This is what gratitude looks like

It's my 67th birthday today, and it started with a deluxe birthday picnic with Bella and her mother yesterday, followed by a midnight phone call and the Birthday Song rendered by my darling daughter M., then a birthday email from son S., who's currently at work in one of the towns in southern France where I took him when he was four. Then came a great flurry of Facebook birthday greetings, honorific Blips from Chaiselongue and Tookie, and cards and emails from hither and yon. It is truly wonderful to have a day each year to be celebrated by our friends...while we're still here to enjoy it all. So much better (as far as I can tell) than funeral tributes.

In this photo taken by BeautifulLife, who brought me the bouquet of lilies, I'm at breakfast al fresco with her and her dog Prise and I'm wearing one of four birthday blouses given me by C (Bella's mom) and the linen jacket Leif sent with the book about Mary Delany; and after that I went to lunch with another friend and had a divine concoction called a Chocolate Cube (bittersweet chocolate shell filled with chocolate mousse and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream). Now I think I'll take a post-chocolate nap. A perfect day. Perfect weather. A wonderful book to read. And I even WON at solitaire this morning as dawn was lightening the city and the birds were welcoming a perfect summer day--clear blue sky and balmy breeze. I could not be happier, nor more grateful for all of it. I added a one-shot Folio of the Chocolate Cube.

Sixty-seven years to heaven, all bucket list items ticked off, anything more is sheer bounty beyond any expectation.

*The focus problem is my camera, doing its back-focusing thing, and not the fault of BeautifulLife. Perfect focus on the bricks.