I have the answer!

And it is:

It is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The Ultimate Question itself remains unknown.

Yet another October 2 has dawned and yes, it is my birthday all over again. A year older, some wiser, a great deal lazier, some worse for the wear, only 3 lbs lighter than last year but a lot more fit and as crazy as ever! But do I know where I am headed? Like The Ultimate Question, this too remains elusive.

circa 1974

The picture above is probably older or almost as old as many of you reading this post. I tried to do a face merge - now and then - but the face I currently sport is rather too wide and it took away from the absolute awesomeness of what used to be my cuteness.

There's no need to calculate - I'll tell you.

• I was 7 years old in that picture. 
• It is over 35 years old. 
• Why, yes! I am 42 years old today. 
  

My husband had to ask me how old I was today. All I could think was Wow! have we really been married that long? At least he knew my birth year but he needed to do a little bit of subtraction across two centuries. Little Ms. M did not need to be reminded. She did not hesitate to tell me that I might be a little kinda old because some of her friends have parents who are in their late 20s, I kid you not!

For most Indians, my birthday is difficult to forget because I share it with he-who-shall-remain-unnamed. If you refer to him by name, by nickname, by a reference whether oblique, crooked or straight, your comment shall be deleted immediately. I will also never ever visit your blog nor will I hit refresh a few times after clicking through to arbitrary pages on your blog, in order to increase your hits, page views and, OMG, depth of visit. Instead, your bounce rate shall increase and I will compete with you in your SEO efforts, keyword for keyword, banishing you to the third page in Google's SERPs, which we all know never meets pixels on anyone's screens. As for your PageRank (don't you know? it's everything!), well, let's just say: Your PageRank Are Belong To Me. You stand adequately warned.

With that out of the way, shall we celebrate a little bit here? It would be nice to have a wild virtual party because our IRL celebration is going to be a little subdued. Medha is recovering from a week of being ill with a bad cough, a cold and a fever. She has missed school all of this week and while she might be well enough to go back to school tomorrow, her coughing fits are rather scary and make me want to keep her at home. One more day of rest will only do her good but that's a decision we shall make when the sun comes up over the horizon.

So bring out the bubbly in my honor, dim the lights a bit, turn the music up - please, no Delilah but some 80's dance and disco music would be really nice!

Happy Birthday, me!