It happens annually. I get a year older, dammit.

How can another birthday be here so fast? Is there actually truth to the theory about time flying when you are having fun?

I feel like it was just a short time ago that I had the 2006 anniversary of my birth. That day, when my cell phone rang I answered and all I heard was a cat meowing the Happy Birthday Song. Then the cat hung up. I figured it was my sister the cat lady (she has 23) but it could have been any number of cat fanatics I know.

The phone rang again. This time is was my New York cousin, a wonderful Gay man, who proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to me in perfect Ethel Merman, followed by an encore of "There’s Noooo Birthday Like Yourrrrr Birthday, Like Nooooo Birthday I Knooow…Unique.

That same day I was talking with my father and I asked him "What were you doing 58 years ago today?"

"Same thing I’m doing now," he said.

What??? Pacing in the hospital? Watching a vaginal delivery? Drinking Johnny Walker?

"I’m yelling at the Yankees. They stink."

Well, it’s true, he’s been hollering free advice to the Yankees for over eight decades. On June 29, 1948 my father was listening to a game on the car radio and last year he was watching his hapless team on ESPN.

Technology has come a long way, but, according to my father, the Yankees have not.

Especially not this year. I anticipate a call from him on Friday, June 29 to wish me happy birthday amid his snarling at the Bronx Bombers.

I really have a love-hate relationship with birthdays. I enjoy celebrating them. But actually having them is getting old, like me.

This very afternoon I was loitering at the CAMP office with just three of us in the room—Kathy Weir, Harvey Sharpe and me. And we will all celebrate the date of our birth on June 29. What were the odds of that happening? Why couldn’t it be Powerball?

I wouldn’t mind turning 59 so much if it wasn’t for all the bad news reports about Baby Boomers. This week alone I have read the following three disturbing stories.

"Achy baby boomers aren’t aging gracefully.... A wave of baby boomers may be hobbling toward retirement in worse health and with more aches and pains than people born in previous…"

That’s encouraging. Take two Motrin and call me in the morning.

And Newsweek had "The generation that vowed to stay forever young is coming up on a major milestone…. They’ve been hippies and yuppies; and now it’s the time of the ‘abbies’: aging baby boomers…"

If the Beatles were still together would they be singing Abbies Road?

Web MD says, "Baby boomers are about to do something utterly conventional and predictable. They’re going to start getting old and begin developing health problems. One big question looms over these developments: Will those years be vigorous and healthy, or will baby boomers sink into the pain and disability of chronic disease?"

Good god, by this time the Beatles would be singing "If I Fell" (and I can’t get up) and "We can work it out" (on a Correctol commercial).

If this health crisis isn’t bad enough, the financial news is worse.

Even the congressional budget office weighed in. "Studies suggest that the average baby boomer’s prospects for a comfortable retirement could face serious challenges."

Being in personal financial trouble is bad enough, but the report continues with "Over the past 15 years, the retirement prospects of the baby-boom generation have become a source of public concern. Some experts contend that low saving by boomers could limit economic growth in the United States and compound the financial pressures that face government programs such as Social Security and Medicare."

Not only are we in danger of having less than financially secure retirements, we’re going to be blamed for putting the federal government into financial chaos (like it’s not there already thanks to you-know-who, whose name I cannot even mention).

The survey also revealed that Baby Boomers have saved an average of only 12 percent of the total they will need to meet even basic living expenses in retirement. Twelve percent of my basic living expenses just about covers my bar bill at Cloud 9. Cue the Beatles.

"All You Need is Love," because you won’t be able to afford anything else.

Even the banking industry targets Abbies. One huge banking conglomerate has a Golden Image Club which, in addition to having an attractive CD rate offers personal assistance in teaching boomers to use online banking and deals on accidental death insurance and prescription drugs. Have they got our number or what?

And don’t get me started on clothing. Trying to find attractive age-appropriate garments is like trying to find a drag queen at Nascar. All the fashionistas think they’re doing a good thing by making trendy looking clothes in large sizes. Those huggy, midriff showing lacy things look great on Britney, Lindsay and Paris, but excessively stupid on Flopsy, Mopsy and a size 16 Cottontail. Nobody wants to see a 59 year old belly button.

I did read that the fashion business is expected to undergo a "seismic mood swing" over the next few years in a trend they call "age-accepting" fashion—featuring more "realistic looking models, grey hair and emphasis on empty nesting, retirement, and widowhood in advertising."

Wow. That sounds like fun. Subscribe to the new magazines: Harper’s Bizarre, Done Housekeeping, and Ladies Rest-Home Journal.

This is truly depressing. I’m working myself into quite a pre-birthday snit. I have to go have some ice-cream. (She gets up from the computer for Chunky Monkey).

(She returns.)

Okay, I just took a look at my June-July calendar. It includes golf outings, dinner engagements, a pool party, four art openings, two book signings, a weekend of Broadway shows, a doggy play date with my pups and their friends, CAMP Rehoboth Follies (the theme this year is Fruit Cocktail. Let your imagination go wild!), and goodness knows how many laughs.

Okay, growing old may be inevitable.

But around here, growing up seems to be optional. And that’s a good thing. Quoth The Beatles, "I’ll Get By With a Little Help From My Friends."

Happy birthday, Kathy and Harvey.