No, I won’t be needing more than one slice since I have no teeth. I just gum it.

Julianna Riley 7 months

pongOur family is a democracy when it comes to most decisions: especially where to eat. I won’t list them, but each one in my family (5) has her/his preference and they seldom mesh. Tonight I got what dad wants: a strip mall pizza place called Straw Hat. My wife thinks its a greasy dive so we don’t usually go there. I on the other hand see it as a place of Zen. It reminds me of JP’s pizza by my house when I was a kid. I’ll never forget it was the place I first played “PONG” in a table game format. It was probably the first video game I ever played in fact. My, how much more advanced are the games my son now plays are. The place tonight had booths with paper napkins and refillable sodas (root beer was my choice, I went back 4 times) and an old Sears TV with sports playing. I don’t watch sports, but the sound of it has that Zen quality. The “salad bar” is a bowl of lettuce and 5 choices of “things” to put on it. Not much to write home about at $6. But the overpricing is all part of the ethereal quality for me. Dad got what he wanted and it rocked! To the moms: Every once in a while, go to the greasy strip mall pizza joint: your husband will love it. Who knows, you might dig it too. My family seemed to. Here’s the pics, judge for yourself. Isn’t that was marriage is all about? A little compromise here and there?

Bella at almost 3 y/o
Brandon 9 and Sarah
Sarah and Damien
Brandon and Julianna