BAPPY HIRTHDAY NATIONAL JOE

Happy birthday, Joe.
Here's wishing you a fruitful & satisfying time of things in the next year of your life.
Lots more excellent writings & running & whatever other good things you might hope for as well ....
.... with enough time left over to smell the roses, too.

On this , the anniversary of your birth all those long long long years ago I feel the need to ask you:

Is that a gun in your pocket Joe or are you just too glad too seemy?

Happy birthday Sir Jon.


May you stay healthy and spirited enough to tackle next year's Boston Marathon.

Yay! HB, Joe

We're almost twins!

Oh my! I read that and choked on my Diet Coke. I thought Osso had written "...and love to a well hung poster."

Well, this is so wonderful and so nice I am at a loss for words. Yes, I know that is both shocking and unbelievable, so I shall just stop the pretense here and say "Thank You''.
Thank you, boss.
Thank you, David.
Thank you, djj62 (which is unpronounceable and makes you very difficult to talk about at a2k meetings)
Cheers to Cyclo
Hugs to Letty
kisses to butterflynet
If anyone hears from Dys, it will be too bad for all of us
Tak to IrishK
and an embrace of some moments for Aidan.
Hey, shewolf, this door is always open.

You should know, ebeth, that I gave up the life of joan.
(last week, but still.... . tis over)

Celi, my sweet and Osso, my inspiration, together - sweet ..ah, you know the tune.

Edgar, the real man of letters, salute
FM, the rock of all my knowledge
Roberta- only you know where all the bodies are buried in this town

Reyn, you bring on what we really need to know.
Jespah, you keep us on the road
Thanks for the pig, I need one, Tico,
Oh, CJ, you fill my glass.
MsOlga, why are you so far away?
Laughoutloud (why didn't I think of THAT name)?
cheers to Margo at the end of the world

Eva-- there is no treasure greater than a true friend.
(even one that might let pass the possibility that I might be both a well loved and well hung poster)


SO CHEERS!! CHEERS to All !
Thanks again to Setanta for starting this thread.
Your friendship and the friendship of all here at a2k has meant the world to me over these past years.

And to all the posters who didn't post today, I say, screw you (Where's Frank when I need him?) Pay attention!!

I still love you.

Joe(Start the Party)Nation

I'm up for that.

Uh wait whos doing the screwing.

Hoppy barfday Joe.

DEAR JOE, WISHING YOU A YEAR FILLED WITH DELIGHTFUL SURPRISES--HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Belated is good because the celebrations are still continuing here in NYC.

Joe(there is Perseco!!)Nation

Hey!!! I wished you happy birfday on Facebook!

I'll sign Tai Chi's card as well. Happy Birthday Joe.

Dutchy (always around) downunder.

Cheers for the Birthday Boy !!

(where's the cake ? I like cake .)

which Persico?

Carpene Malvolti - very nice drinkable stuff and just about $20.00 a bottle.

There was also a really good piece of filet mignon in a wine/mushroom sauce and a strawberry shortcake [early in the season, I know].

Joe(the lady stayed four days, we cooked every night, sometimes in the kitchen.)Nation :-)

<grins>

I've never tried Prosecco - deprived, I know.

It was forced on me by my friend.

Not as many bubbles as champagne, sippable.

Joe(pobre sita)Nation

I like my champagne nice and dry, by which I mean not sweet, and have rarely tasted the good stuff. I have tasted whaddyacallit - started with an A - an ital version of champagne, and maybe it was a prosecco but I didn't know it by that word.

Have had it a few times, mostly 'gah'.

The time it was wonderful was when hub and I were first in Florence, and we stayed at a hotel where our friend Harvey's daughter's lover ran/owned the bar concession. We got a terrific room in that well placed medium type hotel, with a wee balcony facing a great piazza (SS Annunziata) and just after we checked in and got to our room (nice) we saw the bottle of whaddyacallit in ice in a silver container, with two glasses. That was just before sunset, which we watched from that balcony. Glow on the facade of SS Annunziata church (old, of course).

That particular whaddyacallit wasn't as sweet as the ones I ever tried after that. The lover turned out to be a good businessman, ran many bar concessions, not just that one, very attuned re politics and life, and we liked him a lot. Memories can be good.

Edit - Asti Spumante. That one was good, maybe a good bottling, or maybe our good will.

I don't like champagne or any bubbly wines for that matter.
(How did this thread get to be one about bubbles? Is there a wine thread? Because I would have nothing to say about champange or persecco)

I had my own theory about this a long time ago. I was always getting poured a glass amidst very loud people or people being very loud, and, always, those same people had already had way too much to drink of something else.

New Year's Eve.
(Completely incomprehensible, but very cheerful, conversations with groups of total strangers.)
Wedding Receptions (which in the past thirty years have reached decibel levels of airport tarmacs.)
Strip Joints
(Long ago, in the company of six or seven other GIs, we bought $50 'champagne' [ginger ale] cocktails for skinny girls with their shirts off.)
==
It's only been in the past year that I've had a glass of anything with bubbles in it in the same kind of circumstance you describe. (So lovely)
We went up to the roof to gaze at the city opening itself to the New Year. The horns and shouting were far, far away.
This weekend we just stayed in, ate our perfectly cooked fillets and sipped out the narrowest glasses while waiting for the dessert to be ready. There were gazes of a less distant kind.

Memories can be good. Yes. Especially if you treat your memories with the same care you would your garden. Weed out the weeds. Cut back the invasive vine. Pull out by the roots and carry to the curb, everything that doesn't color your present.

Joe(I'll raise a glass to that)Nation

I preferred an insouciant ROUNDUP to help remove an entire decade from memory banks