July 4, 2026 Is A Wrap

 So for most of the day yesterday, I exercised my freedom, guaranteed by The Constitution, by impersonating a sloth. I never even ventured out of the blissful AC until it was time to leave for dinner -- just before 6 pm.

We fetched our friend and neighbor Gloria, and headed to Bahia Honda -- the great and inexpensive fish place near FIU. I started the evening like the opening line of a joke, when I introduced Donna and Barry to Gloria: "So these 4 Bridge and Tunnel Born people, along with an exotic Israeli born woman walk into a Cuban place on July 4th..."  Wifey quickly corrected me, as she is wont to do, that "I was born in Haifa but I am totally culturally Brooklyn, Long Island, and Miami." No one would argue.

I always thought Gloria was a Bronx girl, since she went to Bronx Science High School, but turns out she was, like Barry, an Astoria person. Gloria's late husband's family are all Miamians, and so she LOVED hearing terms like "Grand Concourse, Garden Apartment, and Greek Diner..." We all got along famously.

At 9, we decamped for home, talking to Gloria about life and how the LAST thing she expected was to be an empty nester without Ben -- gone 7.5 years now. I told her my Mom was the same -- she expected to live for years with my Dad, but ended up only getting 3 years of retirement. Turns out - ya never know.

Wifey and I hugged in the kitchen, realizing this was the 42nd July 4 we'd spent together. The first was MOST memorable. Unlike these days, where I sometimes get inebriated at parties and events, THAT day I got very inebriated, though on wine and beer during an entire day on South Beach, instead of my preferred vodka. It was, last time I checked, still a record day for a band: the Beach boys played to nearly 1 million people on a single day -- half on the D.C. Mall early in the day, and on South Beach at night.

Wifey noted we're still the same people we were 4.2 decades ago, but with "many more wrinkles, much more gray hair, and many more pounds." Well yeah, plus, our 3 parents are long gone, we have 2 awesome girls and son in law, and 2 amazing grandsons. Oh yeah, too, my net worth then was MINUS probably $10K. These days it's on the positive ledger...

We always think about a lovely, warm scene from the end of Fargo, where Margie and Norm are in bed, following the drama of the kidnapping and murder. They're expecting their first baby, and Margie comforts Norm's disappointment that his drawing for a new stamp only won third place. She says "Ya know, Norm, things are going pretty good for us now."

Indeed, Big Man thanks, they are for us, too.

So today hopefully we get to see BOTH Ds and their men and OUR men -- the grandsons. Hopefully both granddogs come, too -- to perk up our elderly Spaniel, who mostly sleeps these days.

We can UberEats in some good food, and maybe I squeeze a few Mandarins into some vodka. 

These are my favorite types of Sunday.

Next up big event -- my 65th, on the 18th. It's looking like fewer than 30, which gladdens Wifey, whose motto is "the fewer; the merrier." The Ds seem to have all in hand. I have to make a trip to Total Wine -- going top drawer for the drinkers -- Stoli Elit, and maybe some Johnnie Walker Blue. There'll be fake beer for the teetotalers who USED to drink. 

I always loved July. It meant Little League -- later beach days with my crew. July 4th, and my birthday a fortnight later. Lazy and languid -- and that was on Long Island -- the Tropics of Miami are even more so.

Nice to be a slow moving, but still rockin' Daddy and Grandaddy in the USA.