Happy Birthday, Professor

November 21st

Today is the birthday of my brilliant and divine younger sister. Since she has now reached an age when it should be considered exuberantly journalistic, not to say imprudently tabloidesque, to reveal the actual number of years that have passed since her arrival here, let us all simply agree that she is a fox. You don't look a day over twenty-five, dahling! Her professional and personal achievements at such a tender age continue to delight and amaze us all; both her meteoric rise to academic superstardom and her hat-trick delivery of a string of delectable nieces (my nieces, mine, mine, all mine) have so far and away exceeded the conceivable expectations of the preceding generation as to have, in my mind, carried over as a sort of cleansing wash of glory, sympathetically relieving myself of any and all pressures to perform in any arena whatsoever, from the marital to the literary. For this I am eternally grateful. Wishing you, all the way from the edge of the frozen continent, continued happiness and many happy returns of the day!