And Then There Are Those Who Eat Their Young

Posted on July 17, 2011 by

Warning:  There is some rough language here, not as bad as some other posts, but a little.  You could always stop if it gets too much for you because it is some important stuff.

My life is at a good news/bad news sort of place right now.  The good news:  my disability hearing is this Tuesday, July 19th.  Yes, after about two years that I applied for my disability, I will finally have my day in court.  The bad news?  Well, I haven’t worked steadily in over three years.  If I am lucky I make a few shekels with my writing and my voice-over work. More bad news, the summer is notoriously the slowest time of the year for both of these professions.  It does not take a math whiz  to figure out that Grant and I are scrambling. More good news.  In case you have not heard, Grant will receive his disability, the poor guy got it first time around, 86% of those in N.J. are turned down their first time out.  The bad news on that?  It’s been at least three weeks since we have gotten any further information from Social Security.

Right now I can not afford a haircut for my son, I cannot afford toilet paper, or to pay bills that were due on July 1st, including my health insurance and my cell phone, in which I conduct business on to help me make such shekels.

Please do not take this post as a plea for money, this is just how it is. I am constantly wheeling and dealing.  Mama wants to give Tyler karate lessons because of his special needs, so Mama has volunteered to work with the owner; free publicity in a local publication in exchange for free karate lessons.  If Mama brings in children who take karate, Tyler gets to keep taking his lessons.  I will do anything for my son, even phone sex, but Grant has told me this is a deal-breaker for our marriage. This is to illustrate to what lengths I will go to in order to give my child any kind of a decent life.

Lately I have become sicker, so instead of 13 diseases and conditions, perhaps I have 14, but this #14 is pretty bad, either that or one of diseases 1-13 is just worsening.  Because of this I have realized that there is no way I can make my court date; at least not when I am supposed to be in Newark, at 9:30 in the morning.  Not with a sick husband and child in tow.

So I decided it would be best to stay overnight in a hotel, two blocks away by car.  This way, not too many worries about being too sick, car breaking down, accident, rush hour traffic, etc.  Hotels/motels are not exactly in the budget for us, but neither is missing my trial so to me it makes sense.  I called my mother to ask if she would pay or help pay for this. Admittedly she does give me a certain amount of money every month to help out.  Also, true two and a half years ago, when we all spoke with a financial advisor, he advised my mother to BUY ME a house, this way no more problems ever for me for housing.  In other words my mother could buy me a home and have plenty of money to live out her days in comfort and make money from real estate as we would pay her some rent.

That didn’t go over so big with Mom.  There would be no house for her sick, getting sicker daughter or her then two-year-old grandson.  Forget the husband because who the Hell is he, after all? Most likely this post would never needed to have been written if she had followed the advisor’s recommendation.

So when I asked my mother today for the money for a hotel she says to me, “Well, I can give you $50.”  “Umm, okay…do you understand that I can not give Tyler a haircut because I have no money?”

“Well, you know, soon my Social Security may be cut, so I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

“What, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t you listen to the news?”

Yeah, lady I listen to the news, the news where my Food Stamps get cut, where programs for poor people get cut.  You’ve got your news and I have mine.  The different is….I am impoverished, you screwed up bitch, you don’t count on your social security to live!!!

I investigated her big news:

Please see the Diagram Options and Actions.

For those of you trusting me, it basically says that it is very unlikely that something like that will pass. Also to my mother, “Bitch, you only see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear, the article also mentions those on Disabilty…who the Hell do you think that is?  That is the former joy of your life, plus her sick but loving husband who has to dress me, and help me walk, or pull me up from a seated postion, and the poor child who had the God-awful luck to be born in to this Hell on Earth life!

I was starting to be in distress, thinking what will I do without my mother’s money, we are not making it now, when she says, “Well…it may not happen.”  “Excuse me?”  “Well, I mean it’s not definite.”

“Do you understand that I am one step away from going in-patient?  Do you have any conception of how upset and sick you have just made me?  Don’t you EVER screw like that with me again!”

“Well…I’m sorry.”

Trying to remember everything my therapist has told me about my mother I then try to carry on somewhat of a normal conversation.  Family gossip, books, etc.  Then I told her I had better go.  I even asked her what she was going to do today, something fun?

Her reply?

“Oh, nothing fun, I will be very busy today.  Don’t you remember, Max and I are going to The Cape tomorrow for the week.”

