For some reason the cover of this book is how I picture you on the morning after a wild 50th bash.
Meeeee tooooo! 
Happy Birthday, everybody! I turned 40 on Monday - it would have been a lot better if it hadn’t been the worst day of the year weather-wise and I had to cancel my birthday party (I’m planning on getting over that sometime soon, but not just yet).
I too found 30 okay and 31 hard. I think it’s because I was braced for 30, but on my 31st birthday I realized that they were going to keep on coming - it wasn’t just turn 30 and be done with it.
Sampiro and all you other Dec. 1 birthday boys and girls, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Best kid birthday I remember: I’m not sure which one it was – 8, I’m guessing. I got a Moon Goon!. It was green with blue hair. Barbies? Blech! My next older sister and I lo-o-o-oved trolls. (And my Moon Goon is now in her possession, so I’m not doing the “My mom got rid of it and it’s worth this much now???” thing.)
Happy Birthday, Sampiro! You’ve had a rough couple of months. I hope things perk up.
I just turned 40 on Monday and this week was my first bout of non-barfing, non-diareahea flu ( It just sat there in my stomach like bleach and frankly, is still there.) this week.
Other than that, I’m am pretty happy about being 40 (not like I can change it or anything.). I’m embracing this number and decade.
I was married on my 25th birthday, so, yeah, I remember that one. Turning 40 didn’t bother me that much, but in the three years since, I’ve become more aware of time passing. It’s made me more motivated to get things done rather than put them off as long as I used to.
Happy Birthday to all.
Vlad/Igor
Wow…all those December 1 birthdays. Happy birthday to (takes deep breath): Sampiro, Khadaji, enipla and CalMeacham and to all those who celebrated recently as well…
40s have been fabulous. 50 is next year; it seems odd that that will be my age, but other than that, doesn’t much bother me.
Friends at work celebrated my birthday the whole week when I turned 40. There were different themes each day. It took me three days or so to catch on. But it was lots of fun.
GT
Happy Birthday!
16 was fun. I got the family hand-me-down car and my folks paid to have it repainted. Unfortunately, the brakes went out on the way home from the paint shop and I totaled it. But, for a few days it was all mine. 
30 was both scary and thrilling. My wife took me for a suprise sky diving trip… and I’m afraid of heights. I’m glad I did it, but I’ll admit it did take me half an hour to work up the nerve to just get out of the car.
40 will be coming up in 6 months or so. 40 itself doesn’t bother me so much but after 12 years my marriage is on the rocks so this is not likely to be a fun one.
Funny, I don’t feel as old as I remember my parents being at 40.
Happy birthday!
The year I turned 40 (1998) was the best year of my life up to that point. On my birthday, I had been married just short of five months. I was in the first, ecstatic blush of married love. I had emigrated from the frosty, barren wilds of Canada to The Land Of Eternal Humidity…I mean Florida. I was happier than I had ever been. For me, life had actually begun at 39. By 40, it was only getting better. I had come from nothing, and was being handed an opportunity to make something of myself, at long last. It was a year of getting my bearings, of finding out how I related to my wife and my new surroundings, and deciding what I could, and would, do.
The years since have only got better. I’ve acquired and accomplished most of the things a person could reasonably expect to have done by geezerhood - I mean near halfway to a hundred. If anybody had told me twenty years ago what I’d be doing in twenty years, I would have asked them what kind of drugs they were on. You know, “Nice fantasy, but you’ve gotta be kidding me!”
During my forties, I’ve become the version of myself that I always knew was inside me. I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve become calm and rational. I have a modest amount of the wisdom that comes from age and experience. I have a great wife and a great best friend and a great job, and all kinds of cool stuff that I always wanted. If it gets any better than this, I may need to start wearing Depends, because I’ll wet myself.
Sampiro, it seems your life has no shortage of adventure, but the coming decade should be a different, better kind of adventure than you have known before. I hope you look forward to it, and enjoy it.
Sampiro and all the other birthday people this week, Happy Birthday!
I’m new here, but how come no one is singing?
Happy Birthday to you!~~
Happy Birthday to you!~~
well, you know the rest, depending on which version you like best.
Sampiro, I didn’t realize you were just a baby! Happy birthday to you, and to all you December babies!
I’m coming up on 46 (I always start thinking of myself as one year older about midway through each year), and I think I like it better than I liked 40. I know I’m in better shape, and I think my attitude is better as well (although the memory? not so much). Mr. Legend is going to be 50 in a couple of weeks, and he seems to be doing okay with that.
