And here it is.  Misao Okawa, the world’s oldest human being….. has completely and officially turned 117.

This grand Dame was born on March 5, 1898.  The date struck a chord with me.  My grandpa, Ed, would be that old.   He died in 1978.  Smoked cigars and loved to talk.  He taught me how to play Poker, Black Jack and how to fish.  I did not like to fish… and I still don’t.  Some days, he would follow me home from school  in his car… just to make sure I was okay.  I always knew he was tailing me.  Every now and again, he would pull up … like by chance… and ask me if I wanted to go to Baskin-Robbins.  I didn’t like to go fishing … but I loved to go get ice cream.  That was a lifetime ago.

But I digress…. speaking of lifetime’s ago..

This woman…. this 117 year old woman lives in Japan.   She lives in a retirement home in Osaka.  And…. on her birthday she ate cake, sat around… and had her picture taken with family.  Her son is 92 and he is squatting down in the photos like a Major League Catcher.

In a news report last year, Okawa said her longevity might come from her love of sushi and sleeping.  Now… they either caught her off guard in all the AP photos… or she was chewing on Sushi…. or she was ready for a nap.  At 117, it might have been all three at once.

Apparently… her favorite meal is Sushi…. and to be concise…  she really likes mackerel on vinegar-steamed rice.  She has it at least once every month.  I for one, am going to stock up on my mackerel and vinegar-steamed rice.

But I am not sure I would want to live to be 117.  That puts me slobbering on my floral-print shirt… in the year 2081.  I just don’t know if it is all that is cracked up to be… at that ripe old age.

YET… as Einstein so aptly suggested…. everything is relative.  Ask me that same question… when I am 116 years, 364 days old.  And I will most likely say… “Well hell yes.  I want to be 117 years old.”

Yep.  Everything in life is relative.  It is all a matter of where you are standing, and when you are standing there.  And of course, you and I could be in the same spot at the exact same moment, and experience two entirely realities.  I have seen this happen, time, and time, and time again.  Perspective and relativity.

I guess as long as I can write and draw when I am 117… I’ll be happy as a pig in the mud.   Or a Japanese woman with raw mackerel.  If I can stay awake long enough to notice.

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Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.  —    Ausonius

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Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.  —  Stephen Hawking

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In 1905 Albert discovered Relativity, in 1906 he invented Rock and Roll.  —  Yahoo Serious

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