{"id":10095,"date":"2026-05-18T01:02:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/?p=10095"},"modified":"2026-05-18T01:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:02:27","slug":"a-century-or-the-pinky-ring-club-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/a-century-or-the-pinky-ring-club-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Century, or the Pinky Ring Club, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s my dad’s birthday today. He would’ve been 100 years old: a century. And so it feels especially fitting tonight to make a celebratory gin & tonic and a Porterhouse steak, which, when asked, he’d tell you was his favorite meal, but truth be told, Dad was always content with whatever was put in front of him. Be that as it may, to have Seth fire up the grill tonight is, I think, a good idea, in honor of Dad and this milestone year.<\/p>\n

As I type this, I’m also wearing Dad’s pinky ring, the one that has his initials, JC, encased in diamonds. Same initials as mine, and though I am so not a pinky ring kind of guy, this, too, feels right tonight. It\u2019s flashy, sparkly, a bit like my Dad, who, though he did not like to call attention to himself, used a pseudonym for wait times in restaurants (John Monte) and who did love himself some bling on his fingers. When he bought himself that pinky ring, Dad drove a 1960s Cadillac and he liked the finer things in life, as he always did\u2013\u2013things he worked hard to attain. He was of the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra age, and he would have fit in nicely shooting pool with them wearing this ring. I wore it at his funeral in 2017. I wish I could remember which New York cousin it was of mine who I think was wearing his own dad\u2019s pinky ring then, too, and who said we were all members of the Pinky Ring Club now. This is all right by me.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what Frank or Deano would have thought of me wearing this ring, but I imagine John Monte wearing it, leaning over the billiard table to get the eight ball in the far left pocket, the sparkle of the diamonds catching the light. The ice in Dean Martin’s glass would clink as he’d say, “Johnny: Nice ring.” And then he’d wonder what the C was for.<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday, Dad. We all love you and miss you something crazy.<\/p>\n

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SHOP HAPPENINGS<\/strong>
\nOur series of early summer workshops begins next Sunday. First up is Botanical Monotypes<\/strong><\/a> with instructor Kim Spivey on Sunday, May 24 (2 seats left); then Case Bound Journal<\/strong><\/a>, a bookbinding workshop that I’m teaching, is on Sunday, June 7 (3 seats left); followed by our next Convivio Cookery workshop: Mambricoli<\/strong><\/a>, on Saturday, June 13 (5 seats left). Mambricoli! Another of Dad’s favorite meals.<\/em><\/p>\n

The shop will be open next Sunday, too, during the Botanical Monotypes workshop and after it, until 4 PM. That’s Sunday, May 24. Come see us!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s my dad’s birthday today. He would’ve been 100 years old: a century. And so it feels especially fitting tonight to make a celebratory gin & tonic and a Porterhouse steak, which, when asked, he’d tell you was his favorite meal, but truth be told, Dad was always content with whatever was put in front […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[140,196],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10095"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10095"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10105,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10095\/revisions\/10105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conviviobookworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}