This defendant rests her case.

“Unlike humans, Dr. Hardy said, the apes never abandon or reject their young, no matter how diseased or crippled a baby may be.”

The New York Times


 

 

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All in the Family: A Joke Fondly Remembered

Posted on July 15, 2011 by

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.

Prompt #4) Share a joke that always makes you laugh.

I remember hearing this joke several times when I was a child and it really stuck with me.  It was told by one of my uncles who had married into my father’s side of my family, as one of his favorite stories about our family.

I don’t know if it is true, but he told it like it was, although it does seem like a rather tall tale.  I am going to show this post to my cousins, perhaps they will have some insight for me as they were involved in the story and I was very young.  I really hope they say it is true!

My father was one of seven children, two of whom were identical twins, Anthony and Eric, born I estimate around 1930.  The two did very well for themselves, especially considering they grew up in the depression.  Only I guess you could say Eric did a little better than Anthony.  Anthony became a pharmacist and owned his own pharmacy.  Eric became Head of the Health Department for a mid-sized city who’s name you would definitely have heard of, as it is the home of one of the top universities in our country.

Eric was very well known, frequently mentioned on the local television and in the newspapers, it seemed like everyone in the city knew who he was.  Eric and Anthony being identical twins, Anthony was constantly being mistaken for Eric, and after this happening about a million times I could see how he could be irked by this.  He would have to explain, “No, I’m not Eric, he is my twin” and then inevitably would come, “Oh, what do you do?”  It didn’t sound as exciting or important as Eric’s job, although he did do very well in his own right.

In the early seventies, Anthony took his wife and my cousins on a trip to Rome.  They had an audience with the Pope.  If you don’t know much about how this works, when most people say they have had an audience with the Pope, unless you are a President of a country, your audience includes a few thousand  other people.  Anthony and his family were in a large hall waiting for the Pope’s arrival when an Asian woman who could speak almost no English put her hand on Anthony’s shoulder and said, “Eric Rossi”.  “I am not Eric, Eric is my twin brother, I am Anthony!”  He couldn’t take it any more!  Here he and his family were in Rome and he is still being mistaken for his twin!

Finally the Pope came onto the “stage”.  Typically he says the same speech in several different languages and then proceeds to walk down the main aisle, waving to everyone and allowing as many people as he can to touch him, here and there stopping for a few seconds for a more personal moment.

My youngest cousin was on top of my Uncle Anthony’s shoulders.  Suddenly she said, “Daddy, the Pope is coming our way!”  Then, “Daddy, the Pope looked right at you! “

My Uncle Anthony then sadly replied, “Yes, but he thought I was Eric.”

 

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Almost Wordless Wednesday: Can’t Get a Break in the Bedroom

Posted on July 13, 2011 by

Spidey and Lizzie

 

I finally get a night where Tyler actually does not sleep in my bed, and instead of my husband spending the night there, my best bud decides to take over the empty spot.  Well…I’ve known her the longest so maybe I owe her?  Her purring IS a lot better than Grant’s snoring!

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Story and Contest! Win a Beautiful Anklet for the Summer!

Posted on July 12, 2011 by

First, the amazing story.  In February I did a contest with Michelle of Hope in Bracelets.  The winner of the contest was a woman named Caren who wrote to me about whom she would be giving the bracelet to:

“My daughter’s good friend was diagnosed this fall with an extremely rare form of Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma. She is being homeschooled for her entire high school senior year while she undergoes a series of chemotherapy treatments, each one nastier than the last. She can’t have visitors because her immune system is effectively shut down until the treatments are over. These last few weeks have been especially tough for her spirtually, and somehow while googling something about jewelry I landed on your page and knew I had come to the right place.

The girl is Jewish. There is a prayer for the sick that is recited during the Saturday morning service, asking God to grant a full recovery to the person who is ailing. The phrase for “full recovery” is “refuah shlema” but in normal parlance, “refuah” is the operative term which means both “health” or “healing”.

I would love it if (the artist) could make up a beaded bracelet that says:

refuah

It would be a constant reminder to her that she is in our prayers and that all we ask is for her return to good health. A health talisman, if you will, in a style that won’t be scritchy on her wrist after long term wear.

My daughter can give it to her friend when she’s between treatment series while they let her body “rest” for a couple weeks.”

Michelle was more than happy to oblige, of course. In fact, she donates 10% of her proceeds to charity.

