I was paying for the cookie (or was it more than one?) at the fancy muffin and cookie place. Two teenaged girls poked their heads in. One asked, “Do you have vegan stuff?” The man sorting out my change replied, “No. Sorry.” The other girl persisted, “No vegan at all?” “No. Sorry.” They huffed out. When I left a few moments later, I said, “No reason to be sorry.” With an appreciative smile, he concluded, “I agree with you.”

I dreamt I was in a land where there was too much coffee. It was a ridiculous fantasy; there can never be too much coffee.

I am proud of my collection of pens even if they did not sign the Declaration of Independence.

I was only trying to spread hope, but the mother seemed upset when I peered into the stroller and said, “Some two-year-olds get better looking as they grow older.”

Psychological musing for the day: You can praise a child after a completed task by saying, as many do, “You are so smart.” But then the child may see intelligence as fixed and feel stupid when they cannot do something. You can also praise the child by saying “You did a good job figuring that out.” Isn’t the message then that knowledge and intelligence are expandable with hard work?

“Don’t limit a child to your learning, for he was born in another time.” Rabbinic saying.

“I pay the schoolmaster, but ‘tis the schoolboys who educate my son.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A friend told me, “If your wife laughs at your jokes, you can be sure that you know some good ones or you have a good wife.”

“A different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.” George Eliot.

I could not find the book I was looking for in the store. I asked a clerk when the paperback would be available. She replied that it wouldn’t be in for several months. I said that yesterday’s book review announced that it had just been released in paperback. The clerk maintained that the paperback was months away but said that she would check further. She did something with her computer and said, “I was wrong. We will have it Tuesday.” I said, “It is always great when a woman tells me she was wrong.” I asked if she would say it again. Almost laughing, she repeated it.

“As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.” La Rouchefoucauld.

A man at the next table was celebrating a birthday. He was 107. His son told us that his father never ate yogurt. He never ate cheese. He never ate any cultured dairy product. He did, however, eat two quarts of Trader Joe’s ice cream every week. I am off to TJ’s.