Pause to pontificate

The other day I spent some time wondering through the City of Cambridge with my phone camera and I keep meaning to put together another Walk Through Cambridge post, but just haven't had the time. It was sunny and mellow and Colleges looked very ancient. That, up there, is me, looking very .... red?

It was my birthday yesterday (no, I didn't do anything exciting), and I had a lot of lovely messages on Facebook, Twitter, text and email. Only one card and that was handed to me on Sunday in spite of my explicit instructions to get me nothing. Cards are a lovely thought but I'd rather you spared your money and someone else's trees and sent me an e-card or actually, like I got this year, just a short message to say Happy Birthday. That lets me know that you are thinking of me and, quite frankly, I don't need anything else. To know you were thinking of me and took the trouble to make me aware of it is more than enough. Most years people forget my birthday and that's fine. I don't celebrate it. Most years, I try very hard to forget about it. Perhaps it's the vanity or fear of getting old, but I really wish we didn't have to acknowledge that we are getting older every year. What say you? Shall we ditch this outdated tradition?

Lots of people like fuss, though, and having their birthday celebrated gives them an opportunity to grab the limelight with impunity. That would be OK if only they'd cease with the attention grabbing the rest of the year.

I find the whole thing painful. I blame my mother. She has this really annoying habit of having to over-react with glee to certain positive stimuli. I always understood that to be her way of letting you know what she particularly approves of and would like to see more of. Her sister, my aunt, is like that too, but only when it comes to me - she doesn't have any children of her own and I am 'her' baby as much as my mothers. It took Years to get myself out of habit of having to put on an enormous effluence of ebullience when I received any gifts or someone did me a favour.  It's all just too taxing - you never know exactly what the other person expects from you and if you are going to offend them by saying too little or too much or the wrong thing.

Why do we burden our civilised lives with such nonsense? Have we really nothing better to do with our cognition?

Ponder that while I get some sleep.