Birthday cake

Today is son S's 38th birthday. He, his partner, and the baby are in Hawai'i, celebrating on the beach, and I have been thinking of him with love and admiration all day. For about the first eighteen years of his life and on selected occasions since then, I made or purchased a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and cherries on the top and served it to him and his best friends. This year I went out to Sauvie Island. It's an enormous island in the Columbia River: farmland and riverside, marsh and sand banks, a nesting place for bald eagles, sand hill cranes, tundra swans, and many creatures I can't name. I strolled around the wetlands I love so well and have Blipped in the past, for example here and here, and I took this picture of a marsh because of the layers. It sort of looks to me like a layer cake. Happy birthday, dear S. It has been a wild ride these 38 years, and I feel privileged to have had your company for much of that time. I think after I post this, I may go get myself a piece of cake.