happy birthday to me, I’m 100 and 3

So starts a ghastly song made up by the children last year. It goes on

And I’m still in pre-school
And I want my Mommmyyyy.
But my Mommy’s at work
And she gave me cheese pizza
And I want my ice-cream.

All sung to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’. They sing it loudly all year. Fortunately for me, I haven’t heard it once today, even though it is my birthday, because Five, read FIVE, whole Kennedy children are up swimming themselves silly at a little cottage on a beautiful lake. The baby only remains to me for the rest of the day and she is napping.

And so, to celebrate the quiet and the occassion, I’m going to make

Clearly, to maintain my girlish figure, I won’t be eating the jam nor pie nor cake nor even the bread, but I will smell it and look at it feel sad about the impermanence of life due to the terrible ravages of sin in the world. That’s the sort of thing I like to do on a birthday. Given an empty jar and a dead balloon, I will happily put the balloon in the jar and take it out again and help everyone around me to see that life should be taken seriously. A foolish man jumps about and sings and eat cakes, but the man who mourns on his birthday isn’t surprised by anything. Isn’t that in the bible somewhere?