That's Entertainment!

Ah, Nostalgia...

What a wonderful thing.  Ain't nothin' like a birthday to getcha a-thinkin' 'bout the past.

It's hard, these days, not to think that things were better in "The Good Old Days."  At least, life seemed simpler, less complicated.  There weren't as many choices and what choices there were seemed easy enough to make.

There were, for example, only a few TV stations from which to choose.  That's pretty easy.  Ed Sullivan or Lawrence Welk.  John Lennon or The Lennon Sisters.  Easy as pie. (My father preferred Welk so I am painfully hip to The Sisters but I did get to see The Beatles on Ed.  Thanks Dad...)

Now there are, literally, hundreds of stations to watch with numbers like 237.

"Honey...what's on 237?"

"I don't know but Oprah's on 236, 14 and 196."

"Which one do you want?"

"I don't care...you choose."

Yeah, right.

In a previous post I confessed to being hopelessly addicted to Law and Order.  It was one thing, years ago, when the show was just on one channel, NBC.  On such and such a day at x-hour, period.

Popcorn, slippers, cozy chair...Law and Order for a glorious hour.

Now I have to choose among three stations and three different versions of the show.  I'm definitely not complaining but it's hard for a man to decide whether to watch Lennie and Van Buren or Goren and Eames or Elliot and Olivia.

Three great casts, three great stories, three great outcomes.  I can, at least, take solace from the fact that, in the case of Law and Order, each version has the same music.  Slightly different arrangements but the same song, nonetheless.  "Boom. Boom", if you know what I mean...

Anyway, it feels as though our lives are interminably complicated these days, made so by so damned many choices and versions of virtually the same thing.

Cars, shoes, food.  How many fast food stores to we really need when they are, for the most part, all the same?  What is the difference, really, between a Big Mac and a Whopper?  Not much as far as I'm concerned.  I prefer the Whopper, personally, but they really are the same...a couple of bucks worth of garbage.

So, yeah, birthdays are great for looking back at the past, how it was "when I was young."

I don't want to go back, mind you, but I wouldn't mind fewer complications in my life.

I know, I know...it doesn't have to be that way.  I can just go with what I really want and ignore the rest.  But that's hard to do.  Really hard.

Especially when you want it all!  Cake and eat it too, ya know...?

Which reminds me.  My birthday cake was delicious.  Chocolate Ice Box Cake made by the loving hands of my caring, beautiful wife.

Layers of chocolate mousse and lady fingers covered with handmade whipped cream and beautifully decorated by my adorable daughter.

No complications there.  Love and chocolate.

Slam dunk!!