Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

It’s traditional for the King and Queen to invite new Nobel laureates to dine at the palace on the next day after prize awards–so today’s birthday dinner will be hard to live up to.

I might add that in addition to a charming prince who remembered today was my birthday, Sweden also has a very charming prime minister. Thanks to my table companions Göran Persson and Finn Kydland for sharing my enthusiasm for speculating about economic issues, a much safer pastime than speculating in currency.

The Grand Hotel, which does nothing in a small way, sent a huge vase full of flowers with birthday wishes. (This advantage of having hotels check your passport had never occurred to me before.)

Frank gave me a beautiful necklace of amber beads–Amity gave me a cellphone holder with a huge script ‘B’ picked out in cute diamond-oids–Mira gave me a huge chocolate cigar full of marzipan–mmm–and Joi Ito’s birthday best wishes linked to my blog.

This was such a good birthday, I think I’ll just have to stop getting older. No more birthdays for me!