{"id":7709,"date":"2021-10-24T02:48:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T02:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7709"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","slug":"fifty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7709","title":{"rendered":"FIFTY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in January, I made a commitment to myself to write something on this blog each day, but some days I feel wholly inadequate to the task of putting words together on the screen. Sometimes that is because I want to tackle a subject that is substantial and complex and I know my words will fall far short. Sometimes it is because I start too late in the day and my brain is sputtering along on nothing more than fumes.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tonight both are true. I know what I SHOULD write about: tomorrow is Melissa&#8217;s 50th birthday and so this would be the perfect opportunity for me to celebrate my wife in elegant prose &#8211; for all the world to see. (If the world should happen to stumble across this blog.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe tomorrow I will be more up to the task!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tonight, I will just tell you how I couldn&#8217;t resist turning a clear romantic win into a flagrant loss earlier today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melissa and Sarah and I decided to spend the day in Madison, Indiana, a scenic little town about an hour south of us, situated on the Ohio River. We had a slow start, so it was around 11:00 when Melissa popped out of the bedroom in a cute fall outfit, ready to head to Madison.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was struck anew with her beauty and I said &#8211; quite sincerely &#8211; &#8220;You sure don&#8217;t look 50!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melissa smiled and shot back, &#8220;I don&#8217;t look a day over 35, huh?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Somehow, that triggered the dumb &#8220;dad joke&#8221; portion of my brain, which automatically opened my mouth to push this out: &#8220;Well &#8230; you don&#8217;t look a day over FORTY NINE.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ruined the moment, but fortunately I was out of slapping range.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, here&#8217;s photographic proof from today &#8211; October 23rd &#8211; the day before Melissa turns 50 &#8211; that she doesn&#8217;t, in fact, look anywhere close to 50:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjy5toFMUaNUMrtZZbI5WF_wKTFsJw97fNduMr_QEKH9fc9wjrChROh9F0YLZQuranICWDXnQZgPHwIjJgxdmQTLdu-x5t9CX5_v-n6mii0vYbfvwmNy3362sRAwhhIxcyyCgqFi-fOO8k\/w640-h480\/20211023_162903+%25281%2529.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1440\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Happy Birthday, beautiful lady!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in January, I made a commitment to myself to write something on this blog each day, but some days I feel wholly inadequate to the task of putting words together on the screen. Sometimes that is because I want to tackle a subject that is substantial and complex and I know my words will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7711,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions\/7711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}