Chocolate Chip Cookies

My latest batch of chocolate chip cookies (all gone now) 

I love chocolate chip cookies.

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?

I don't eat chocolate chip cookies but once a year.

Christmas season is the only time I eat chocolate chip cookies…….and then I go overboard.

I have went overboard in eating chocolate chip cookies.

I will make more chocolate chip cookies this weekend.

The first time a chocolate chip cookie went down my pie hole was sometime back in the early Fifties.  My Mother was making homemade cookies in our second floor, two bedroom apartment on Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.  

My beautiful Mom back in the Fifties

My memory is still fresh of standing around the kitchen table while she beat the two sticks of butter in with 3/4 cup each of white sugar and brown sugar.  Then one teaspoon of vanilla.  Then two large eggs.  

Set to the side was a mixture of 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour (the kind without the bugs in it), 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda (and now powder - BIG DIFFERENCE - I know, I've tried it).  

After the butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs are beaten well (preferably by hand, who uses a mixer?), then blend in the flour mixture, a cup at a time.

After all that is blended, add two cups semi-sweet Nestle's chocolate morsels (only Nestle's works here folks for the Jen-U-Wind Toll House flavor) and one cup BLACK WALNUTS.  None of those regular walnuts that are ubiquitous in the stores during the holiday season.  Oh sure, black walnuts are hard to find and more expensive (even more expensive that regular walnuts? You bet!)  Black walnuts lend a smoky, woodsy flavor that brings back so many fond memories of those days in the early Fifties when I, as a ten year old boy, would stand by my Mother in the kitchen and watch her perform this miracle of making chocolate chip cookies.  

Mom in the kitchen - 1979

We loved to eat (and by "we" I mean me and my two voracious younger brothers John and Isaac) those still warm cookies, with the chocolate chips almost melted, right out of the oven.  Oh God were they ever good.  Those cookies that our Mother made rarely lasted more than two days in the Tipton household on Washington Avenue.  

Some years later, when I was in the Army my Mother used to make those same cookies and send them to me when I was stationed at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts.  They weren't fresh out of the oven but when I opened up that round tin of my Mom's baked chocolate chip cookies I was taken right back home with all that love and warmth and acceptance.  

Mom during her days working at Pepperridge Farms - not cookie division but frozen layer cake- 1960

These days when I make chocolate chip cookies I am again taken back to my Mom's kitchen on the second floor of that apartment building on Washington Avenue.  Another time, another place but the same love.  

Me and my Mom at Wegman's 2009 - long after her cookie making days were over - she died the next year

I am so fortunate that I can recreate these wonderful times in my past by an act as simple and uncomplicated as baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  I feel sorry for those folks who turn to drugs or other means for an artificial "high." Sometimes I just stop and think how lucky I am to have the life I have.  

You make your own way in this life folks.  I've made mine and I love it!

Have a great day!

"Ain't You Tired Miss Hilly?"

My friend Bill B. when it comes to marriage equality - "What's to prevent you from marrying your pet?"

Yesterday, while having a casual conversation on the phone with my longtime (since grade school) conservative (almost all of my good friends are of the conservative ilk) friend I was again reminded of the Brick Wall of Ignorance that will always be there between us.

Generally we stay away from politics (as I mentioned before, he is of the ditto-head, brainwashed Faux News ilk) and religion (yes, he is of the "I'll pray for you" ilk - "unless you accept Jesus Christ as your savior you're GOING TO HELL" ilk) and just discuss our every growing medical maladies (he also had a stent inserted into his penis a few months ago).  However, yesterday the conservation veered towards marriage equality or as he prefers to call it SAME SEX MARRIAGE.  While he has known Bill and I for years and likes us as we like him, he doesn't APPROVE (like who asked him?) of that word MARRIAGE applied to our union.  Here is his argument (are you sitting down?  This is hard to believe from an otherwise reasonably intelligent and rational person)  He says:  "Well Ron, once you have people of the same sex marrying what's to prevent them from marrying their pet?" 