Ask me again in 45 more years, but so far the advantages of age have far outweighed the drawbacks. The wrinkles and the gray hair and the general…sagging are starting, and every now and again I have to remind myself that I’m not actually old yet, but aside from those things, I’ve never regretted being older, and there has never been a time in my life when I’d choose to go back to being younger.
Omigod, Mae Murray made the cover of a book! I am more like this these days . . .
Happy birthday, Sampiro.
40 bothered me not at all, though for the three years prior my best friend kept saying, “Wait til you turn 40 and <whatever body part> goes to hell overnight.” This did not happen. However, approximately 7 minutes after I turned 41, every single molecule of moisture in my body evaporated. Nowadays (I’ll be 42 at the other end of this month) I could slather BUTTER on my face and would still have dry skin.
I was 40 last year, I planned to go to Disneyland. I finally managed to organise one of my brothers to mind the [elderly/disabled] parents, but he would only do so for 7 days (and only because his then GF made him. The other brother point blank refused to have anything to do with looking after his parents for 3 or 4 days… First brother said he’d sort something out.
The day dawned, and I went to Cork Airport, the place was shrouded [as it often is] in thick fog. There were 4 flights taking off around the same time (between 7.15 and 7.30 am) and the other 3 took off on time, our flight [to Dublin] was delayed. Sometime around 9.00 am they finally announced that the flight had been cancelled.
That particular airline is the only airline that flies Cork - Dublin
By 9.00 am I’d 45 minutes to get to Dublin for my flight to LA.
Dublin is a 5-6 hour drive from Cork - clearly that’s not an option.
The train station is a 30 minute drive from the airport (WAG) - so that’s not an option.
There is a flight from Shannon to LA, and if you leave 10 minutes ago you’d make it (€150 taxi fee) - not that anyone was going to phone Shannon, explain the “problem” and ask them to hold the flight …
The Cork- Dublin airline said it was nothing to do with them.
The Dublin - LA airline said it was nothing to do with them.
So I had to come home again.
I’ve since heard that the Cork-Dublin airline’s pilots aren’t qualified to take off in fog - something that airline has strenuously denied.
My Dublin-LA flight [booked online] was non refundable, so I lost that, and I’d booked myself a hotel in LA, so I lost the deposit and “first night fee” - all told around €1,500
I emailed the airline and received a reply saying “sorry for the inconvenience”
I replied, explaining the situation, they replied “sorry for the unintended flippancy”
Yeah that makes me feel much better … :rolleyes:
LifeOnWry - I find aloe vera gel works quite well…
When I turned 16, it snowed on my birthday! I tell you this because I know you’ll understand how amazing that was, even if those people north of us don’t. Snow! Melted in three hours, but it was simply awesome.
Every other birthday of mine has had the world’s shittiest weather. That’s because it’s February 22.
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday, mate!
I’m 40 next week. 
You’re 40? It’s all downhill from there. Stagnation, despair, senility, abandonment, paupers’ grave on a flood-prone cliff side.
Oh sure, you may beat the odds and still be functioning and “happy” at 41, but that’s not the smart money bet.
Write your will.
Speaking to you from 60 (how the heck did THAT happen?) to let you know that life really does begin at 40.
When I turned 40 someone sent me 39 red roses. Let me tell you, that is a lot of roses. Made being 40 seem A-OK.
60 is not at all bad except for that really wrinkled old lady that keeps getting in front of me when I look in the mirror. That and the knees…
Sampiro, I have so much enjoyed reading your stories and am hereby sending you 40 (imaginary) red roses and a wish for 40 more years to tell stories!
Happy birthday, Sampiro!
My 40th birthday was fun, we had a huge party and invited loads of friends. I had talked to a friend about a shared party because our birthdays are five days apart and the idea expanded a bit so that we finished up with five people celebrating our 200th birthday.
We hired out a farm just over the border into Wales, it was a great place with lots of good walking (great for getting over that hangover) and plenty of space for our friends to stay. In the end we had about 60 people there, including a band we’d booked for Saturday night’s party which was held in a separate out-building.
In the morning, we went outside for coffee and sat feeding the deer that live just outside the house. And in the evenings, there was that outdoor hot-tub…
Aside from the fact that I had a chest infection all weekend, it was still one of my better birthdays!
I had a party for my 40th birthday!