This is my 100^th post, beginning with my Welcome message on June 15, 2010.

It seems I should do something special—if it ends in 0, it’s important, right? Reaching 10 years old, 20 games won, 100 pushups, 30000 hamburgers sold. The 50^th anniversary, the top 40 songs..

If I look at it purely from the point of view of numbers, I’m fascinated. For example, 100 is the smallest number whose logarithm is a prime number (2). Most currencies are divided into units of 100, and there are 100 tiles in an English language Scrabble game.

And now, 100 blogs at The Real Me.

But important milestones make me nervous. Too many expectations for the perfect birthday party or the most welcome Valentine’s present. My mother was right to fling her Mothers Day card at my father.

“You should have just given me the 25 cents,” she’d say, a sentiment that she shared one holiday after another.

But I can do better. I can celebrate 100 blogs with a list of 100 favorite quotes. In no particular order, observations of life and its trappings:

1. There are some people who, if they don’t already know, you can’t tell ‘em. – Louis Armstrong

2. You can’t get spoiled if you do your own ironing. – Meryl Streep

3. No man has a right to monopolize more than he can enjoy. – Percy Bysshe Shelley.

4. I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries. – Marie Curie

5. Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets. – Travis Bickle

6. If there’s a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra

7. For justice, we must go to Don Corleone. – Bonasera, in The Godfather

8. I am at two with nature. – Woody Allen

9. Never wound a snake; kill it. – Harriet Tubman

10. Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley of extemporanea;

And love is thing that can never go wrong;

And I am Marie of Romania

– Dorothy Parker

I made it to √100. That will have to do for now. Except for

11. I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse (paraphrasing Michael Corleone):

Add your favorite quote and be eligible for a signed copy of any of the books by Camille Minichino, Margaret Grace, or Ada Madison.

I may have mentioned before how I love New York.

This photo is a demonstration. Here are the stats behind the photo:

1. NO SLEEP. We (Ann Parker and I) had just gotten in after a completely full red-eye flight across the country. I can barely sleep well in my special sleep-number bed, let alone sitting in a “cabin” at 30000 feet, so I’d watched reruns of L&O all night.

2. NO FOOD. Unless you count a bag of blue potato chips and mushed peanut butter crackers.

3. NO ROOM at the hotel. Coming in so early in the day (7 am), we couldn’t check into our room; therefore:

4. NO SHOWER/NO CLEAN CLOTHES.

With all that, do I look unhappy? No. Because I’m sitting in a coffee shop above Grand Central Station, a few blocks from the New York Public Library, where a waiter will take my breakfast order and deliver in a New York minute (it won’t matter how long it takes, it will still be a New York minute.)

Now, here were the options open to us while we waited for a room:

1. Hit the sidewalks with some of the 51.5 million visitors expected in 2012.

2. Spend some of the $34 billion expected of visitors in 2012.

3. Fondle the ticket I had in my pocket, to DEATH OF A SALESMAN with Phillip Seymour Hoffman for the next day. (Outstanding, by the way.)

4. Hop in one of the 13,247 licensed taxis and head for one of the 60 museums in Manhattan alone.

5. Hug one of the 600,000 street trees (or the 2 million in parks).

6. Settle in at Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Shop on E. 40^th (We have a winner!)

So began a great trip that included MOMA, the Met, and MWA’s Edgars banquet.

One final thrill as we sat on the runway at JFK, heading for the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda: we caught a glimpse of the Enterprise flyby on the back of a 747.

Click for a quick view:  IMG_0633

New York never disappoints.

Our local post office is small, and a bit rundown. The “carpet” is as thin as a Forever stamp and there are no soundproofing tiles on the walls or ceiling. It’s a good place to scream, if you need help and want paramedics to come running.

But when the scream is from a child who’s been led to believe that all the world, indoors and out, is a playground, I’m the one who needs medical-grade earplugs.

The perp the other day was a 4-year-old (I’m guessing here) who chose to use a stanchion as an exciting new piece of playground equipment.

“Look, Mommy,” she screamed, in sync with the noise the pole made as the rope clamp banged into it every 180 degrees. “I’m making circles.”

I suppose I should have been happy about the geometry reference, but what was decidedly unhappy-making was Mommy’s reply each time.

“Good job, sweetie.”

Good job? It’s my current least favorite phrase. Take a walk through a suburban mall and count the number of times you hear “Good job,” from a mother pushing a stroller or providing personal care in a restroom. The inspiring act can be a slurp from a sippy cup or a—well, let’s not get too graphic about the good jobs in the Ladies Room.

In my day (this is a historical blog) “Good job,” if it was heard at all, referred to handing over a week’s babysitting, lawn-mowing, or paper-route money to “Mommy,” or washing and waxing the linoleum floor.

Times have changed, and now otherwise lovely, intelligent young men and women thrill at their child’s every move and sound, even if it’s a long sequence of screams in a public place.

I understand why “Stop screaming or I’ll kill you,” has gone out of favor, but can’t we at least resurrect “Stop screaming?”

Side note: I did some research to be sure I had the right definition of “stanchion,” and look what I found under “images.”

Hmm. Maybe I can sell this idea to the post office.