This Thursday is Maria’s birthday, she will be 56 years old. She doesn’t like to get presents, but I like to give them, so we just slug it out each year.

Thursday, I’m taking her out to dinner and to a concert by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the famed South African male choral group which sings in the African vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube.

The choral is performing at the Troy Music Center, just outside of Albany.

I also bought a special four performance bundle ticket offering at the Williamstown, Mass.,  Theater Festival this summer, this is our favorite theater company.

We both love theater, and the Festival is red hot, having sent seven shows along to Broadway just last year.

The other gift is a small engraved sterling silver locket, inside it says “Me-You Forever.” I didn’t think we needed any names, she knows who I am. I wanted it to be simple.

I like the presents I got for her this year, in part because I will share in both of them and we will do most of them together. She’s muttering about my giving her too much, as usual, but not nearly so much as she did five years ago when I bought her a new iPhone. She almost threw me out of the house that Christmas.

I think she knows by now that I will never stop giving her things once in a while, and she deserves every gift.

I’m not big on birthdays, I don’t pay much attention to mine or to anybody else’s, but I always feel the need to mark this one in some way. I love giving Maria gifts partly because she never ever buys anything for herself, and in part because I just love doing it.

She is eternally young and full of life, age doesn’t matter much to her.