Best birthday ever

My daughter was so happy and SO PROUD at her three-year-old birthday party, when she got to lead the costume parade, and when we sang happy birthday to her. She was so proud and so happy that the look on her face is one I will never forget. She was almost crying. It was the look of someone who is getting everything they ever wanted, all the love and attention desired, and just feeling so warm and lucky and pleased. It's the look where you hold your chin up, and your lower lip swells a bit because you're trying to control your smile, and the corners of the mouth turn down just a bit, but your eyes have a burning clarity that says: "This ... is RIGHTEOUS!"

It was amazing. I was so happy for her, and when I saw that look on her face, I said a mental thank-you to my wife for arranging the party and making the girl SO HAPPY. Later I said an in-person thank you.

My son had a good day too, despite throwing up the night before, and not being allowed to eat cake. In the morning I apologized for yelling at him, and explained that I was just trying to get him to obey his mother, but that it hadn't been a good idea to yell. A few hours later, at the store buying party supplies, I picked up a new pair of kid scissors for him, which is something he'd been asking for. He had a good day.

Because the fly buttons on the Levi's 501s are getting nearly impossible for my left hand to help button, I wore some of my old business casual pants all day. They have a zipper. Ever since I was a small boy I'd always thought that the zipper fly and underwear fly were stupid and useless. Most all guys just unfasten their pants when they want to pee, then fasten the pants back up when done.

But now, because of my weak left hand, I have been reduced to the stupid way.

So I was wearing these pants (I've been wearing Levi's exclusively for about seven years), when a woman at the party said "You look nice today."

She don't know the half of it. I used to have a great ass. How do I know? At work I used to sometimes catch ladies staring at my ass when I walked away. It was like a shared moment with them, quietly standing next to each other, holding their beverages, waiting. I turned around once or twice, suddenly, because I'd left an item behind, and there they were, looking at it. Then there was the time as a student when I went to the campus clinic for an injection in my ass, and all the young nurses quickly and silently filed into the room and lined up against the wall, watching. "Is this some kind of training?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah! It's ... training."

There were also the bald statement from a coworker that John had the best ass in the company. Then she described what made his ass so perfect. But it wasn't a description of his ass -- it was a description of mine.

Anyway, yeah, it was a great ass. But now it's kind of shrunken and flat, due to atrophy from the ALS.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though, because I found $17 in the pockets of the pants!