Tuesday's child is full of grace

Tomorrow I will be 48 years old.

I cannot believe that, but it's true.

48

President Johnson's Great Society started the year which also witnessed the death of Winston Churchill; civil rights marches in Alabama; the first Marines sent into Vietnam; the Astrodome opened; NASA had Gemini and Mariner, as well as other projects running full blast; Maldives independence; Social Security Act of 1965; Watts; Jefferson Airplane; India and Pakistan go to war; Billion Dollar Betsy; Tom & Jerry; Thunderbirds; Gateway Arch; Norman Morrison; Rhodesia; Pillsbury Doughboy; Blackout; UNDP; Asterix-1; Race Relations Act; A Charlie Brown Christmas.

There were 3,334,874,000 people in the world in 1965 and now the population is estimated to be 7.072 billion - more than doubled in the last 48 years.  It is thought that the world population hit one billion in 1804 and two billion 123 years later, in 1927, and three billion 33 years later in 1960.  Current projections are that we will reach eight billion by 2030 and 10 billion by 2050.  That should make life interesting.  I'd be 85 if I lived that long.

It was a fascinating year of births and deaths - but I guess that's true each year.  I share my birth day with James Madison, John Butler Yeats, Henny Youngman, Patricia Nixon, Jerry Lewis, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Scott Simon.

Saturday will be the first day of Bacchanalia.  It's not how I'll be celebrating.  It will be a quiet day - the only thing planned right now is dinner with my sister.

hippo birdie to me

45

feeling older than dirt today... aw well, it beats the alternative.

That nor'easter was something else. Did someone on the Eastern seaboard cheese off the weather gods? Man, it's been some winter. There was a lot of rain and wind at the farm but no damage - I guess Easton is too far inland. My parents, in Westport, were mostly spared, just an enormous amount of branches down. They were in Manhattan all weekend celebrating Dad's 71 birthday (March 12) and no matter where they went they got completely drenched. They came back to a debris filled yard but no real damage, thankfully.

Last night my sister and I met up with the parents at Saint Tropez in Fairfield. It's been my birthday dinner pick for three straight years and it was yummy! I had the sauted shrimp in apple raisin curry... for the third year in a row! Yup, it's that good!

Fractured History Tales

On this day in 1002... King Ethelred II, also known as Ethelred the Unready, ordered the murder of all Danish people living in England. He had been fighting with the Danes since 991, the beginning of his reign, and I guess he had just had enough. Seems a bit extreme to me. He ended up having to run away, to Normandy, in 1013, when Sweyn Haraldsson (yes, he was a Dane) whooped his ass in response to the massacre (and just because he could) and conquered England. But not for long. Ethelred returned to England in 1014 when Haraldsson died, only to die two years later in London.

Ethelred is also famous for taking a dump in the baptismal font when he was a baby. Most believe this is not a true story. But it's funny so I'm going to go right on believing it.

Ethelred married, thirdly, Emma of Normandy, whose big brother Robert helped him when Sweyn kicked his ass outta England. When the Bastard (no, not Ethelred, William) wanted to be King of England, he claimed his right by way of Ethelred being his great-Uncle.

Don't think I would have gone about bragging a familial connection to this guy. But then I've never wanted to be King of England. For what it's worth, I think William's military ability meant more in the long run, anyway.

Ethelred's reign is responsible for the foundations of the grand jury system we know today.

This is also the anniversary of the birth of an ex-boyfriend and current friend who is turning 50 today.

YaYa

Dinner was at the Red Barn last night. We combined Gretchen's birthday with our YaYa night out.

The Red Barn has been around since the Grant administration. Okay, I lie... Truman, possibly. In any event, it's been around for a while. The prices are steep, as in $290 pre-tip for five people with only one bottle of wine. The food is usually excellent and, for the most part, last night was no exception. Their version of chicken marsala, which my sister Gretchen had was... different. Can't quite explain what was so unusual, but that it also didn't work well was a bit of a downer as she was the birthday girl. My stuffed shrimp with pilaf and asparagus was fantastic - I nearly licked the plate - and I hate asparagus!

I'm something of a foodie (oooh looks so dirty, doesn't it?), as my BMI will attest to. This got me to thinking about blogging a list of favorite food blogs (and yeah, I've done this before. Sue me.):

Chezpim: makes me pea-green with envy. I want her life. I would weigh 900 pounds, but I would be happy.

dcfud: I now want to eat my way through DC.

Cooking with Amy: recipes, reviews, good looking foodporn - who needs more?

The wine makers wife: her photographs border on the pornographic. Love looking at and reading her site.

Chocolate adn Zucchini: she has a cookbook coming out - give it some loving!

The Food Section: beybeys and food and the occassional snark - a good time!

The girl who ate everything: girl after my own heart.

101 cookbooks: I almost never make any recipe showcased here, but I read this site nearly every day. I should cook more and read less.

As Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio (scandals! election fraud! recount!), I'll confess yet another dirty little secret:

I watch Top Chef.

Yeah, I know... there's something wrong with me. But at least it's not Dancing with the Stars!

Apparently the YaYa's are huge fans of this insanity. Dancing with the Stars now has some sort of road-trip thing and their "Stars" are coming to our area early next year and the YaYa's want me to go. A YaYa trip, they say.

Kill.

Me.

Now.

The YaYa's are not happy that I picked on their choice of reality television so in good old sisterly fashion Gret just had to let out my deep, dark, sorted secret:

"Well you watch Top Chef!"

Silence descended. It was painful. I wanted to hide. But, in my usual fuck you fashion I sallied forth with a brilliant retort:

Yeah, so?!

Yes, I'm five. But my sister's four! And, and, and... she chews her hair!

So there.