-Posted by Isaac

I just happened to be walking through the honey house the other day, and noticed the work of my talented daughter.

Miss November. I wonder if she even knows? That photo was taken in June, 2018. I think she’s completely forgotten that she won a spot on the club calendar.

November is a big month for birthdays around here. Several on the Barnes side, five or six I think. And at least a few on the Krieger side. Including Grandma’s. This year she turned 90.

Last week I told you about our little surprise crashing of the Court House Manor. (video at the end) And on Saturday we had a proper party with the whole family. I guess it also doubled as the Krieger Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we have the actual Thanksgiving, and we have another birthday.

Two birthdays, if fact. We double up on Nov. 28th. Bridger turns eight and I turn 44.

Every 11 years our birthdays fall on Thanksgiving day. This will mark the first time we get to celebrate it together. It’s hard think back and remember the specifics of any random birthday, but it’s easy to mark the special day I turned 36 and was given my mountain man.

My greatest birthday gift.

What are the chances?

I guess I have heard what the chances are… I’ve heard a number, anyway. They say the odds of you existing as you specifically, and not someone else, are somewhere in the neighborhood of one in 400 quadrillion. That’s based on any specific egg meeting up with any given sperm.

So there you go.

Odds of our birthdays falling on the same day— 1 : 365

Odds of our shared existence— 1 : 800,000,000,000,000,000

And I’m just talking about me and Bridger. What about the rest of you? Our shared existence? Is it even possible to comprehend?

It’s a hard thing to capture.

I found a website that talks about this a little further. The odds of existence. They came to an even bigger number. It’s a 10 raised to the 2.7 millionth power! They based it off any specific egg meeting up with any given sperm from any human pair over the centuries and millennia… then traced it back even further to all the pre-human randomness over the millions and hundreds of millions of years since life began on this planet.

Chances: one in 10 raised to the 2,685,000th power.

And I think, well now… if you want to get into the weeds…

What about all the time before life existed? All the mixing and churning that when on… all those atoms, the atoms that make us up, were still out there going this way and that… when our planet was forming, when our sun was just a baby. And what about all the time before that? Before our atoms even existed? When the stars were exploding, creating, destroying, mixing, blending, shuffling, fusing the elements.

Somehow it all came together. But I’m now thinking that their measly 10 to the 2.7 millionth power is way low.

Shall we be thankful?

It’s been about ten years. We’re rusty. I asked Mason to get a picture, and instead he sat behind Grandma and took a whole video.

I guess it was good he did. Now you can see the utter chaos— Our little stars exploding, creating, destroying, mixing, blending, shuffling, fusing the elements.

The best line in Sugar Baby is a question: “Who’ll rock the cradle when you’re gone?”

And an answer: “I’ll rock the cradle when you’re gone.”