42: The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

I had a great birthday today, and thanks to everyone who came!

I spent the day intending to do nothing but barbecue a Boston Butt. No, that’s not a Yankee’s ass, but a shoulder of a pig, and when it is slow cooked with lots of barbecue sauce, you get a blackened hunk of succulent meat that shreds into pulled pork. I took off of work, bought some beer, hickory chips, charcoal and of course, the pork shoulder and lit my first fire at 9:30 this morning with the intention of being finished with the barbecue by 4 PM in time to have friends and family over to share the meat.

What started out as a lazy day turned into a marathon of chores, cleaning, and other errands that ate up all of my spare time. I still got the Boston Butt cooked to perfection, but it was just one more necessary chore out of a list of a score of chores. I ended up changing a flat tire, assembling a bookshelf, buying chrysanthemums, installing a DVD player and cleaning carpets on three levels of my home. Add to this the baby wrangling and the care and feeding of the barbecue’s fire, and I was exhausted.

So if my age is now 42, and that number is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything, according to Douglas Adams, then my day spent trying to have a great birthday may very well be an example of the meaning of life: Even when you are planning on having fun, lots of chores and hard work is required to reach your goals. And in the end you have a great time and need lots of toothpicks.