Just what I wanted to start my day with - a call from AT&T informing me that my service request has been completed today and asking me to press 1 if everything is not as it should be. So I press 1 thinking I can get them to remove call waiting, which I have loathed since its inception, and what do I get but another automated menu asking me about my reason for calling them. Puh-leeese! I'm beginning to feel harrassed! There are better ways to assure the customer's satisfaction. An automated survey asking assinine questions is not one of them.
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My birthday week was good overall, regardless of the aggravation with AT&T. It started with being named in the birthday blessing on Sunday at church (there are actually 5 Philipians with Nov 30 birthdays). On Weds. the choir sang Happy Birthday to me and at dinner I got hugs from everybody. Mike gave me a digital picture frame and a cute card. This morning he brought me a dozen red roses. The aerobics class sang Happy Birthday to me, and Pam treated me to lunch, complete with red velvet cake, at Primo's. LaRue put a very sweet birthday tribute to me on her blog. Benji called; Ricky and the boys called and I thanked him again for the trip to Tampa, which was an early birthday gift; Jean called, she's still hoarse and congested but on the mend; and I got emails from a couple of friends. I never have to doubt that I am loved. And if I do, I'll re-read this as a reminder of how special I felt when I turned 61. Thanks to all who remembered me!
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Today I'm doing laundry and getting the downstairs ready for Christmas decorations. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. The New Year has begun on our church calendar. My goodness! This seems to have been the shortest 12 months I ever remember. I know, I know, they get even shorter just when we are slowing down with age. To quote another November 30th person of note, Mark Twain:

If I had been helping the Almighty when he created man,

I would have had him begin at the other end,

and start human beings with old age.

How much better to start old and

have all the bitterness and blindness

of age in the beginning!

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Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

quoted in Autobiography with Letters, William L. Phelps