Oh here we go folks, the old Slippery Slope Argument.  My first reaction was "Bill (that's his name) do you realize you just insulted me?  Do you realize just how ridiculous your argument is?  Do you realize that you're trivializing my union with (my) Bill?"  

He doesn't answer my questions directly but responds with "Ron, there are people who believe this!"  WHAT?  Of course there are people who believe that once people of the same sex marry then they will want to marry their pets, cars, and bookends.  I asked him "Don't you remember what happened to your former Senator Rick "Man on beast" Santorum when he made the same slippery slope argument?  Again, he ignored my direct question and continued to make the lame assed argument "Ron, there ARE people who believe this!" 

Honest to God folks, I felt like throwing up.  I wanted to hang up the phone.  My friend, my longtime friend who I've shared many a good time with was espousing this Faux News/Right Wing NutRepublican/Fundamentalist religion……crap.

Here I'm having this ridiculous and insulting "conversation" with my longtime friend, on the same day that my beloved sister-in-law got in a snit because I posted a picture on my Facebook account (that was taken in 1979) of my Mother getting her hair combed by my niece (er daughter) that showed her daughter in a long, frilly conservative (yes, my sister-in-law is also of the same conservative, religious ilk) dress.  I gently poked fun at my niece and said "What is that you're wearing?"  Well folks, that set off a firestorm that resulted in me receiving a letter from my sister-in-law informing me that I had "hurt" her (geez, RELAX- by the way I did send her an e-mail apologizing for the unintended hurt and I removed the offending Facebook posting) and then she gave me a dig about my "lifestyle."  Well, well. Here we go again.  Two people I love and respect coming out in the same day showing their true colors, that they view me as "less than."  

I'll be honest with you folks, I was actually sick to my stomach yesterday.  I didn't get to sleep until 3 am this morning.  I know I shouldn't let things like this bother me but they do.  Another thing that bothers me is the knowledge that all my Facebook postings and this blog is being monitored by those who are looking for the least little thing for which to beat me over the head with their sanctimonious  cudgel.  RELAX FOLKS!  If you don't like what I'm saying, DON'T READ MY BLOG.  DON'T READ MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT.

As regular readers of this blog know, there are couple FORMER friends (they discontinued the friendship, if there ever was one) when they read something in my blog (I'm such a terrible person don't you know?) they THEY didn't approve of.  One of my blogger friends left a comment on my blog yesterday to the effect that these people who are so quick to criticize and complain never write anything on their Facebook account or blog but they're out there trolling the blogs and Facebook accounts just looking for something to be offended about. Get a life.

I don't know what upset me the most yesterday.  Inadvertently upsetting my beloved sister-in-law (who has done a lot for our family and who I much respect) or my horse blinders, head-in-the-sand friend.  I think perhaps it is my friend with the horse blinders.  I think my sister-in-law knows that I wouldn't intentionally hurt her but she knows me well enough to know that I sometimes go overboard with the kidding without fully considering the repercussions. Even though I thought her complaint was petty and her cheap shot at my "lifestyle" was beneath her, I can understand her situation.  She prefers to remain private and here I just shoved her privacy out in the open with my Facebook account posting (which was really about my Mother, not her but I guess in future postings I'll have to blot out her face as I do my two former friends who big girl panties get in a twist whenever they see their mugs posted on my blog - group shots fellas, group shots)!  

Me with former friends (I'm a terrible person) who wish to remain anonymous - old gay guys still in the closet except for the only one with balls (me) who isn't afraid of being publicly identified as a gay man - I'm not ashamed of being gay and don't feel the need to hide my sexual identity lest I offend someone

Perhaps what dismays and saddens me the most and saddens me is my longtime friend.  The knowledge that he truly believes that because Bill and I got married and now have the respect and legal protections that he and his straight ilk take for granted, that he considers in his heart considers me and Bill "less than."  That once the flood gates are open then "what's to prevent people from marrying their pets?"  It truly saddens me that otherwise reasonable, intelligent adults, and especially friends of mine who have known me most of my life, still consider me "less than."  They still consider me as damaged goods, some THING to be tolerated.  

