Let’s talk meatballs. Being Italian-American, I know a thing or two about them. Amongst my peeps, It’s its own food group, along with pasta (aka macaroni for us old schoolers). Not sure there is a better food pairing than macaroni and meatballs.

Growing up it was dinner twice a week: Sunday and Wednesday. You made enough every Sunday to have it again on Wednesday.

When I went to work for IKEA, I discovered this thing called a Swedish meatball. Everyone raves about IKEA’s meatballs. Say to anyone that you work there and they will ask you about their meatballs. Do you get a discount on the meatballs? Do you eat the meatballs every day? How great are those meatballs?

Ummm. Yes, I get a discount on the meatballs. No, I don’t eat them every day. And I wouldn’t know, since I never had one.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how much it costs to buy a pizza these days? I mean, I know we’ve had some inflation and whatnot, but I would love to see the data on the overall rate of inflation vs pizza inflation. I would say pizza inflation beats overall inflation by a mile.

It used to be an economical take-out dinner option. In fact, pretty much my entire life from the time I can remember has been a pepperoni pizza on Friday night. We were a family of 7 back when I was a kid and two pizzas fed us all pretty cheaply. I continued this tradition with my own nuclear unit family. And it’s one that continues into Empty Nesterhood.

Let’s talk about the C word. No, not that C word. The other one. Also goes by The Vid and Rona. Yeah. That C word. Covid.

Ernie and I managed to avoid its clutches for the first two years. Quarantining initially like everyone, wearing masks, getting vaccinated.

It wasn’t until March/April of last year, when we went to our first public event, an NCAA March Madness playoff game at the Wells Fargo Center, when Ernie caught the bug. And then he kindly gave it to me three days later. We’re all about sharing in this family.

Ernie fared ok. Me? Not so much. 3 days into it and I developed bronchial spasms such that the doctor prescribed Paxlovid and a nebulizer inhaler. Paxlovid did the trick and eventually we both were all better.

For those of you who know me, it comes as no surprise that Ernie and I are avid Philly sports fans. Phillies, Eagles, Sixers. Flyers too, but not as much. I find watching hockey on tv hard to do…where is that puck? I know I am not alone in that, because for a time they tried to use a graphic that highlighted where the puck was, but that was just distracting and didn’t really work out well.

The other day a quote from our second President, the irascible John Adams, came across my fb feed (ever the history nerd, one of the sites I follow is Plodding Through the Presidents). The quote was “Thanks be to God, that He gave me stubbornness when I know I am right.”

I immediately shared this with my siblings, laughing as I texted, who does this remind you of? Only our entire family. Grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins. The whole shebang. This is a trait that is so dominant in that side of our family, that an uncle who married into the family used to say, “You can tell a Morroney, but you can’t tell them much.” (Morroney being my maiden name).

Go Go, Slow Go, No Go. Have you heard of this expression? It refers to your retirement years. Theoretically, the first third of your retirement years, your ‘young’ years are the Go Go period. This is when you have the most vitality, energy, all your joints are in good working condition, and your overall health is good.

Mr. Magoo. That’s the best way to describe our taxi driver. We had just arrived at Termini train station in Rome. We got into the taxi line and it wasn’t a long wait before we were in a taxi and on our way.

Our driver seemed like a very nice older gentleman. He was likely in his mid to late 70’s. He had a thick head of white hair, was quite short, and had a nice smile. He spoke no English. He also could not drive.

We’ve all heard the phrase that describes the Italian approach to life philosophy. La Dolce Vita. Having just returned from a trip to Italy, I witnessed that wonderful approach first hand.

The taking it easy, slow living, enjoying being in the moment, with good food, friends and family. Being Italian-American, with both sides of the family tree from Italy, this may resonate even more deeply with me.

However, to La Dolce Vita, I would add another approach to life philosophy that I also witnessed. I call it, Eh. Eh might actually be a component of La Dolce Vita.

What is Eh you ask? It’s a shrug of the shoulders, a lifting of the hands, a facial expression that all conveys a ‘no big deal, it is what it is, not gonna worry about it’ feeling.

