My 34th Birthday

It was a perfect storm of allergens.  Zephyrus was feeling sprightly and it sprinkled just enough to invigorate the tree pollen, not enough to wash any of it away.  As a result I had a low grade sinus headache for my birthday until wine o'clock.

However, first thing upon rising I was greeted by a cheerful knock from the postman who had brought me my recent book order.

The two books are Biblia Sacra Vulgata (Vulgate): Holy Bible in Latin (Latin Edition) and Winnie Ille Pu (Latin Edition). Laurie had a day full of work and meeting, so the rest of my day resembled a more cheerful end of the 'Time Enough At Last' episode of The Twilight Zone had it taken place after the advent of shatterproof lenses.

I've had seafood on my mind for a few weeks and Laurie and I went out for same.

With malice towards none, I will point out Laurie's food in her photo and my folded, patient hands in mine.  Something went terribly wrong with my order twice and I was finally given a complementary meal.  Terribly wrong.  Like I ordered a steak and the first time they brought me a telephone on fire and the second time they brought me cotton gauze drizzled with WD-40.  I felt bad for the server who was afraid we would be mad.  I wanted to explain to her that we were the best possible customers this could happen to for her, that it's just luxury food and they had done me no malicious evil, and that the restaurant had, in fact, given occasion for something memorable on my birthday.  I finally had a nice plate of salmon and shrimp.

And that was my 34th birthday.

Birthday Wish List 2011

It's March, which means that I am about a month and a half away from being one year younger than Mozart was when he died.  I thought I might do a brief post of my birthday wish list if there are people who might care to get me a birthday present this year.

Of course, the major present I'm anticipating is the drawing or painting Laurie is working on of me as Bacchus to hang in my office.  Right, honey?

My current major project is learning Latin and so I think the only two books I would like to request are tailored toward that end.  The first is the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible which I think would provide me with an excellent, life-long means by which to be continually immersed in the language.  It is also the key translation used in the west for almost a millennium of church history.  For those unfamiliar with the history of the Vulgate, it was a 4th century translation largely by St. Jerome for the purpose of a "common use" translation of the Bible (hence "Vulgate."  Means "common use."  Doesn't mean it's full of swears) in the age when Latin was largely the linguistic coin of the realm.  It was canonized at the Council of Trent.  It continued to be the common translation as the language itself died and access to scripture remained sequestered to the literate class (which is to say the clergy) through the Middle Ages until Luther translated the Bible into common German (arguably, in some circles, continuing until Vatican II in the 1960s.)

For my purposes, as I said to Laurie the other day, "In my project of learning Latin, I feel like securing for myself a copy of the Vulgate would be the key for keeping my Latin for the rest of my life."  And as fun as I'm sure it will be to read Caesar, Virgil, Pliny, and Catullus, the Vulgate is something I could actually see myself delving into daily and something I'm actually excited about.

The other Latin text is a bit cuter (and cheaper.)  Someone decided that the world needed a Latin translation of Winnie The Pooh.

That's all I have.  It's a short list with one expensive book in it.

Quick Birthday Loot Update

As you can see, I have my new glasses.  They were part of my birthday present.

I was also given a Friedrich Nietzsche watch.  The seconds hand is the phrase "The Eternal Return of the Same" as a constant reminder of the ticking away of my life.

My grandmother sent me money which I used to buy Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, which is one of my favorites and I'm not sure how I lived this long without owning a copy.  My aunt also sent me money which I used to buy The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler.

Laurie has ordered this for me:
http://projekt.com/projekt/product.asp?sku=MSX00003 
You'll notice the description "exotic Middle Eastern/ Neo-Classical melodies & tribal rhythms" which is a good encapsulation of the kind of music I used to listen to.
It's a marvelously beautiful album which I owned many years ago and lost somehow just after it went out of print.  I was extremely excited to hear recently that after a decade it's finally back in print for a limited time and I made a huge fuss and stink over how much I would love to own this album again.  Laurie is making it happen.

My birthday was very nice.  The whole family went out.  Gina brought Stefan and we even managed to get Tony to come, which was nice.  I had a giant veggie pizza.  There may have been singing with the dessert, but if there was, I've blocked it out.

I am 33 years old and in spite of the less than ideal situations in my life at present, I'm fairly pleased with where I am in my life.  In this inevitable week of reflection, it strikes me that I should write more, but other than that I'm pretty happy with where I am at 33.