At times like this I remember the line from "The Help."  Aibileen Clark (he black maid and character Viola Davis played) says to Miss Hilly (the consistently racist Southern white woman she works for).  Aibileen, exhausted and tired from living with the racism, finally confronts her racist employer, Miss Hilly and says "Ain't you tired, Miss Hilly?"

And that's my question to all my so called friends and relatives who believe in their heart that I am "less than" they are.  "Ain't you tired Miss Hilly, ain't you tired?"

I know one thing, I'm tired of it.

The Good, Bad and Ugly

The snow was swirling around outside just a few minutes ago.  Earlier, when I went out to the mail box to leave a Christmas card that didn't make my mass mailing yesterday, sleet and rain was falling around my ears.  Not a nice day!  

I'm sitting at my computer desk now, trying to catch up on my backlog of 600 or so e-mails in my AOL account.  I can never seem to stay caught up on that AOL account.  I've had it since the beginning of time I got my first computer. I probably should dump it but I'm a creature of habit.  Just this morning I was looking at my almost $200 monthly Verizon bill and doing my Wylie Coyote eye popping maneuver looking at my $59.99 a month for my land line.  I still haven't bitten the bullet on canceling that phone that I obviously don't need.  It's of more use to the multiple charities and tele marketers who use it way more than I ever will use it.  But, as I said earlier I am a creature of habit.  But……$59.99 a month for what?  Maybe this year is the year I take the BIG STEP.

Not a good morning folks.  I just received an e-mail from my sister-in-law informing me that I had hurt her feelings with an old photo that I posted on FB.  It wasn't my intention to hurt her feelings but I did by inadvertently mocking the way she dressed her daughters back then.  That was her business and I had no business making light of the way she dressed them, however unintentional.  I love and respect my sister-in-law a great deal and she has done a lot for our family and I really stepped in it this morning.  I feel awful.  I did apologize but as they say "The damage is done."  

Sometimes I just can't avoid those "damage is done" moments.  That's like the time a few years ago I made a judgement why the male masseur at the hotel didn't want to give me a massage.  I was properly berated by hotel management for posting my judgement on my blog.  Again, even after I apologized I got the "well, the damage was done."  Sorry folks!  Just living here.

You know, you go through life trying to avoid stepping on toes and getting people out of whack but sometimes it seems if you just get out of bed in the morning you're going to offend somebody.  

My morning started off with reading a blog stating that I was a gossip.  GUILTY!  Yes, I am and I do UNDERSTAND gossip.  It's called information.  Now if one wants to make a distinction between malicious gossip (untruthful or hurtful) and just general information - that's called living folks.  No apologies necessary.  I don't live my life in a cave. If you do, that's fine with yourself but don't put that on me.  I'm a different animal.  

So there I have my morning folks.  I'm a gossip who also posts hurtful pictures on Facebook.  There is one FORMER friend who reads this blog regularly (or so I hear but I believe it) who has gotten his big girl panties in a twist because of certain information and photos that I've posted on MY BLOG.  I have no doubt he's smugly nodding his head now and thinking "Uh huh, uh huh."  

And that folks is the way it goes this morning.  Bad Boy Ron misbehaving again.  I'll be back tomorrow, and no doubt offend someone else again by being myself and posting about my life.  You know what folks?  That's me.  The Good, Bad and Ugly.

72, 71 and 67

Me, Barbara and Wayne deCajun at the Henlopen Oyster House today

"Now what is Ron writing about?" you ask.  "72, 71 and 67" are the respective ages of the three kidney stone survivors fine folks in the photo above that was taken today at the Henlopen Oyster House in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Today is my neighbor Barbara's 71st birthday.  I know, I know….I can't believe she's 71 years old either.  She can't either.  She told me as much as I drove her down to Rehoboth Beach for lunch this afternoon.  Of course I'm the Old Dude at 72 (that's me on the left in the blue V-neck L.L. Bean pullover 100% cotton sweater).  Wayne deCajun is seated on the right and he, the dear, is the youngster in the group at 67.  

