Music in the Meadow. Concerts in the Park. Tunes on the Lawn.

Seems like they are everywhere these days. A veritable explosion of free music in the summertime hosted by various townships.

Where has this been all my life? And by all my life I mean when we were raising little kids. What a perfect no cost activity to do with the children that gets them, er us, out of the house for a little bit.

Works out great though for this stage of our empty nester/retiree life too. In fact, that’s pretty much what you see at these things. Old people and people with young kids. Nothing in the middle. Nobody in their twenties or thirties is going here for date night. If so, that might end up in the file under How Not To Impress on a Date.

I used to think that, when it came to rules, people fell into two groups quite cleanly. Those who follow them and those who don’t.

You are either the person who stays seated in your 400 level ballpark seats because that’s the ticket you paid for OR the person who will move up to the 100 level when it’s late in the game and people have emptied out leaving prime seats open.

You are either a rule follower or a rule breaker.

Then I had a conversation with my good friend LouAnn the other day.

We discussed the possibility that perhaps it’s not such a clear-cut dichotomy, but rather it’s more of a continuum. A sliding scale if you will.

You are not a rule breaker per se, but a rule bender.

So generally you follow the rules. You don’t think of yourself as a rule breaker. But you may bend the rules ever so slightly on occasion.

That led to a discussion around what might be the appropriate occasions to be a rule bender and still fall within good moral values.

I was going through some of my old stuff the other day. One of the things I came across was my kindergarten report card.

Let me tell you, the bar 56 years ago was very low. They were happy if we could tie our shoes, know where we lived, and could count to ten.

Today’s kindergarteners are writing a thesis on climate change. Or as my son-in-law put it, “Nowadays if you don’t speak a second language by age 5, you’re falling behind.”

Seriously?! I mean, here’s another one to add to the long list of the glories of aging.

But first, let’s start off with newborns. Cuddly, sweet newborns. We all know that lovely, fragrant smell of a newborn right? And I am not talking about any lotion or talcum powder (pre knowing it can cause cancer era). The newborn baby him/herself has a natural pleasant smell.

It’s a real thing. Studied by scientists. It’s apparently a combination of chemicals from amniotic fluid, sweat glands, and vernix caseosa which is a waxy, white, cheese-like coating that covers a baby’s skin in the womb.

The smell is so nice. Maybe not as nice as a new car. But close. Scientists say the smell helps strengthen the bond between parent and baby. I mean, well, yeah. Evolution isn’t dumb. Bad smelling babies’ chances of survival probably would decrease significantly. Once they start pooping, and vomiting, the parents will have plenty of bad smells to contend with at that point. Gotta get that bond secure first to handle all the icky smells to come. And the teenage years. But let’s not jump that far ahead.

There I was last week, innocently minding my own business, eating my breakfast, when Ernie announced: “I think I might raw dog it.”

I nearly choked on my spoonful of mixed acai berry yogurt. I didn’t know what raw dogging was, but my immediate thoughts went to something nasty and I wondered, frighteningly, if it would need to involve me in any way.

I sputtered, “What in the hell is raw dog it?”

He smiled, laughed, and said, “Oh, you haven’t heard of this?”

Turns out, that the trend of taking an activity and giving it a catchy name, branding it as cool, continues apace. To the list of Girl Dinner, Fart Walk, Hot Girl Walk, we can now add Raw Dog.

Basically, this is guys getting in on the action. A little bro-speak to add to the repertoire.

Summer is upon us. And in this era of climate change, our first excessive heat wave, with triple digit heat indices and/or temps was raging before the official start of summer had barely begun.

As someone whose body doesn’t sweat properly and therefore is more prone to overheating in such conditions (see previous blog post, Start the Car), this does not bode well for me. However, I know what to do, and am prepared.

Light weight cotton or linen or anything breathable and loose clothing. Check.

Pony tail holder to keep hair up. Check.

Sun hat or visor. Check.

Bottle of water. Check.

Cooling towel. Check.

Water spray/fan combo bottle. Check.

Sweater. Check.

Sweater, you ask? Did you read that right, you ask?

Yes, yes, you did. Sweater. A lightweight, white cotton cardigan sweater from Gap.

Why, you may ask?

Because even though it’s a million degrees outside and conditions are right for me to pass out from heat stroke, walk into any store and it’s like walking into Antarctica.

I was recently at the wedding shower of the daughter of one of my best friends. One of the questions for one of the quiz games was why my friend named her daughter the name she did.

I was actually puzzled and searched my memory, and was coming up blank. We’d been friends since we were 15. I didn’t think there was anything we didn’t know about each other. But my memory was methodically combing through its data banks and was retrieving nothing. I knew it wasn’t her mother’s name, mother-in-law, or any beloved female relative.

That’s when our other best friend who was sitting next to me said, “Of course you know this!”

“Nope,” I said. “I got nothin’.”

She replied with a huge grin, “Our bar names.”

Let’s talk about geriatric rockers. And I don’t mean rocking chairs for old people. I mean aging rock stars.

This week was the start of our geriatric rock concert tour. Seems like this is the summer for octogenarian rock stars to take to the stage. And we sixty-plus year olds happily gobble up the tickets and follow along.

After all, we came of age, albeit a little behind our older boomer brethren, with the coming of age of rock and roll itself. The ‘60’s brought us more than protests, turmoil, counter-culture, political unrest (hmm, what does this remind me of?!), but also bands like, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Grateful Dead, and the list goes on.