I have been so busy lately, between being sick, resting, recovering and repeating, etc., I haven’t been able to even write to back to Caren my thanks for her update of the young woman who got the bracelet, whom we asked for all to pray or think good thoughts for someone so young to be that sick. Here is Caren’s email to me from late May:

“I was the winner of the “refuah” bracelet that we ultimately gave to my daughter’s friend who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. You’ll be glad to know that she loved the bracelet and was very moved by the gift. The girl has handled the chemo treatments very well and is now in remission. She will have to have follow-up chemo for several years more in a maintenance capacity, but that won’t stop her from going to college, which she will be attending next fall. Thanks once again for having your drawing!”

Things like this are what keep me writing my blog and are what makes Michelle, who is chronically ill herself, keep making bracelets.

And now the contest, the opportunity for you to celebrate summertime with something pretty and new!

I discovered Hope in Bracelets when designer Michelle followed me on Twitter.  I’m usually not into following product sites but when I took a look at her beautiful bracelets, I instantly became a fan.  The bracelets were very reasonably priced and when the one that I ordered came, I realized that they looked as good as they do in her pictures and were well worth the price!

Michelle has Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia and started her bracelets to bring awareness to these diseases in a stylish way!  She uses beads and ribbons to represent the various diseases’ colors and adds words such as “Hope”, “Lupus”, and “Cure MS”.  She will also custom make pretty much anything you want!

A couple of more reasons I love her site:  You don’t have to be sick to enjoy her work!  She also has a beautiful selection of just plain or name beaded bracelets!  Plus, there’s no need to worry if a bracelet or an anklet does not fit, as Michelle uses a stretchy sting material to strings the beads.  One size can fit all!

And now, you have your chance to win a beautiful anklet.  If your legs are already pretty, they will only make them prettier; if your legs could use some work, the anklet will draw alway from the flaws some of us ladies have, ahem.

There are three ways to enter:

1. leave a comment

2. tweet this contest out

3. link it on your Face Book page

Each entry counts as ONE so if you do all three, please comment THREE times.  Some people do not get this concept, and I do try to help people whom I see have made a mistake, but ultimately you are responsible for your entries.

The contest will run until 11:59 p.m. EST, Wednesday, July 20th, 2011.

Good luck!


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Friday Fragments!

Posted on July 9, 2011 by

I fell asleep drinking a cup of coffee, it’s 2:30 a.m., technically Saturday.  Let’s see how this is going to go!

“Friday Fragments” are bits and pieces of your week that are usually brief; too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard,” instructs Mrs.4444 over at her blog, Half-Past Kissin’ Time.

Last 4th of July, Grant and I took Tyler to see his first fireworks.  We wanted to be a bit of a distance away because Tyler did not like loud noises.  It turned out that we were a bit too far away, and you could hardly see anything over the trees, and Tyler liked the booming sound just fine!   This holiday, we started hearing the booms from outside our home.  We stepped out and there were the fireworks, clear as day!  Who knew that I had to go no further than my front door to see our township’s fireworks?  Tyler and I stood, holding hands, Tyler jumping up and down, with Grant joining us towards the end.  I think it will be the first fireworks he will remember and the first Fourth of July he really understands.  He kept pointing out all the American flags everywhere, even signs that were red, white and blue all year long!

photo courtesy of newser.com

 

For the 5th year in a row, San Jose construction worker Joey Chestnut was the 4th of July’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest Champion.  I went crazy trying to find this live and was able to get it streaming live via ESPN 3!  I knew Tyler would think this would be a riot and sure enough he was rolling around and jumping on my bed, unable to contain himself.  We made “funsies” bets on who would win and he was right!  My favorite moment of the “sporting event”:  “You may notice that Chestnut is favoring his left side.”  “That’s right, Bob, Joey has been having some trouble with bursitis in his left shoulder, will this affect his game?”

I spoke in last Friday’s Fragments about my creditors calling me all day long.  Yesterday I decided to check my caller ID to see how many times they are actually calling me.  The number?  Over 30!  It no longer even bothers Grant or I, except it can get be a nuisance during one’s nap time.  So now I’ve just taken to putting the phone out of my bedroom so the calls won’t bother me.  You’re wasting your time, guys.  We’d pay if you could, really we would.

