My immediate family is small, so I try not to let events go unnoticed. One almost slipped past my radar though. Fifteen days ago I got my customary alert on my phone. A birthday was imminent. That birthday is today. What I didn’t realize is it’s a milestone. My cousin is now a full-fledged, card carrying member of adulthood. It’s not a particularly exclusive organization, if you could even call it that. He’s part of that lose web of folks eking out a living, entitled by experience to start thinking of themselves as “old.”

My one and only cousin (going by the strictest definition) turns thirty today.

Happy birthday, my good (old) man!