"The Oysters Rockefeller are a bit dry here."

Today was one of those quiet off season days that we locals so cherish.  Gone were the summertime crowds.  Gone was the crush of aggressive motorists looking for ever dwindling parking spaces.  Gone was the sun…..to. It's been raining here today folks…..all day. 

But you'll hear no complaints from this quarter about the rain.  My friend Tom J. of West Chester sent me this photo yesterday proving that he had "six inches"…….of snow.  My friend Larry M. of Claymont Delaware called me on FaceTime yesterday bragging about his "eight inches".

Larry's 8 inches

I'm telling you, these guys….always bragging about how many "inches" they have.  Why it's almost enough to make one feel inadequate.  

Seriously folks, I am SO GLAD we didn't get snow.  SO GLAD.  Oh I know there are those who say "It is so pretty" and "Isn't it nice and Christmasy?"  Tell you what folks, I'll look at the reports on TV and listen to my friends brag about how many inches they got but for me, I'll take a rainy day in Rehoboth any day having lunch with my good friends Barbara and Wayne deCajun.  

So what did we talk about?  Our medical maladies of course. Yes, we have become our parents.  When we get together we exchange horror stories of our journeys through the medical maze that is the lot of 72, 71 and 67 year olds who are exceptionally prone to kidney stones.  Ironically, even though the three of us have had our bouts with kidney stones (and that's saying something), our medical dramas this year are all different.  

We all agreed to meet the same time next year, providing we're still here.  However, a good time was had by all today.

Happy birthday Barbara!

Snow!

That's snow on the ground folks at BJ's this morning! EMERGENCY!

If it's Sunday morning, it's BJ's time!  This morning Bill and I made our usual regular Sunday morning trek to Millsboro and the BJ's Wholesale Club store.  Time to stock up again!

I was out of Panera loaded potato soup, hummus and besides, I had my December coupon book. SPEND RON SPEND!

We made our usual rounds in the giant warehouse, all the Usual Suspects were there.  Not quite as extreme as Walmartians but close…..very close.

Upon leaving we were rudely greeted with SNOW!  Yes Virginia, SNOW!  WTF?  

Earlier in the week I was talking to someone and they said "Oh, I miss the snow."  Say what?  "Whatchoo talkin about Willis?  Folks, I do not miss the snow.  I lived in Pennsylvania long enough to get all my appreciation of snow that stayed on the ground from the first snowfall in November until the last frozen remnants melted in early April.  Oh no folks, I definitely do not miss the snow.  

Get the snow shovels out! Stock up on milk and bread!

I drove our Subaru Forester to BJ's but Bill insisted on driving back home.  He said "You don't know how to drive in the snow."  Oh how long have I heard this lament?  I don't even argue after forty-nine years of that tired old evaluation of my driving abilities.  I do have to admit that Bill has more driving experience than I do, after all he's been driving for about one hundred and ten years but come on, I can drive in the snow.  But we have enough other things to fight about, I just give in on the "you don't know how to drive in the snow" mantra.

Driving through downtown Millsboro this morning

We did get home in one piece.  No accidents, thank God.  All the straight roads down here in Delaware, you would be surprised the number of accidents.  That's because we have more than our fair share of crazy assed drivers but I digress.  

After we got home, and unloaded our Contribution to the Local Economy, I had lunch then my usual afternoon nap.  