One of those awkward moments at the…well anywhere, but I was at the gynecologists’, and as people are inclined to do there, we ask others how old their newborns are or how far along they are. “When are you due?”, I asked. “Seven weeks…” and manic me jumped in and said, “Oh, seven more weeks to go, that’s good,” I replied.  “No, I am seven weeks pregnant.”  She must have been used to seeing people’s mouths drop open because she said, “Yeah, I popped early.”  Popped early?  Lady, you look like you are going to pop any second! That was the biggest pregnant woman I have ever seen, seven weeks or seven months!

Last Saturday morning I gracefully fell up the stairs.  I fall a lot due to the medications I take interfering with my balance, or perhaps it is just my diseases, who knows.  I am always lucky when I fall, nothing broken, but this time I did sprain my right wrist.  No need to go to the hospital I have all the pain medicines right here, but it has hurt me a great deal this week.

Tyler feels very badly for me, especially now that my Invisible Illnesses have become partly visible due to my ACE bandage.  Grant told Tyler to give mommy’s arm a kiss and say a prayer, that maybe that would help me.  Tyler asked me where it hurt and said, “God, I wish Mommy’s arm would feel better”, gave it a kiss, and looked up to Heaven.  Another day this week, again asking where it hurt, he kissed my arm and said, “God, I wish Mommy’s arm would feel better, all better.”

And you know what, for a while, both times after he prayed over me, I did feel better for a while, as a child does when a Mommy kisses a boo-boo.

Happy weekend, all.

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Mama Sicks Favorite T.V. Shows Ever, no Arguments from Anyone!

Posted on July 8, 2011 by

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop

(Laptop update, oh, dont even ask!  I got my laptop back and the same problem is happening again!  It works at a smails pace.  I used to love Apple but they are not delivering for me, no way! Its so hard being sick, and to have to drive to and from the stupid Apple store, a forty minute drive.  So if  you are new to my blog or catching up, Grants laptop has a possessive/quote key that works about 25% of the time.  As he is a professional writer I do not know how he can stand this, but there it is.  I write this to let people know that my grammar and editing are much better than it would appear. Thank you.)

Anyway, lets get on with it!

1.) A list of 10 old TV shows you’d like to make a comeback.

At first when I saw this, I thought, Who even likes 10 television shows? because all I watch is Umizoomi and Max and Ruby, and I have given up my television time for my computer time. I watch almost no t.v and as far as I am concerned, there hasnt been anything good to watch in many years.  But I have what I call a long memory, meaning I remember the shows from my youth, and the reruns, and even some from youths past. Its weird that way with me.

So lets go from oldest up.  You 20-something and early 30-something bloggers:  Heed my word. These are to me the greatest shows in the world:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Named by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 Shows of all Times, the shows were like miniature Alfred Hitchock movies, rolled into twenty five minutes of drama, mystery and suspense.  Sort of like a Twilight Zone, except with more of an ironic, humorous twist to them, plus the added bonus of the great Alfred Hitchcock himself, introducing and ending the show.  You may recognize the theme now because it is often used in Little Einsteins, yeah thats pretty sad.  Its hard to pick a favorite episode since there were more than 350 of them, but I will chose  Lamb to the Slaughter…lets just say the police eat the evidence! (Premiered in 1955)

Fun fact:  Alfreds daughter, Pat acted in many of the episodes of her fathers show.

The Honeymooners

 

Near domestic violence comedy between both husband and wife doesnt get any better than this!  Alice could give just as good as she got, yeah, baby, you tell that lunk of a husband of yours!  There was never a better cast than Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney and Joyce Randolph.  The humor of One of these days, Alice, straight to the moon! coupled with the almost always ending of Baby, youre the greatest! cut to fake naughty kiss…watch it, and you will still laugh today, I promise!

Fun fact:  When Audrey Meadows first auditioned for the role of Alice, Jackie Gleason judged her to be too pretty for his hausfrau wife.  Ms. Meadows then put up her hair, and dressed liked someones cleaning woman, mop included.  Jackie Gleason looked at her picture and said, Thats the woman I want!

If you could get past the scary theme song, you were halfway home.  I used to watch them as a little girl, around nine, in reruns and they used to chill me to the bone!  Only when I got older did I realize that creator Rod Serling meant these to be a social commentary of the times.  There were only 156 episodes but there are too many favorites to name, I mean, whatever one you see first will be your favorite!  Some of mine:  To Serve Man, The Eye of the Beholder, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, The Midnight Sun, Third From the Sun…Incredible actors like Jack Klugman, Burgess Meredith and William Shatner didnt hurt either.  Oh, yeah, Mama has a lot of these on DVD in her collection!

