropriate . . . )

I suppose having this birthday beats the alternative, and I know many of you Gentle Readers have already seen 50 come and go; and many more of you will see it come this year, like me. I know it's just a number, but the thing is? It's a really BIG number.

Deserving of a really BIG celebration. It's started already . . . I got home from work today to discover that all of these gifts had arrived in the mail:



There was no accompanying card, but I know who sent them. Thanks, Mike . . . I was totally tickled by it all.

Tomorrow Emil and I are beginning the celebration by heading off to Stratford, where we'll see A Comedy of Errors, then spend the night in a London hotel (with a sauna). I'm really looking forward to this! I've never seen A Comedy of Errors. (We made these plans on Wednesday - just as Emil was coming down with a raging cold, his first illness in five years or so. I'm hoping his fever breaks before we leave tomorrow . . . I feel alternately happy we're going, and sad that he's likely to be ill for the trip. Alas. Everything - hotel, tix - is, of course, non-refundable.)

I'm planning to take a boatload of knitting with me.

* * *

So let me indulge myself by telling you about the Childish Thing I have not put away, aka, my bicycle. Here are the long-promised pix of my bike ride to work. I didn't take any of the neighborhood (or the small wetland that borders it), but once I get out of the 'hood, I travel alongside a golf course:





Isn't that nice? I'm riding on a not-very-traveled sidewalk here, so I can gawk at the scenery all I want.

Then it's a lo-ong uphill to Old Town:









Then in to the parking lot, where I catch the river trail:



(Yeah. I want that apartment up there, with the plants.)

Here's the river trail. These pix are somewhat misleading, because this is what I actually see when I come home from work; I stopped & turned around to get these shots.



I love that view, I just love it.

And this one:



That's taken from the bridge you see in this picture:



And when I cross that bridge, I'm more or less on campus.

I dunno. Should I really be riding my bike at my age??

* * *

Perhaps I should be knitting.



(Oh, wait. Those are biking gloves.)

Ah, well. More when we're back from Stratford . . .