I had my entire family over the weekend for a sort of joint birthday celebration, albeit rather belated for me.

I was born in June and both sisters were born in July, so we opted to all get together for a single celebration.

Since I live here, one sister lives in Virginia and another in southern North Carolina, it isn't always easy to get everyone in one place at one time.

Both sisters have grown children and grandchildren in the region and they like to get together, too. That's because they're both so much older than me. Well, not really, but I'm sure they appreciate me writing that in the newspaper. After all, my youngest sister is still in her late 20s after being licensed to drive a car for decades. And my older sister is about a year older than her.

While the gathering went well, I still didn't get my favorite cake. Anyone who knows me well knows that I really don't like cake or sweets very much. I've never developed much of a taste for that sort of a thing. Dark chocolate is about as sweet a flavor as I usually like and I don't like it often.

So, since I don't really like even my favorite cake that much, it really didn't matter. My favorite cakes are carrot cake and red velvet cake. At the party there was a big extra sweet and chocolatey chocolate cake that looked very, well, chocolate. I didn't try it, but everyone else seemed to like it.

My job was putting together the meats, which included health food staples like grilled hamburgers and hot dogs with extra red dye. When loaded up with cole slaw, chili, onions and tomatoes, it was nothing short of messy and delicious. Messy was fine by me, since we all ate outside this time.

Most of the cleanup was done by the ant village that lives near the picnic table under the big apple tree in the yard, so even the insects were celebrating.

I filled up the plastic swimming pool and the children, who now almost equal the number of adults, seemed to enjoy playing in it for most of the afternoon. Less than 6 years ago there were no children in my family, besides the mental type of child like myself. Now there are almost as many of them as there are of us. I think there's something in the water. If things keep going like this, they'll probably just take over in a few years. But that's not so bad, since that means we can all have parties at their houses and play in the pool while they clean up the mess.

Anyway, as usual, I enjoyed spending time with my family. We would have had the party at my mother's house, but she doesn't care much for having that many people over to visit. Being concerned, extremely concerned, about having a mess in her house really limits her ability to enjoy such gatherings.

In fact, while she was at my house she washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen out of sympathy or habit or both. She washes them cleaner than the automatic dishwasher and she's faster, too. However, when I asked if she wanted to job full-time, she graciously declined. After everyone left, I started thinking about how my anticipated slow march through time has turned into a rapid downhill dash.

Along those lines, I typically like to do something for my birthday, like some sort of a ‘just to prove I still can' thing.

Last year I started the mammoth building project that stands on the hill above my house. This year I didn't really do anything. I've been told that it's sometimes good to go out and take a long hike or take off on some sort of an excursion to help make the anniversary of one's birth a little more pleasant. I usually lean toward a camping trip or a big fishing excursion. As it was this year, I ate supper that night and I went to bed as I had awakened, officially one year older.

There is nothing all that official about aging. Time is a sneaky thief that will steal away our life and opportunities right out from under our noses if we let it. However, it isn't hard to track time's passage using little more than the road map that it leaves across our faces, or in my case, up my forehead, which seems to ever increase in size.

I suppose those telltale ‘tracks' are what remain once our age of growth upward is passed, leaving as the only alternative of more growth outward. That's the kind of growth I'd just as soon avoid and I hope my dislike of cake will help save me from the dreaded spread.

I recently weighed in and found myself right in the same 200-210 range that I've been in for many years now. That helps make clothing less expensive, since I'm pretty much wearing the same things I was wearing 10 years ago. So much for all my claims about fashion expertise. But I still feel like I could stand to trade a few pounds of fat for a few more pounds of muscle.

I'll get on that as soon as I can muster up enough motivation to renew my membership at the Alleghany Wellness Center. After that, I'll just need enough motivation to actually go and exercise regularly. I wonder which of the two will be more difficult? Since the last membership I purchased ended up benefitting no one but the center's bank books, I'm reticent to join until I'm fully committed to going there regularly. But there are other kinds of growth that an adult can see.

I suppose growing in knowledge, wisdom and understanding are always possible, regardless of age. Of course, there is also spiritual growth and emotional maturity, and growing in love. But progress in those areas are much harder to see than the growth in one's forehead and stomach. Maybe that's why it seems that many more people growing those physical ways rather than progressing in those much more beneficial and harder-to-see ways.

However, there is one way I'll continue to grow no matter what I think, how I act or what I do. I'll continue to grow older as long as I live. It's always nice to end on a happy note like that, isn't it?
 

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