Fun Fact:  Rod Serling had to tell television producers that his creation was nothing more than ironic stories, otherwise they would never had let him get away with airing the show that was actually supposed to be a social commentary of the times,

The Andy Griffith Show

Id be whistling, if I could whistle.  From 1960-1968, Sheriff Andy Taylor raised his son, Opie (remind me to name my next child that!) along with his Aunt Bee, a woman whose breasts would put Dolly Parton to shame. Im surprised she never married.  Sheriff Taylor and his crack-ass deputy Barney Fife were in charge of Mayberry, NC, a town so rural you had to go to Mount Pilot to have you some Chinese food, and where the worst crime was an old lady who shop lifting.  Even Mama, as sick as she is, probably could have handled being sheriff of that town.  Boy, Sheriff Taylor had one sweet gig!  Every time you watch that show, you are brought back to a time and a place that resembles a Utopia.  Did it every really exist anywhere though, because even back then the show was supposed to be a comedy.  But God, would I give anything to live there!
Fun Fact:  Little Opie Taylor would go on to become one of the greatest directors of our time, Ronnie Howard became Ron Howard, after he was Richie Cunningham on Happy Days!

The Mary Tyler-Moore Show

A ground-breaking show whose theme and comedy still hold up today.  A model for my life. After breaking off her engagement, old-maid Mary Richards at age 30 decides to put on her big girl panties and move from her parents house (?) to the big city, yeah, Im talking big scary Minneapolis!  She becomes a career gal and falls into the position of Associate News Producer at WJM.  Equal pay for woman, pre-marital sex and even sexual harassment were the themes of the show.  They also happened to be the themes of my life when I was a newswoman and on-air personality in radio! Hmmmm.  Affected much by this television show, Emily?  This is my all time favorite show and the episodes are, perhaps sadly, still relevant today, for they are the same issues women are still up against!  At least for me they were!  But the show is as still as funny as it was 30 years ago.  Incredible actors; Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Betty White and Ted Knight didnt hurt either.  Favorite episodes?  Too many to name!

Favorite quote (on Marys first day of work):

Lou: You know what? You’ve got spunk.

Mary: Well, yes�

Lou: I hate spunk!

Fun Fact:  the theme song to the show is so famous that the old woman who watches Mary throw her hat up in the air was given her own obituary.  Thats a theme song for you.

All in the Family

When this show started I was only almost two years old.  I never liked it much because to me the characters were always yelling, always fighting.  When I got older, I realized what they were fighting about.  Every episode touched upon the hot button issues of the day, racism, anti-semitism, homosexuality, rape…unfortunately the same things we are still battling with today.  Watch this show today, I dare you not to be shocked about how relevant it still is.  Carrol O Conner, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers were multiple Emmy winners throughout its 8 year run.

Fun Fact: All in the Family blew Bewitched away.  People didnt want magic and pretty witches, they wanted reality, in the highly political charged times they were living in.

Taxi

Moving into the late 70s-early 80s is the classic comedy, Taxi.  I dare you not to laugh at it today. Winning 18 Emmy awards during its run, Taxi focused on the drivers, a mechanic and their S.O.B. boss, Louie De Palma, played by Danny Devito.

My favorite scene of Taxi:

[Jim is taking his driver’s test]

Reverend Jim Ignatowski: Psst. What does a yellow light mean?

Bobby Wheeler: Slow down.

Reverend Jim Ignatowski: OK. What… does… a… yellow… light… mean?

Bobby Wheeler: Slow down!

Reverend Jim Ignatowski: OK. Wwwwhhhaaaat dooeesss aaaa yyyeeeellllowwww lllliiiight mmmmeeeannn?

Bobby Wheeler: Slow down!

Reverend Jim Ignatowski: OK. Wwwwwwhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaat dddddddoooooooeeeeeesssssssss aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa yyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllloooooooowwwwwwwww liiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhtt mmmmmeeeeeeaaaaaan?

