Happy 30th Birthday, Uncle Adam!
Okay, I have to start by admitting that I can’t help but
feel a bit strange about the fact that my Uncle would have still been a
teenager when I was born – about the same age as Dad was when Violet was
born. The age difference isn’t a big
deal at all, but it seems to be more noticeable this year with him joining the
thirtysomething club just a week and a half ahead of Mom’s thirty-sixth
birthday.
Sorry, Mom, but then this won’t be read by anyone for quite
a while; and most people who don’t actually know your age would think you were
easily under thirty anyway. I’d suggest
that not having the stress of being on the run and hiding me, along with
sharing our lives with our new family and friends has a lot to do with that –
unless you’ve been experimenting with slowing down the process with
time-phases. Aging moments per night
instead of hours would add up after a while!
Just as a little aside, I have thought about that a bit
before, and I have a little theory that I’m looking into for time phases. I’ve never read anything in the archives
suggesting that using time phase in ‘hyper’ mode significantly affects a Magi
Master’s life expectancy, though with all of the other factors; it might not
even be easy to quantify it anyway. I
do, however, know from experience that it can, in fact, age you – as I noticed
when I was using it a lot; and didn’t want to have my own development through
puberty affected from doing that. Since
that is the case, I’m wondering if the ‘slow-down’ time phase – if used
regularly – could significantly increase life-expectancy; and by an exponential
value.
For instance, if you ‘saved’ six hours a night, that’d
suggest that you’d only age nine months for every year that you did that every
day. While that may actually be the
case, I’m considering the possibility that there might be Magi power factors
that influence the actual effects on the body that are less-obvious than what
can be seen in the short-term. I haven’t
even come close to working it all out yet, but it is interesting to think about
what might be possible for the life expectancy of Magi Masters – and for anyone
we included in that kind of nightly time-phase.
An extra twenty-five years would be awesome; but just imagine if it was
even more!
Okay, maybe Uncle Adam will think those ideas are strange on
the day that he’s a decade older than he was yesterday, but then if it could be
something that all Magi could learn to do and actually have those effects on
us; it’d be an awesome birthday present!
While he didn’t have anything like that in the little stack
of gifts he had to open during his birthday breakfast; he did like the gifts
that Aunt Leanne, Zack, and the rest of us picked out for him. It was a crazy morning for those of us
involved in the work on each side of that special little meal, and I was ready
for a break by the time Rowen came over to get me on her way to school; but the
birthday fun was worth all of the running around and work. We skipped Tai Chi this morning; hauled gifts
and food over to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s house after quickly getting ready
for the day; and then got to work on making breakfast for all of the guests
Aunt Leanne had invited.
That guest list included all local family members, and while
we had some work crew help from Uncle Mark, Aunt Grace, Grandma, and Grandpa;
everyone else came over in time to eat; and only a few people could stay to
help with the clean-up when it was time to either go to school or work for the
day for everyone else. Since I’ve either
missed dinner and a movie night or spent more of them in the lounge with the
‘kids’ than hanging out with the adults; my favorite part of the morning was
simply getting to spend that time with some of my favorite grown-ups. One good thing about a birthday breakfast –
at least for Uncle Adam – was that the traditional roasting was kept fairly
mild today; since there just wasn’t time to cover thirty years worth of stories
and jokes.
All of that fun has had me wishing for an early spring so
that we can get back to having more family picnics and meals together like we
always do during the summer months. I
haven’t even been over to Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace’s house for a visit lately
– and that isn’t just because we’ve all been busy. Mostly, it’s just the logistical fact that I’d
need to walk all the way around to the new section of town to see them that
keeps me from stopping in more often.
It’s easier to pop in and see Uncle Mark at the clinic; and I see Aunt
Grace more often at our house or with Aunt Leanne. The funny part of having those thoughts today
is that we’ve had nearly spring-like weather today, and it wouldn’t take much
more of that to make the back yard short cut to Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace’s
home an option without trudging through snow and across patches of ice – though
there’d still be issues with wet and soft for a while.
I don’t really want to spend a lot of time discussing that
sort of thing, though I’m not really in any hurry tonight either because I’m
staying awake until Zack’s next feeding before going to sleep so that Mom and
Dad can nap now and take care of Zack later.
Let’s instead move on with the rest of the news update.
Having the temperature climb into the fifties helped the
general mood around the school; and had pretty much everyone outside at
lunchtime to enjoy the comparative warm.
There were a lot of kids and teen outdoors after school too – including
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and me. Mom had
custody of Zack by then, so we took Ethan and Ehlana with us and split our time
between the park and wandering around town.
Biking had been briefly considered until we decided that getting our
bikes and the trailer ready to go would take too much of our limited play time.
We weren’t doing a dinner and a movie night this week, and
though Rowen and Tim were going to hang out with us again after dinner; they
went to his house to eat while Michael and I were put to work helping Mom with
making dinner and taking care of Ethan, Ehlana, and Zack. I guess that actually pretty much describes
our entire evening at home – working and taking care of two toddlers and a
baby. We did an easy-cook dinner;
juggled eating with feeding Zack a bottle when he decided that he was hungry at
the same time our food was about to hit the table. Michael and I were the clean-up crew of two
while we waited for Tim and Rowen to come over again; and then we headed up to
the lounge for some toddler-rated video gaming.
Rowen, Ehlana, and I mostly watched that, and ‘talked’
together while the four boys did most of the gaming. Zack couldn’t exactly say anything at the
time, but he really loved being included for that and cuddling with Michael
while they competed against Tim and Ethan.
The video gaming ended with Zack’s next feeding, and we started to watch
‘Frozen’ while he had his bottle; Ehlana cuddled with Rowen and Tim; and
Michael and I had Ethan and Zack with us.
Those hours of fun and games didn’t leave us with any teen
time, but I wouldn’t have traded that time with my brother, sister, and cousin
– no matter how much I would have liked to have some alone time with Michael
too. I’m sure having some alone time was
what Rowen and Tim were thinking about when they headed over to her house when
it was time to tuck Ethan and Ehlana in for the night after the movie. Mom and Dad caught part of the show with us,
and then Michael and I helped with all three kids after Rowen and Tim
left. Getting the twins settled down took
a while, and that was about the time that Zack decided it was time to party for
a while after napping through a lot of the movie; so Michael and I entertained
him for a while and Mom and Dad went to bed too. Michael went home shortly before midnight;
and Zack has been napping again for an hour and a half or so.
I’ve done some family business work and a bit of language
study while waiting for him to wake and want his next bottle; but I’m just
listening to music videos now while doing my usual nightly computing –
including checking out some YouTube video clips of songs from Frozen. When I get some time to do it, I’m going to
learn to play ‘Let It Go’ on my keyboard; but didn’t want to do that tonight
and risk waking Zack and getting him too fired up. He’s busy enough without any extra
motivation!
There isn’t really anything else to write about for
tonight. We have a work day around here
booked for tomorrow, and we’ll be watching Zack until Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne get home from their five-star sleepover; so it’s going to be a busy day. I’m hoping that Michael and I will get some
alone time after he’s done work tomorrow night; but we’ll see how that
goes. For now, I’m just going to move on
with some more surfing on the net until Zack wakes up; and then I’ll feed him
and hope that we can both get off to sleep without the need to tire him out
again.
That thought took me somewhere else right away, but I don’t
want to think about what my aunt and uncle might be doing tonight that doesn’t
include sleeping; and now I really need to wrap this up and find something else
to do for a distraction.
Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
