Well now.

It seems that today is the day of my birth some 4 decades ago. People have asked me if I feel any different and I can truthfully reply that age-wise, I really don't.

But today was special in so many ways that I can hardly recount them all. From the first Happy Birthday of the day at 6:59 a.m. when Jim's alarm went off to right now it has been a truly wonderful day.

My dear dear office staff took it upon themselves to redecorate my office in honor of the occasion. When I opened the door I could have sworn that Hello Kitty had erupted in my office. It was a veritable Sanrio serraglio with strategically placed Hello Kitties in bee costumes. And a magic wand - which I used to great effect in the senior staff meeting this morning - along with the electric pink Hello Kitty coffee mug. The lovely and talented Anne Marie gave me a fine bag of gifties and orchestrated much of the madness along with Barbara, Rhonda and Tangela. We all danced with the birthday hampster, while Paul sneaked into my office with a bottle of wine.

Life is good.

Miss Lexy called first thing and welcomed me to the 40 club along with Karen - my next door office neighbor. Marge sang to me, as did Len, Judy and the groovy John Q.

Much mirth was had at lunch with the collective inhabitants of the education/marketing compound, then suddenly, back at the office, I was presented with a large Hello Kitty cake (along with the requisite birthday hats and matching plates). Then Jeff arrived with an autographed Richard Petty picture for me (someone had apparently told him of my love for number 43 when I was 4 years old....) Then, like magic, flowers began appearing - first from my parents, and then a bouquet from Anneliese, Greg, Clare, Reilly, Aoife and Oliver the hampster! Balloons too!

Yesterday was Miss Clare's 6th birthday and I got to talk to her. She assured me that no clowns would be coming my way on my birthday because in her words....

"Clowns eat children."

Truer words were likely never spoken - and it's good to know that my goddaughter will not become a culinary delight for clowns.

This afternoon, Stephanie called and we yelled "Happy Birthday" back and forth at each other for several minutes as she is 15 today....and I am not.

Joe, the archivist form the Crisis Museum sent a lovely lecherous email - which is a very nice thing to get when one has just turned old!

At some point I made my way home - where Jim greeted me with a beautiful oil painting - a copy of a Dutch genre painting of skaters on a pond! It's exquisite and already hanging up. Unbeknownst to him, the birthday card he gave me was handmade by a colleague of mine - Kathryn! What a nice little serendipity that was.

Then my parents called and sang to me, and then Jim took me to dinner at a place called Sirens in Phoebus, Virginia. Much yumminess was had there, and I highly recommend the place.

Finally, we came home where I was entertained by a lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday" on the answering machine by Addie (complete with melodic burps that punctuated the tune), a lovely chat with Melody, and emails from Richard in Raleigh, Anneliese in Colorado, Erika from Diaryland, and Justin in Angola.

Now it's late and I'm tired and so I'll toddle along now.

Thanks to everyone for making it such a lovely day. I hope I didn't leave anyone out - you're all so wonderful....