On a birthday numbered 62, a marriage, a fiesta and personal vow

VALOIS, New York, USA - The nearly insufferable heat broke last night, a few hours short of my hitting 62, that wonderful age at which I can file for Social Security benefits and also can now claim I am officially old enough to do whatever I feel like.

More or less.

This birthday comes on the heels of reading Pat Conroy's novel, South of Broad, a fabulous book, filled with characters that are so burned in my brain I want to dive right into the storyline, much the same way as I feel about the movie, Casablanca. It's a book that reminds how important friends and family are in lives, even when those same people can be such pains-in-the-ass you want to kick them down a flight of stairs.

And today, a birthday for me, is also a day that marks the wedding of my wife's second cousin to a beautiful girl, some years his junior. But they seem perfect for each other, in similar ways to the way I see with my wife. For me, it's the finishing sentences of the other, knowing exactly where the eyeglasses were left, anticipating the need for some privacy - or a cold beer. For this young couple, it's younger things, more subtle, but obvious.

It should be a party-of-parties. And while everyone will be toasting the wedding of Brett Beardslee and Jesse Ringsmuth, I'll be pretending that the party is in my honor, too.

Why not, I am officially old enough to do whatever I feel like.

So what is the vow from the headline?

One of those things I want to do - vow to do - is to resuscitate my moribund writing schedule. Perhaps moribund is not the correct word. Distracted maybe, distracted by the unbelievably sunny days and nature here in the quiet woods of upstate New York.

But some of the various blogs I have written, for the past five years or so, seem (to me) to have turned as stale as two-day-old bread from a natural food store. (That's a no-preservatives joke, of course. The bread is excellent, minus the rhizopus nigrican spores that sprout so quickly.)

Maybe that should be the title of a new blog: Rhizopus Nigricans Rule. Or the title of a children's book.

Perhaps after the wedding today, it will all be more clear.