Happy Birthday to my niece Liz - One Day Late

You can't beat having Liz as a niece. Here's what it can be like ... you get up early and drive to Hyannis where you wait to get on a bus; at the nearby Burger King you have a scrambled egg on a croissant; this is served with nuggets of potato that are frightfully delicious and you know they have nothing to do with nutrition; in Boston you eat some more crap from a fast-food stand while you wait to get on a plane; airborne you eat some chemically-laced pretzels served with a glass of ginger ale (the latter being something they haven't yet learned how to ruin); in Indianapolis you wait to rent a car. Then, craving a breaded tenderloin sandwich (a Hoosier specialty), you drive north for two hours in the brilliant eye-wearying sun. You finally arrive at your sister's and are sitting across the room from one of that sister's daughters.  That would be, in this narrative, Liz. You're so tired you could flop over asleep the minute you hit the chair. You feel crappy from having eaten the plastic potatoes at Burger King and then the airport's and the airplane's "food". Despite Liz's having been awakened from a nap by your arrival, she immediately begins a really funny story about a time when she, rather than her husband who was loaded down with bags, went to the rental car counter at an airport. The encounter at the counter is presented as an anecdote of disaster. It's hilarious. You're not tired anymore. You're energized. You're laughing so much it's starting to hurt.

And then she and her husband Tony later take you and your sister out for a breaded tenderloin. The slab of pork is approximately the size of a dinner plate!

Happy one-day-belated birthday, Liz!