Fun Fact:  Only major female cast member Marilu Henner had sex with almost if not all the men in the cast.  Now thats fun!
This isnt one of the shows that Mama usually preferred, it wasnt particularly biting in humor, you didnt learn anything amazing from it…it just gave you the warm fuzzies.  Tim The Tool Man Taylor was the host of his own local cable DIY tool show…only he wasnt so good at it. The show also revolved around his wife, a former SAHM who decided to go back to school and pursue her Masters degree as her three sons were growing up.  And lets not forget Wilson, the neighbor over the fence, who through the series 8 year run from 1991 to 1999, we never saw more than his eyes and nose from behind that fence. Thats family comedy for you!
Fun Fact:  In 1978, Tim Allen Dick was arrested for possession of a pound and a half of cocaine. He could have been sentenced to life in prison. Instead he turned state’s evidence. Allen reportedly fingered at least 21 co-conspirators, and in exchange, he was sentenced to just five years under the more lenient (at that time) federal law. He was paroled after 2½ years, and dropped his last name.  Isnt there a weird thing where criminals always have three first names?  Hmmm…

Friends

Before there was Face Book and Twitter, people actually had real friends in the 90s and early aughts, remember?  Courteney Cox was the main star of the six, having played Michael J. Foxs girlfriend on Family Ties and Danced in the Dark to Bruce Springsteens video, but the other five became breakout successess/multi-millionaires as well, particularly one of Mamas favorite actresses, Jennifer Aniston.

Too many favorite episodes to mention, everyone is hysterical, but I guess my favorite theme was the Ross and Rachel romance.  We were on a break! I would love to see a Where are they now reunion? but I dont see that happening…ever.

Fun fact:  Christ, all of the Friends are in their 40s!  Christ, so am I.

And finally, the last, but consistently funniest show ever that I wished never went away:

Seinfeld

Image courtesy of androidzoom.com

Isnt this going to be on everyones list?  What insight can I offer you that a million people have not offered before me???  Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer…Heres a little secret…I dont think that they were that awful a bunch of people.  I think they behaved the way most real people want to do, act and say.

Favorite Seinfeld moment:

George has sex with the cleaning lady, working late one night at the office

Boss: I’m going to get right to the point. It has come to my attention that you and the cleaning woman have engaged in sexual intercourse on the desk in your office. Is that correct?

George: Who said that?

Boss: She did.

George: Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ingnorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frouned upon, you know, cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.

Boss: You’re fired.

George: Well you didn’t have to say it like that.

Boss: I want you out of here by the end of the day.

Courtesty of The Seinfeld Scripts.

Fun Fact:  If youre not watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, staring and created by the same person, Larry David, you are pretty much missing one of the greatest shows of all time, except for of course, Mary Tyler Moore.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Tuesdays With Tyler: Pre-School Graduation

Posted on July 5, 2011 by

In true Mama Sick or other chronically ill person fashion, I am really late in putting up Tylers graduation pictures! Tyler graduated June 22nd!

The kids started off with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Tyler thinks his heart is in his stomach.

Tylers Big Graduation Class!

Umm, when is this thing going to be over? I was promised cake and gifts.

Getting Ready for His Close-up

Proud Parents With Son at First (Of Many, I Hope) Graduations!

What Tyler Has Been Waiting For!

 

I want to thank all who came to the graduation, my brother and his wife, Tylers godmother and her daughter and my oldest friend, who is heavily pregnant, God bless her!

And there you have it!  Anyone now who has gotten this far and does not think Pre-school Graduations are adorable and necessary has a heart of stone!  And yeah, before I had Tyler, I used to be one of them!

 

 

 

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My First Friday Fragments!

Posted on July 1, 2011 by
I am linking up for the first time ever over at Mrs.4444’s Half-Past Kissin’ Time’s Friday Fragments!
“Friday Fragments are bits and pieces of your week that are usually brief; too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard,” instructs Mrs.4444.  This should be easy since my whole brain is a bunch of fragments!  Okay, here goes…

Home Alone Kitty

On Monday morning, our next door neighbors, whom we know nothing about, including how many people live in the apartment or what their relationships are, knocked on our door, key in hand.  “Could you watch our cat?”  They were going on vacation for four days!  The dyed-in-the-catnip cat lover in me said to Grant, “How could they just do that?!  What if WE were on vacation?!  (O.k. we can’t afford to go on vacation, but how do they know that?)  What if they knocked at our door and we weren’t home??
I found it very odd, but Grant reminded me that not all people are kitty crazy like us and have statues of cats and floor to ceiling cat trees!  They don’t?
Each night, we have been visiting whom I started to call Home Alone Kitty.  They didn’t even tell us where anything was; food, should we scoop the poop?, do they want us to turn on the A/C?  HAK has mostly been hissing and trying to scratch us, she is scared to death.  Tyler still loves to see HAK every night.  Last night I made Grant give HAK one of our many cat toys because the cat is just living in a boring apartment.  We gave her an electric toy with a string with a ball on it, that moves all over the place.  It’s expensive but we have tons of toys as Grant is a professional Cat Writer.  It’s Friday night, no one has come by to pick up the key.  The saga of HAK continues.
The End of Young Love

