I’ve decided to spend my birthday in the South of France.

Reality has little bearing on how I fritter away my day. Trust me; retreating in to my personal fantasy world is much more appealing than dragging out the veracity of this cold, sun-less day. Truth be known… No! No! No! We are not going there.

I am in the south of France. Mes pieds sont dans le Mer Méditeranée. It is sunny and warm. There are beautiful people to my left and beautiful people to my right. I look great. I am young and virile. I have a bottle of 1997 Bollinger Blanc de Noirs Vielilles Vignes Francaises champagne chilling beside me. I am sophisticated, suave and debonair.

The balmy sun warms my very soul as I lounge in the gentle breeze. Why look! It’s Ed McMahon coming my way. He has a check in his hand from the Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Under different circumstances, I would find it a bit macabre, getting a check for $1,000,000.00 from a dead person. But today, it’s fine.

And I’ll be hornswaggled, but isn’t that George Clooney sidling up next to me. He looks deep in my eyes and says, “If only you were single, I’d whisk you away with me.” He raises a fist to the gods and shouts , “Damn that Richard, if only I had found you first!”

Mesmerized by his intense gaze, I mutter, “Richard? Who’s Richard?”

As the sun set’s on another beautiful day in the South of France, my limo picks me up from the shores of the Mediterranean and carries me home. Tomorrow may not be as great as today, but I will always have the memories.