You can’t make this stuff up. Y’all see this one in your social media or news feeds?

Apparently, a woman, a 70 year-old author of seven cookbooks who is very much into fiber, has coined the activity and term Fart Walk.

She and her husband eat a lot of fiber apparently, and so they go for a walk about 60 minutes after dinner to release all that built up gas from their meal.

In her words, “And you fart when you walk so that’s why I named it that.”

Yo. The Phillies are number one in the entire MLB. Yankees are a half game back and in our own division, the hated Braves are 7 games back.

This is awesome. This is incredible. This is….not us.

Don’t get me wrong. I am over the moon. I am beyond excited and happy and loving it.

And yet….it is a strange feeling. One with which I am not really familiar, being from Philly and all. I can’t seem to really relax into it and trust it. There is underlying anxiety, like waiting for the bomb to drop and smash our lead position, along with our hopes and dreams, into smithereens.

For those of you from Philly that are reading this, you might know what I am talking about.

Remember when it was your birthday and you used to maybe get a couple of cards in the mail from your grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and maybe your best friend? You might have had a party and invited a few of your friends. There would be cake of course, a few gifts, candles, and making wishes as you blew out the candles.

But that was pretty much it.

This week we’ll round out the trilogy of Unwanted Guests.

Only this week, the Unwanted Guest is not in insect or rodent form. It’s a little more amorphous than that.

This Unwanted Guest is never seen, but he leaves his calling card everywhere in the house, especially in the kitchen.

Let me explain.

🤬🤬🤬 Comcast.

Need I say more? This could be the shortest blog ever because I am pretty sure I could leave it at that and y’all would get it. No further explanation needed.

But, where’s the fun in that? Lol.

About a week ago, we turned on the tv one evening only to be greeted with some error code message.

My initial reaction was to contact Comcast through the app to get help with the problem.

Ernie’s first reaction was to do the initial troubleshooting which is basically unplug and replug the connection to the cable box.

They say the walls have ears. In this case, I’d say they also have eyes, nose, mouth, and likely a tail.

Last week we talked about stinkbugs in the bathroom. This week we are going to talk about something, as yet still unidentified, that was in the family room wall.

Like the stinkbugs who started moving in around mid to late fall, so too did something take up residence in the family room wall.

What’s happening with animals and insects these days? Have they gotten soft? Can’t take the outdoorsy-ness of their outdoor environment when the weather gets cold? What would Darwin have to say about that as these animals and insects seeks the warmth and shelter of human homes? What might the impact on evolution be?

I can’t say what that impact might be but I can tell you about the impact on me. And it’s not good.

It appears that our bathroom has become a hotel of sorts for some unwanted guests. Stinkbugs to be precise.

Sometime in the late fall/early winter, the first of these unwelcome lodgers ensconced themselves in our bathroom.

And it’s never more than one at a time. It’s like somehow they send out a message saying, “this place is mine. No one else may join me here. This is a single room occupancy only.”

This is a follow up to the previous blog post titled The Price of Pizza.

This is a story of a wrong made right. Of the power of the people. Of the little guy getting a win. Of the free-market capitalist system working as it should.

You may recall that in The Price of Pizza I talked about how my favorite pizza place, Maple Glen Pizza, changed their pepperoni from the large, generous slices they used to have to small, little stingy ones. This altered the overall taste of the pizza and what was before, hands down, the best pepperoni pizza ever, became just an average, regular, so-so pepperoni pizza.

My sister, niece, and I were having a texting conversation of Seinfeldian proportions the other night. It started off with me referencing my Girl/Empty Nester Dinner (see previous blog post on that topic). I mentioned that it included grapes.

My sister, who was also having a Girl/Empty Nester Dinner of her own, said that hers did not include grapes because when she tasted one at the store they were sour.

“You taste the grapes before you buy them” I asked?

“Yes, she said. “Just like Nanny would when buying them from the huckster.”

My niece replied with, “I taste the grapes because she does.”

“Goodness gracious great balls of fire,” I exclaimed the other day.

Ernie looked up from his puzzle, puzzled by my words. “What did you just say,” he asked?

“You heard me right,” I said. “Goodness gracious great balls of fire.”

He said, “Seriously? Who says that anymore?”

“Well, clearly, I do. I am making an effort to curse less, “ I offered by way of explanation.

Cursing. There was a time when cursing did not come easy for me. I grew up in a non-cursing household. I don’t think I have ever heard either of my parents utter a single curse word. Unless you count Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—which I will come back to in a minute.

Today being Easter Sunday, it seems the appropriate time to share the story of The Easter Bread and The Wedding Ring. I’ll save the blog post on cursing for next week.

First, a little background. Italian-Americans have a lot of traditions and a lot of the traditions revolve around holidays and food. Easter is no exception.

We make this most amazing bread for Easter. It’s so good, I never understood why we couldn’t make it year-round. I guess it wouldn’t be called Easter Bread if that were the case.

Growing up, my mom, aunts, grandmother would all bake the Easter Bread. Those loaves of bread were like currency too. An aunt might drop by for a cup of coffee and say, “Oh, here’s an Easter Bread for you. I had some extras.” You truly could never have enough Easter Bread.

Ernie and I were raised with two entirely different approaches to grocery shopping. His was Frugal Core. Mine was What’s A Coupon?

As you can imagine, these two diametrically opposed philosophies led to some clashes of epic proportions early on in our marriage.