My mother won't read this, but maybe another Rita will

My mother's name is Rita. I love my mother and I love Italian ices. So what could be better than a place called Rita's that makes and sells delicious ices?

Rita's Italian Ice was started in the summer of 1984 in Bensalem, Pennsylvania by Bob Tumolo. He named the business after his wife, Rita.

Rita's now has more than 550 stores in 18 states, and two opened near me last year.

On Friday, my golden retriever, Hunter, and I went to Rita's on a "man date." I got a sugar-free pineapple ice, and I ordered a cup of vanilla frozen custard for the pooch.

If Hunter was human, he could have had sprinkles, hot fudge or caramel topping on it. To our great surprise, Hunter got a topping of DOG TREATS. We were so happy, we could have done a Rita's commercial in their parking lot. Since there was no video crew available, I blogged instead.

And for my own Rita, I'll say this:

Rita Marcus is responsible for my lifelong love of reading and my drive to be productive before the chickens wake up. (I'm usually at this keyboard at 3  a.m.)  My reading and my early-birding came together when I was in junior high school and we watched "Sunrise Semester" together on TV. It started at 6 a.m. Mom watched it to get her Mas­ter’s degree. I watched it because I liked classic Greek literature. Lysistrata is an extremely funny and sexy anti-war play, writ­ten over 2400 years ago by Aristophanes. I highly recom­mend it.

I also recommend reading a lot. If you read a lot, you'll probably become a better writer.

Thanks, Mom.