Buying a t shirt for your grand neice

This is (trigger warning) a somewhat sexist appraisal of how to handle extended family purchasing situations.

The wrong way to buy a gift for your niece.
You are at the gift shop at Valley Forge and want to buy a cute t shirt for your grand niece. You buy it on impulse. Inevitably, the grand niece will never wear her t shirt. The size is wrong. She doesn't like the design. Anyway, she already has five hundred t shirts and on birthdays and holidays she always gets a few dozen more. The truth is your grand niece only shops at fancy schmanzy children's boutiques with designer names and prices. You have made a mistake. Your t shirt will be sold at next year's church rummage sale.

The correct way to buy a gift for a grandniece. Your wife calls your nephew's wife and they have a nice chat. Your wife tells you what she wants, she buys it, and you sign your name on it. Or, if you don't have a wife, you can buy her a cash card at Amazon.

Never lie to your mother

When I was a tot, I went playing with some of the older boys on Parker Avenue. When my mother asked me why I came in late for dinner I explained that I had been playing with the Mills girls on Kaplan Avenue.

The next morning, my mother said, "A little birdie told me that you were playing with some older boys on Parker Avenue yesterday afternoon." You always have to be careful about the neighborhood birdies who tell tales. Poor Ryan, losing all those endorsements. Just because, like the Rolling Stones in 1964, he had to take a leak in a gas station.  Moral? We should never lie to our mothers.

Donut peaches

Yesterday I had my first donut peach. I saw them in the local farmer's market and the next day I bought them at the garden store in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. They actually are good. They are drier and less sweet than a regular peach and I guess are a treat partially because they only appear briefly in August.

The Morrisville Garden Farm market is always fun. It looks like it was last remodeled in 1961 and has no self check out. The floors are saggy and the place reeks of atmosphere.

Goodbye Taj Mahal

When the folks first visited me in New Jersey in the summer of 1990 they wanted to see me, the graves, and some of the aunts still living in the area, but most importantly, they wanted to go to the Taj Mahal. They didn't want to hurt my feelings or anything but they had been reading about it and I always suspected that it was the real reason they wanted to go up north from their sweet retirement home in Texas. 

At the time, with all the hype and hoopla about Atlantic City being the great gambling mecca East of the Mississippi a lot of people wanted to try their hand at the slots and perhaps see what a casino looked like. I know when I came back the first time I wanted to see Merv Griffin's palace, Resorts, and the Taj Mahal was even bigger. Tastefully decorated in what was faux Hollywood style exoticism, the Taj Mahal was big and a once in a lifetime treasure. A wonder that brought to New Jersey, however briefly, the distinction of being one of the most written about sites in the country. 

We came, played the slots, and as a souvenir, my father decided to discretely carry his coin tub with him back to the car. He was stopped in his tracks by the site of Donald Trump marching through the casino and shaking hands. He put the tub behind him so Mr. Trump wouldn't notice. Later we saw the Trump helicopter on the sands.

Now we hear that the great mecca to gambling and culture is closing. A monument to the second golden age of Atlantic City its closing symbolizes the decline of both the jewel of the Atlantic and the would be president of this fine country. 

Conventions in ages past

Going through the vaults, I found two old posts of mine on political conventions for 1960 and 1964. Classics.

On January 20

Well I listened to the Trump acceptance speech. It seems an awful lot of things will happen on  January 20 of 2017.

• On that day illegal aliens will stop murdering American citizens
• On that day people will stop shooting at police officers
• On that day we will put an end to trade policies that hurt American workers
• On that day Hillary will be handcuffed and put in a federal prison
• Construction will begin on that day on a wall between the United States and Mexico
• On that day terrorists will be deported back from whence they came

I might add a few things to my own wishlist

• On that day Zillow will say I have made money on the condo
• On that day I will get a raise from work
• On that day my air conditioner will get a boost

Well we can dream. Next week the Democrats will get their turn in the beautiful I-95 corridor in south Philadelphia. I wonder if Hillary will have on a striped dress and say "Well they said they wanted to see me in stripes!"
Humor in uniform.  (for those of you who used to read Readers Digest)

I have a dog in my life

Living in a condo or an apartment you may think you are the king of your castle. However, all it takes to change your life is a new neighbor with kids, or a dog, or a boyfriend with a motorcycle. Suddenly you don't need to set your alarm in the morning. You wake to the sound of a motorcycle revviing. Or a kid screaming. Or a dog barking.

My life has changed. Well actually, my new neighbor has neither kids, a boyfriend with a motorcycle, a drunk ex husband who visits, or a rooster. But she does have a dog. Cute thing, actually.

I was trying to clean my porch (mini ten foot by five porch) and suddenly, a dog starting barking out of the place next door. His face stuck out of the French door. Then a lady in the garden below was walking her dog. The neighbor dog: Ruff ruff ruff.  The garden dog (an older dog with a lower voice) : Ruff ruff ruff.

So now, at least occasionally I get to hear the new dog through the walls. Mrrrr. Ruff ruff ruff, followed by a woman's voice. "Shut the f--- up!"

Life is full of adventures. Who knows? She may even have a drunk ex husband.