Games. People.

 

A part of me feels the need to write about my father but a much larger part is sick and tired of the entire rather road weary affair.  It must be addressed and it will be, just not here or now. I will say that the let's get his family together experiment is, in the words of SJP's Carrie Bradshaw, "so over we need a new word for over."

Let us then move on to a new game, Holiday (psst, Christmas) gifting One Oh None.  

 The Granny Sling Shot.  None. For one, I loved my granny. Well, both of them actually, though I didn't know the paternal one very long or very well (she died when I was young a due to fractured family ties we didn't visit often.) But she seemed nice enough. She made great pancakes. Or at least she did that one time I remember staying over. While the pictured granny doesn't put me in the mind of either of my grandmothers as neither was Caucasian, I would still feel quite uncomfortable flinging a granny off the edge of my fingers, sending her soaring through the air only to crash . . . somewhere. Ouch. No.

Now, a book. . . One! Books are almost always a good idea. You know, as much as I read, as much as I love reading, my loved ones rarely gift me with books. Weird, that. Anyways . . I have already turned fifty, in fact am a year over that mark and well on the way to fifty-two. Still, I presume much of the advice and insights from the fifty notables is applicable to fiftysomethings as well as to the 50 year old.  For example, something like, "wear comfortable clothes" means as much to me at 51 as it would have at 50. Heck, I've been following that sage advice since my thirties, at least.    

A thoughtful gift-giver musing over the 50 Things might wander over to what I'm considering the companion piece, "60 Things To Do . . . " Gifting this tome to a 50something provides said fiftysomething a bit of a head-start in absorbing the words of wisdom from the sixty experts featured. A head-start is an extremely thoughtful pose. For a fiftysomething might need the rest of her fifties, for instance, to prepare for such sixties advice like, "take your clothes off."

Okay, maybe not.

Still, I bet there is a treasure trove of useful, relevant, and uplifting thoughts within the 678 pages (combined) offered up by the one hundred and ten (again, combined) experts who have "been there."

Okay, forget the books. How about just a treasure?

Or, given how I feel today, one whiskey, neat.