They say things happen in threes

...but in the past few days four prominent celebrities from the world of entertainment have died:

• Ozzy Osbourne, British heavy-metal rocker, 76.
• Malcolm-Jamal-Warner, American actor (can you say Theo Huxtable?), musician, and poet, 54.
• Hulk Hogan, professional wrestler, 71.
• Chuck Mangione, jazz trumpeter, 84.

The causes of their deaths were said to be Parkinson's disease (Osbourne), drowning (Warner), cardiac arrest (Hogan), and natural causes in his sleep (Mangione).

I'm sure Mr. Mangione's 'natural causes' included a cardiac arrest similar to Mr. Hogan's. The only difference seems to have been that one was awake and one was asleep when his heart stopped beating.

I don't mean to be macabre but I found the reportage interesting.

At my age I find everything interesting.

Tomorrow is Mrs. RWP's 90th birthday and the celebrating has already begun. A neighbor threw a surprise party yesterday that included two bouquets of a dozen roses, a gift certificate to a restaurant, home-made pizza, and a rasberry white chocolate mousse cake from the best bakery in the county. On Wednesday another friend took us to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Tomorrow our immediate family members are coming over to celebrate and cook for us too, but they decided not to surprise us.

I'm glad. We wouldn't want their showing up at our door unannounced to trigger a cardia arrest.

There I go being macabre again.

A thousand pardons. I'll take your shocked looks under advisement for composing future posts.