Tyler graduated pre-school last week (I know, no pictures yet, sorry!) and along with the end of school was the end of Tyler’s relationship with his little girlfriend, Antara.  A few days ago Tyler said to me, “Mommy, I’m just sorry I never married Antara.”  Oh, my baby’s broken heart!  Antara was one of the most beautiful Indian girls I have ever seen.  The boy had good taste!  But I don’t think Antara’s mother wasn’t too happy with the two year relationship!  She never brought her to any of Tyler’s birthday parties or invited Tyler to hers.  Your child was only 2.5 and you were already telling her who she couldn’t go out with??  I feel so sorry for Tyler, I’m not sure he realizes yet that he will never see her again.
Thank God for Caller ID!
It seems like the only people who call me are my creditors.  That’s not entirely true but mostly. Seriously, at least 20 times a day from various creditors.  I’m sorry credit cards, I have to live and it’s got to be at your expense.  Believe me, it wasn’t my plan for my husband and I to become sick. Believe me, creditors I’d rather have not trashed my nearly perfect credit card rating, but you can’t get blood from a stone, so you might as well stop calling me. I’d really like it if every once in a while a friend would call me, sigh.
No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk
Are we the only family in this world that has at least one major drink spill a day?  No matter where I put it, in our living room; on the floor right by Tyler so he could have a snack while watching t.v., on my end tables!  Every day without fail, no matter where, a least one drink spills in our home.  Either that or one of us winds up putting our feet in the cat’s water bowls. Or usually it is the very last of the orange juice. It has started to become the family joke in our home.  I mean, you could get mad twice a day or laugh over it, right?
I Could Eat a Horse…not Exactly

A few nights ago, Tyler told me that he was so tired he could eat a horse!  I looked at him and he said, “It’s just an expression, Mommy.”  Okay, I hope you have enough energy to eat that horse!
Well that’s my first Friday Fragments.  I hope my regular followers all enjoyed and I look forward to meeting new bloggers!  Sorry about some of the formatting issues, I could use some help on that!
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My Last Date

Posted on June 30, 2011 by

Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop

1.) Describe a memorable first date.

This prompt is the perfect opportunity to tell you about something that I have never written about on my blog; how I met my husband.  It is, actually, a very interesting story.  We have told it so many times that we are bored by it, Grant is so tired of it that he has rudely told a few people “I am not going to tell you, I just can’t tell it again!”    Our story has even been featured in magazines and on the internet.  It is necessary to tell the story in order for me to carry out this prompt.

In 1999, Grant was writing for a major magazine about cats, a magazine I had a subscription to.  In the December issue he has one of those back page, humor pieces.  The article was about how he was an eligible bachelor with two adorable cats which you would think would make him a “chick magnet” but he could not find any nice girls to date seriously, usually only disasters! (I wish Grant would blog about his life too, it is so funny!)

To Grant and his editor’s surprise, he got about 25 letters from women, offering themselves to him…one of whose was mine!  Yes, I had just turned 30.  In August the love of my life had gotten married, and I had had two quick relationships in succession, both turning out to be nothing but regrettable.  Did I mention I had just turned 30?  At this point in my life I figured, “What the Hell, why not?”  I wrote Grant a letter, no websites or emails for the magazine back then, and put in two pictures, one of me, and one of my cats.  I am holding the letter in my hands now as Grant obsessively saved everything, and why I am so glad he did it even though we have a ton of junk in our home, a lot of it is “happy junk”!  Anyway, I told him a little about me, what I did for a living and how much my cats meant to me.  I am laughing now because at the end I told him I have not written a fan letter since I was a pre-teen. Grant?  A celebrity?  The concept seems funny to me now.

Over on Grant’s end, living in OH, he was stunned by the responses he received.  He eliminated some girls by the way they looked (typical man!) and how far they were from him. For example some letters came from California. I was in NJ, not too bad from OH.  He went on one date with a woman who lived in the same town but there was no chemistry.  He later told me he looked at my picture and he showed it to his friends, “Is this girl for real? She is hot!”, seemed to be the general consensus.

