Ben is fifty-two years old today. Benjamin is a semi-feral cat with nine lives and he's run through at least fifteen of them but here he is still alive, still moving forward, still creative, crazy and cracked. Literally now, as he tells anyone who will listen how his skull broke open because his brain wanted to be larger and more prominent, as it should be.
He'll laugh and they'll give a sympathetic grin (because they're afraid of him, technically).
He is still in recovery. Still freshly minted, still taking inventory and still causing as much shit as he possibly can.
But here we are (a far cry from the now infamous pub crawl when he turned twenty-nine) and I am making prime rib for dinner and garlic mashed potatoes and not-whiskey but ginger ale that he likes suddenly and a chocolate cake with a set of silvery number-candles because I can't physically fit that many actual individual birthday candles on one of the cakes that I bake. Not on the top anyway and if you put them on the sides the wax drips all over my vintage tablecloth and that's not a thing to celebrate.
(We tried it once. It looked like a porcupine that melted. A day-glo one.)
Ben doesn't like it when I talk about his birthday. He never has so lets just say the whole rest of the week we'll be celebrating and so I'll be back in a few days. We aren't travelling, just unplugging for a few days, upon his (always granted) request. He deserves the world on a fucking spoon and we will give it to him no matter what.
Happy birthday big Ben. I love you to Pluto and beyond.