Gratitude Monday -- Cake and Age

My husband baked me the best birthday cake ever.
It was a Cocoa Madeira cake, but we didn't have Madeira so he used  an Argentine Tannat, a red wine
The recipe called for milk, but he decided to use tannat for that, too.
Good call.
This cake is gluten free, and  so moist and so good it was all I could do not to finish it in one sitting. It's all I want to eat.

And it's all for me as chocolate gives Mike a headache.
I am very grateful for my husband and for his thoughtfulness in baking me such a wonderful cake.
Said birthday was Saturday.
Even though the documentation insists I am 56, I still feel:

I am grateful for that, too.

My Senior Moment

I am hardly in the first flower of youth.

I suppose it was the moment that had to come some time. I have posted in the past about age and how old one feels. I certainly don't feel my age and I have no idea what 49 and almost three-quarters is supposed to feel like.
That said, I don't think I look it either. The face that greets me in the mirror is somewhere in its 40s but doesn't really speak to a specific age.
I'm getting a few more grey hairs. I will keep them and wear them proudly. They are paid for.
However, because I still feel young the following caught me quite off guard.
I was in a local grocery store on Canada Day. That particular store has senior's discount day the first Tuesday of each month. Good for them.
The young woman behind the till asked me, "You're not a senior, are you?"
"Huh?"
"You're not a senior, are you?"
"Uhmm, no."
She smiled and said something else that made no impression on me whatsoever. My mind was still reeling over her question.
Granted, she phrased it in the negative which helped soften the blow, but still I wasn't expecting the question for many more years.
Both my parents were young looking. Mom did not get grey hair until well into her 70s and dad did not have many wrinkles until he got sick. In fact, he was in the U of A Hospital for a variety of ailments when he was in his mid-70s and the nurses marvelled at his complexion and begged him for his secret.
"I moisturize," he told them. And he did. Ever day after shaving he put Noxzema skin cream on his face. (I am not shilling for Noxzema.)
I use sweet almond oil on my face every night and it has probably helped considerably.
Perhaps it was just the grey that prompted the question. It's hard to tell ages, too, so maybe she was just playing it safe so I wouldn't get all upset and demand my 10 per cent and her head off for not asking.
Sigh.
Anyway, I hadn't anticipated the question. Not yet. Not this early.
On the bright side, at least it's out of the way.

But neither am I setting seed.

How Old Do You Think I Am?

Inquiring siskins want to know.

For me the real question is how old do I think I am?
I’ve heard it said, by someone probably famous, that you’re only as old as you feel.
A good, sensible saying. If you feel old and lousy then you’ll act it and you’ll become it. I’m not about to go that route.
However, I was thinking about it last night as I was cleaning up after the evening meal: I don’t know how old I feel.
I have no idea what my current age, 49 ½, is supposed to feel like so a compare and contrast exercise is out of the question.
I’ve had this problem for years. I remember back when I was covering Provincial Court and would hear an accused’s was 40.

“Oooh, she’s old,” I’d think. Then I’d remember I was 41.

If I concentrate I would guess I feel somewhere in my 30s. Until I squat down for something out of a low cupboard and have to think, very seriously, about the process involved in standing back up.
Other than that, I have to consciously remember my age. Another factor is I’m not sure that I look like I’m closing in on 50. I don’t look anywhere near that age to me.
It seems to me I have felt the age I was at other ages. I think I got stuck somewhere and decided it was a good place to stay.
Logically, if I don’t look it and don’t feel it, then all I have left is chronology. It’ll have to do.

Pine Siskin photo courtesy my husband, Mike Mayrl.

How Old Are You?

Do you feel you’re as old as you birth certificate alleges?

Do you find you have to stop and think about your age?

I’ve caught myself doing this many times. Fortunately, I haven’t been too obvious about it.
Years ago when I was reporting I covered the Provincial Court, as such I heard people’s ages all the time. Say an accused was 40. I’d think: oh my, that’s old. Then I’d remind myself that I was 40 last year.

People in their 40s still seem old to me sometimes even as I can match or better their ages.
Now in my late 40s I can joke about a 40 year old being “just a kid” but deep down, it still seems old.

I’m 48. I don’t feel it, but I have no idea what any given age should feel like.
Chronology has little to do with age. I think of myself as somewhere in my 30s. Still prime in my mind even though the mirror puts the lie to it.

Physically I’m in better shape than I was 10 years go, and leaps and bounds beyond the lazy, if skinny, slob I was in my 20s.

I feel a certainly maturity, I suppose, but it has nothing to do with age. That’s simple inner growth.
But I sure can’t get my mind around the idea of being in my late 40s.
I like it.
I just don’t get it.