After Nap Time, it was time to finish off my Christmas cards.  Bill bitched about that too.  "Who are all these people we're sending cards too?"  This year our Christmas card features our wedding day.  He was concerned that I would send them to the WRONG people.  And who might that be?  We got married Bill.  That's a fact.  Time to bust out of that closet door.  He said he didn't want to upset anyone.  Hey folks, if you know me and you know Bill….we got married this year on our 49th anniversary.  That's news that I'm sharing and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas at the same time and a wonderful and glorious new year.  Poor Bill, he's still of the old school that he doesn't want to ruffle anyone's feathers.  I say it's time to ruffle feathers.  Don't you agree?

Bill selectively signing only SOME of the Christmas cards

Christmas Cards

Me and my Mom and my Christmas card "take" at my center city Philadelphia home 1978 - I still have those cards!

This evening I finished addressing my Christmas cards.  I'm a bit late this year.  No reason other than maybe I'm just not really into the holiday season.  Oh I like the sparkling lit Christmas trees and the goodwill.  Not so much on the caroling (I HATE the Partridge in the Pear tree song and all the "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Santa Clauses that seem to be in every other commercial).  And of course I don't like all the commercialism but other than that, I like the Christmas or "holiday" season.  

Me at "Christmas Card Central"

The one "holiday" activity I do like is sending Christmas cards.  This is the one time of year I have the opportunity to let my friends and relatives, who have moved away, that I am still alive and they are still alive.  Unfortunately, this year I just discovered yesterday that two of my longtime friends had died in the past year, one the day after Christmas last year.  I am saddened by the knowledge of that fact. Ironically both of these individuals I once tried to fix up with each other.  She was interested but he wasn't.  It was a shame because they both died single.  Both fine folks.  

I used to kid my friend Rich that he was the only person I knew who had a birthday that the whole city of Philadelphia used to celebrate every New Year's Day with a massive, all day parade. Every year I kidded him about that and every year he took my kidding. He was very gracious about my annual lame joke.

Addressing and sending my Christmas cards, most with a little note (I don't do "the letter") is my one enjoyable Christmas activity of which I have never tired.  By the way, if  you're on my Christmas card list, don't feel obligated to do a tit for tat.  You don't to send me a Christmas card just because I sent one to you.  I send the Christmas cards because I truly want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

This year's Christmas card (the cat's out of the bag now)

Note:  95 cards this year broken down this way:

Arizona - 1 (you know who you are)
California - 5
Connecticut - 1
Delaware - 12 (newly adopted state)
Florida - 2
Georgia - 3
Louisiana - 1
New Jersey - 5
Nevada - 2
New York - 1 (you know who you are)
North Carolina - 2
Ohio - 1
Pennsylvania - 45 (former home state)
South Carolina - 6
Tennessee - 2
Virginia - 5
Canada - 1 (and you definitely know who you are)

Converting Old 8 mm Films to iMovie

Yesterday my sister-in-law Barbara sent me an e-mail requesting a clip of an old 8 mm movie that I had transferred from VHS format to a DVD.  I would be glad to do this for her but there was one BIG problem.  How do I convert the DVD to an iMac compatible video?  Oh woe is me.  My brain was going to get exercised again.

Hey folks, I'm no tech guru, far from it.  I'm a 72 year old man with a brain that is cluttered with the debris of over 40 years of office work.  I don't have the clear (empty) head of my boss's five year old daughter who probably knows more about computers than I do.  And to be quite frank, I'm sometimes just plain afraid to mess around with my computer lest I cause it to explode.

But folks, I've been putting off this latest challenge, converting my old VHS tapes to DVD then to iMac.  Thy name is procrastination.

Well folks, I could put it off no longer.  I jumped right in today and figured it all out.  Yes, I DOOD it.  And yes, my head is hurting right now but I finally got that short black and white film of me departing from the family home in April of 1960 for Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, after I finished Army basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey.  Wow, was I EVER that young?  

So here it is folks, Chapter One of the Old Family Films.  Some of you may not find it interesting but hey, this is my blog and I find these old films fascinating.  Plus, I'm leaving a history behind which is my goal now that I am entering my Twilight Years.  It's all good folks.  Enjoy!