Today was my birthday: I turned the double nickle. It's pretty tough on me to spend my birthday away from my family, although I have done it for six years now. I still get really sad.

So the saving grace of the day was an invitation by an American ex-pat couple to come to their place for dinner. The home was in a development for locals who wanted a European-quality home in KG. It was beautiful. Rick and Laurie made me feel right at home. They haven't been all that long in Bishkek, and their kitchenware had just arrived, so they were ready for their first guests. (Alas, their other belongings are taking their time.) They had also invited a Brit named Dustin and his wife Albina.

Dinner was soft tacos. The meat was bought locally, but the flour tortillas were ordered from Amazon, and they were perfect for the occasion. Amazon will deliver you anything as long as you pay enough. Their kitchenware had arrived with some spices, so I gloried in the cumin. You know, theoretically, I despise the concept of comfort food, but their soft tacos were so much like what we might make back in Arizona that it made a perfect birthday dish. If I return here next year, I will have to bring them a container of ground chipotles to improve their pantry.

Both couples have travelled around the world, so they make excellent conversation partners. My contribution to the evening was a couple of bottles of wine. I had asked Rick previously what kind of wines his wife likes: dry whites. The embassy had given me a document that gave the "best of" locations of Bishkek, so I went to a place called «У француза», where you can buy French wines. It's not cheap, but the wine quality is quite good. I bought a French Gewürztraminer (2500 soms = $42), which was semi-dry, and a dry white named Mirabel (1800 soms = $30). Laurie liked the Mirabel better. I would never pay that kind of money back in the States cuz I'm a total tightwad, but I really like Rick and Laurie, and frankly it was worth it.

Dustin and Albina were also great conversation partners. I found myself a bit envious of their lives. So many places they have seen, and they have learned how to enjoy each new place and be content there, despite the fact that every country they work in is so very different from their homelands. Working in the fUSSR is not for the faint-hearted. I respected their every word.

Albina had brought with her a dog, Tempest, a frightfully inappropriate name for a toothless Yorkshire terrier. The cur loved being scratched by our stockinged feet under the table (one always removes one's shoes when entering a home in this part of the world), but when I blocked him from going out into the garden, he bit me. The bite of a toothless dog is not to be feared, but I was much amused.

So I am now 55 years old. Astonishing. I now see the ten thousand ways in which the young do not understand the old. In some ways I don't feel different from High School. In others I see so much more. Life goes so quickly that I find myself wondering how we can change the world in such a way that our older insights can inform the younger. Sadly, my own personality is not a world-changer personality. But I finally see enough to know how the world needs to change, at least in some ways. But can I actually have a positive effect? I just don't know.