Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Happy Birthday to Clark and Louisa

Today was my niece and nephew's 16th birthday and I had a long talk with Louisa. I told her that I think these are the most difficult years of your life as you're becoming your own person but you still live under your parents' rule. I think it's a tough time to be a kid. She also told me her arguments with Trump-supporters at school and how she gets into verbal battles with them and how they have no arguments back other than telling her she has no sense of humor.

Meanwhile I asked my sister if she has memories of today 16 years ago and she remembers having to stop to use the toilet on the way to the hospital, but both kids arrived at 12:35 pm (afternoon). Louisa also told me she grew up thinking of Obama as a "second father" so you can imagine her (and our) disappointment.

The sense of humor accusation came when kids were talking about racist and homophobic memes they thought were funny -- "come on, this is funny" and she doesn't think so... these memes are from an app call iFunny and I strongly supported her on that. It makes me sad that kids still think that crap is funny.

I told her this story about her grandmother and grandfather (my parents) from when I was in college. My father was being fitted for new business suits and the tailor was really gay and was measuring him and commented favorably about the muscles in my father's legs in a flirty way and my mother, who was standing there, thought it was sweet and funny and was teasing him about it and I remember my father just shaking his head and smiling... and that's how you grow up not thinking that kind of stuff is funny.

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