As a birthday celebration, it was a bust. I hopped a train, went north, hooked up with a business colleague and drove up to Milwaukee to meet with a competitor. We made a pitch to them about working together. It was an odd meeting; a real, substantial company sat down with a illusory, shadow company (I work for the shadow one). It was strange, unsatisfactory, probably another rabbit hole. I am paid to be a shadow, to chase shadows, to do battle with windmills. Sort of an urban, high-tech, Quixote.
By mid afternoon, I was really flagging; nature's birthday gift to me: a malicious little cold. Early evening, I celebrated with a Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia (Captain Trips Lives) and a bottle of Perrier. No Carla, she's in New York, so it was just me and the birds and Will Shakespeare ('Will in the World,' -- I'm vicariously living in 1601). I read my book for awhile, until my eyes began to blur. Still early evening: I put the birds to bed, shut out the lights and went off to Dreamland.