When we were little kids, the adults always used to say, “Don’t run away from the bees. They won’t sting you if you just stand there.”

I thought this was the worst possible advice ever. It truly made me doubt the common sense and overall intelligence of adults. I absolutely ignored what they said and ran like hell any time a bee came near me.

That is how, I believe, I had managed to avoid ever being stung by a bee my entire life.

That is until about 2 years ago.

Sticking with last week’s Boston theme, this week let’s go bowling in Brocton.

Brocton, MA is a hard-scrabble, rough and tumble, blue-collar town on Boston’s south shore. Or it was, I should say, back in the mid to late ‘80’s when we experienced it. It’s sometimes referred to as the ‘City of Champions’ because it’s the hometown of two successful boxers of whom you may have heard: Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler (put a pin in that for a sec).

We just got back from a quick trip to Boston. We used to live there when we were first married, back in the mid to late 80’s. This trip triggered some PTSD on not one, but two fronts: accents and driving.

Heed my advice. Pee before you leave. No matter if it’s a 15 or 45 minute drive to where you are headed. You never know what might arise to turn that 15 or 45 minute drive into 5 hours.

Case in point: I was headed from work one day when I decided I would not take the time to pee. I really didn’t have to go and I was in a bit of a rush to get home. I was working at the National Constitution Center in Philly at the time, so I was looking at a 45 minute to an hour drive, depending on traffic.

“There’s a place, where the boat leaves from

It takes away all of your big problems

You got worries, you can drop them in the blue ocean

But you gotta get away to where the boat leaves from”… Zac Brown Band

Ernie and I were cruising down the Overseas Highway on our way to Key West from Miami. The beautiful May sun was shining a warm, golden yellow. The skies were cerulean blue, with some wispy clouds sitting softly in the sky, as if put there by the delicate touch of a painter. The sea was a spectacular aquamarine that reminded me of the Caribbean.

“Ah. Life is good today,” I thought.

Have you seen or heard about the latest food trend? Girl Dinner? Apparently, it’s on fire on TikTok. I don’t have or know how to use TikTok, so I heard about it the old-fashioned way: through my newsfeed.

It’s described as something the opposite of a guy dinner, ie, protein, starch and vegetable. You know, something we used to just call dinner. Not sure when the genderization of mealtime took place.

Last week we took a brief look at the aging process, prompted by a recently published study which tried to pinpoint an age, a single, magical point in time, at which people no longer feel young.

This week, let’s pick up that thread and explore further what aging is really like, shall we?

We’ve already established that it is more of a process that starts out slowly, creeping up on you subtly, by degrees, like a patch of crabgrass that slowly but surely subsumes your beautiful garden if left unattended. But, whereas that crabgrass can be eliminated, no magic elixir has yet to be developed to halt the aging process, despite what you see in your social media feeds.

Hyaluronic acid and Botox only get you so far.

…that the average age when people stop feeling young is 43. And that the average age when they start feeling old is 52. Not sure what they are feeling in those intervening 9 years, lol.

This little gem of a study popped up in my newsfeed this week. Have you seen it?

Say what you will about Millenials, but hats off to them with figuring out how to have your cake and eat it too. Or rather, how to have your beer and drink it too, I should say.

Been to a brewery lately? Notice how it’s overrun with parents with young children? I look at them with a weird combination of kudos, envy, and horror.

“Start the car, John, start the car!!,” my friend Lou Ann yelled frantically, as we stumbled out of the wooded area of the dunes. Well, she walked. I stumbled, prostrated with heat. The car, with its blessed air conditioning would be my salvation.

For most people, the term ‘asleep at the wheel’ is a figure of speech. For me? A literal occurrence. And the literal occurrence led to a date night with a sleep lab. I would have much preferred a date night with George Clooney, but that wasn’t an option.

Let’s talk chicken. Roast Chicken to be specific. Sam’s Club Roast Chicken to be even more specific. The mecca of all Roast Chickens. The cult-like fanaticism of its customers who worship at the roasted altar. A visit to that altar is not for the faint of heart. You have to be prepared for exchanges that might happen, for the rules and protocols of which must be adhered.