They say it's your birthday....

I made a decision today, a big decision.

I want to renegotiate my contract, and why not?

Athletes and big businessmen do it all the time. The other day a basketball player got a new five year deal worth over ninety five million dollars. A football player for my friend Debbie's favorite team (the Eagles) wanted a new contract because he didn't like the one he signed. These guys are getting so much money one of the leagues best quarterbacks is building a 23,000 square foot, twenty million dollar home in Southern California.

All these guys want is money, money, and more money.

I want to renegotiate my contract too. But, I don't want money, I want more time.

I don't know when my ticket will get punched. I have no idea when I'll buy the farm or take the walk with the Grim Reaper. Like I wrote yesterday, I'll eat well and continue to exercise my brain and my body. I already have a stress free life. I don't think asking for a few extra years is much. I'll be sure to "do good stuff" with my time. And I don't even want a raise in pay.

I got a lot of birthday wishes on Face Book. I thank all of you that took the time to wish me well and say hello. I was especially glad to hear from my friend Mark. I'm pretty sure we finally hit 50 years buddy.

If any of this has been written about in earlier blogs please forgive me. I'm feeling a little melancholy this morning and want to reminisce a little.

I met Wanda when I was 39, same age as Jack Benny. We were in a now defunct comedy club watching the show. A mutual friend introduced us, he thought we might get along. I'm sure she got sick of me calling and whining about how lonely I was. After a few weeks she agreed to an afternoon movie date, probably to get rid of me. I'm sure she also realized, if necessary, she could beat me up so I wasn't a threat. We met, went out, and twenty four birthdays later I'm asking for more time together, please.

Does anyone know why some grapes have seeds? I mistakenly came home from the local fruit stand with some the other day. I took a bite of one, and SEEDS. Each grape has two little seeds in it. They look like the ends of small tree twigs. I hate them. I can not eat them. I will de-seed some for tonights salad and compost the rest.

They grow and sell seedless grapes what is the purpose of grapes with seeds, does anyone like to eat them? What about watermelon seeds?

As a kid, I hated eating watermelon because of the seeds. I wasn't a "spitter" even if out on a picnic. If I ate the fruit I used a knife and fork to cut out the seeds. I disliked eating fired chicken and corn on the cob. Actually, most everything that involved fingers, hands, and potentially greasy forearms.

Come to think of it I don't much care for eating out at all. I would suffer in silence on the rare occasions I found myself at a relatives home for dinner. I once had a very traumatic episode with an extremely tough piece of meat and a cloth napkin.

Eight or nine at the time, I had to make a choice between spitting this rubbery, stringy, tough piece of brisket onto my plate or into a linen napkin. I thought about swallowing and quickly drinking water, but was sure it would lodge in my throat. This was years before Heimlich and his maneuver, I didn't want to choke to death.

I thought about the hand to the mouth fake cough. I could spit the uneatable meat into my hand and transfer it to the napkin on my lap. I considered that until I realized the napkins would need laundering.  The aforementioned irksome piece of masticated beef would probably roll out onto the floor in the kitchen, or worse, get plunged into the washing machine.

After considering all the possibilities of ridding my mouth of this annoying piece of cow I decided on a solution. I would simply and quietly leave the table, go to the bathroom, and spit the thing into the toilet.

It turned out that was a mistake. In trying to extricate myself from the table, the chairs being much too close together because of company, I pushed back too hard and shoved the back corner of the chair into the wall. The chair, with a little help from me, took a wedge of plaster out of the wall.

I called a little more attention to myself than I planned. I eventually made it to the bathroom, removed the hunk of meat from the side of my mouth, flushed it down the toilet, which avoided the entire middleman process, and was never invited to that Aunt and Uncles home again.

It's OK through, they were a bunch of pretentious ass holes.

Remember, life is like meat. Always go for the prime, it's easier to swallow.