How Old or How Young?

Today two people in our family had birthdays: Jeffrey Cohen, and Sabrina Ross. Jeff is Rhoda's son-in-law, and Sabrina is Bobby's wife--my daughter-in-law. Now Jeff is 40 something and Sabrina is...well I can't say. It wouldn't be gentlemanly. The question is if you ever want to ask someone's age, shall we say, "How old are you" or "How young are you"? I never heard anyone say the latter, but perhaps we ought to start doing that. If someone would ask me how old I am, I'm afraid I would wince. I would prefer to have been asked how young I was. However, if my answer were 83...for example...it would appear to be ludicrous. Also, I often wonder how many people actually have a happy birthday after they've been wished that. Take one of my own sons; he shoots pool every Friday night. It so happens that his wife had a birthday on a Friday night, so being the good wife that she is, told him to go shoot pool as usual. Which he did. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked why he didn't take her out to dinner, at least. This was about 10:30 pm. He relieved my angst by saying he was on his way home and was going to take her out to IHOP for a late night birthday. I guess the best thing to have done, had I known , would have been to wish her a Happy Birthnight. How happy it would turn out would be up to her to say.

Now, Jeff didn't go anywhere today or tonight. He and Renee, Rho's daughter, stayed at home with the two girls, Allyson and Ilana. Now I believe Jeff still had a "happy" birthday because he was all lit up with the thought that Ilana might make the Varsity Soccer team at the high school. Ilana just started the 9th grade. I'm kind of leary to have her play at the varsity level as a freshwoman; I've been involved in soccer as player, spectator, and coach for 67 years and I don't think she should play at that level. Jeff is not really aware of the kind of play involved at the varsity in high school. If Ilana does not succeed in playing against girls older than she is, she may lose interest and lose confidence. That's been my experience with ninth graders on the varsity; but of course, all of my experience has been with the boys.