To my Jersey readers: skip this post

Emails between my mother and me...


Allison's mother (who has yet to understand how to compose an email in something other than all caps!)
HOPE THAT ALL IS WELL IN PA AND NJ. YOUR FATHER NOW HAS ANOTHER DOG TAG NECKLACE [Allison: "another"? I've never seen him in any necklace, ever!] AND , COMBINED WITH THE OTHERS, MAKES HIM LOOK LIKE HE COMES FROM NJ AND IS ITALIAN [Allison: My ancestry is definitely not Italian. Otherwise, I might have a bit of color to my so-white-I'm-blue skin.] WE JUST CAME FROM AN ITALIAN BBQ AT THE LAKE, FRIENDS OF DAN AND CONNIE, DAD FIT RIGHT IN. LOTS OF TANNED BOATING FOLKS, SHOW OFFS IN SKIMPY OUTFITS AND HIGH HEELS [Allison: do I want to know how my father fits right in with high heels?]... AT A BBQ AN THE LAWN AND BEACHFRONT. HARD TO WALK IN THOSE ON PAVEMENT. I GUESS THAT I SHOULD ADMIRE THE SKILL OF THOSE WHO CAN WALK ON THOSE 4 INCH PLATFORM HEELS IN SAND. [Allison: my mother always looks for the best in others. Unless they are New Jersey Italians. I think she watched too much Sopranos. Or something.] HARDLY MASAI TRIBE SNEAKERS. [Allison: my mother and I are smitten with Masai sneakers.]

GOD BLESS

LOVE, MOM



My response. Note how I am also using all caps in the hopes that she will change her ways!
SEND PICS OF HIM WITH THE DOG TAGS. YOU HAVE A CAMERA IN YOUR CELL PHONE. [My mother just got a new phone. I purposely got her the same phone I have so I can teach her how to use it. She has yet to turn on the camera my sister gave her a year ago.]


Mom's reply. (No pics, but also no all-caps.)
the new necklace is a dog tag in silver. It is also a piece of black sting ray skin, framed with silver. Wait, it gets better. There is a silver dagger, in relief, on top of the black sting ray skin, which is then framed with silver. All hanging from a thick shiny silver chain. It contrasts with the three other gold chains and pendants currently around his neck. One a gold crucifix, another a gold dollar coin.

He DID go to school in NJ for two yrs. [Allison: well, clearly, that explains why my father suddenly started wearing necklaces - plural! - 40 years after spending a few semesters in NJ.]


---
I know you all are trying to wrap your heads around all this:

1. What does a German physician in his mid-60s outfitted in multiple gold and silver chains look like?
I'm wondering that myself, actually.

2. What's with the sting ray skin? Is that some kind of surfer look?
See above. He DID go to school in CA for two years.

3. Does your mother hate Italians?
No. Most of their friends are hard-core Italians. From my very first Christmas, we join a family of four generations for the Italian Christmas Eve tradition of seven seafood dishes. My mother just finds (1) anything outside Boston proper, (2) New Jersey and Philadelphia Italian trial lawyers and (3) the home decor philosophies* of South Jersey and South Philadelphia Italians rather amusing.

* Trust me. You would, too. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that these folks put up gargoyles, door-guarding lions, and Venus de Milo statues in their yards not to be cool and ironic, but because they think it looks nice.