I had a very good feeling about the whole thing.  I remember my friend asking me, “Do you really think he is going to call you, Emily?” and I said, yes I really did.  I could hear her sighing on the other end of the phone, pitying me. I’m not sure if I told you, but I had just turned 30.

Grant called me about three days after Christmas.  As I said, I was not surprised at all to receive his call.  We had a great first time chat, I remember him quizzing me on how much I loved my cats, asking me if I had given my cats Christmas presents and him being very satisfied when I replied, “Of course!”  He even asked me what they were!

We began speaking to each other every day, getting to know each other as much as one could by the telephone. We decided to meet and made the plans for early March of 2000.Grant would drive from where he lived to me, about a nine hour drive.  This was before Mapquest and other internet direction websites, so Grant had to rely on a map and my directions.  Some of my friends and family were scared that he was coming to visit me and would stay in my apartment, but I trusted him; we had been speaking for about two months and he told me two of his best friends were girls.  I liked that!  I remember one of my co-workers saying that he was going to call me and my code words were to be, “So, how about them Yankees?”, if it turned out his was a a psycho and had me tied up!

The directions were pretty straight forward until he was to get off my exit of the New Jersey Turnpike.  The exit happened to be one of the most confusing exits on the Turnpike with a person having to make the right choice which way to go very quickly with tons of traffic.  I warned him about it.  “You are just going to have to look very carefully for the sign that shows you where you have to go next.”  After my exit, he was only 15 minutes away from me!

Sounds easy, right?  Not if you have never driven in New Jersey before.  Oh, poor ignorant Grant, a hopeless fool. You see, after getting off the exit he did head down the wrong way. And, not understanding, New Jersey and it’s jughandles, he could not turn around…for miles.  And miles.

Grant of course is a typical guy and would not ask for directions.  Bad move.  In the meantime, he was very late, even for a nine hour drive.  Poor Grant kept trying to turn around, make a left, but there weren’t any!  Where were the lengths, where were the U-turns??

An hour after Grant should have turned up, I get a cal from him via a pay phone.  “Ammm, I’m kind of lost.”  “Yes I figured that you were.”  “Well do you know approximately where you are?”  He described to me what he had done and I was able to figure out that he had gone over 20 miles in the wrong direction!  “I knew I was on the wrong road, Emily, and I knew I had to turn around, and I kept looking to turn, but there was no place to turn, how do you make a left, Emily, how do you turn around?  I don’t get it!”  It was then we both realized that Grant had never heard of jug handles!

“Do you want me to try to give you directions from where you are now?”  “No, just tell me how to turn around.  I am determined to find out where you live!”

About 11 hours from when he started he finally showed up at my door, a complete wreck, sweating, clothes wrinkled; off-balance and a bit dizzy, he still felt like he was still driving.

I had planned going out to a really nice Italian restaurant, called Teresa’s but I knew Grant was exhausted.  I gave him the option to order in a pizza but he said, “No we are going to go out on a date.”

I looked really nice, as I had had plenty of time to doll myself up!  Grant looked like a bedraggled mess!  Sitting across from him, I felt so shy.  Even though I had spoken to him many times this was the first time we were meeting.  I could not look him in the eye!  This was so unlike me!  Grant told me he later thought it was because I didn’t like him, as if I couldn’t stand the site of him!

The only dinner conversation was me asking him if he liked his pasta and him saying, “It’s kind of not cooked or something.”  Oh boy.  “It’s al dente, I told him.  “Umm, okay, yeah.  Al dente, I think I’ve heard of that.”

Despite our awkward dinner,  we got more comfortable with each other and wound up having a lovely weekend. We walked around Princeton and went into New York City to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It was a weekend of many romantic places and many romantic moments.

When Grant left on Monday morning and I went to work, we both knew that we had something special going on. This would be the first start of our long distance relationship which would finally culminating in us moving in together in February of 2001, with Grant taking a huge leap of faith, leaving his home, all of his professional business contacts and family and friends to move to New Jersey.  The fact that he would be willing to do that for our relationship, to make that sacrifice, said a lot to me.

Having a long distance relationship for over a year was difficult and at times, heartbreaking. But when I saw the Mama Kat’s prompt about a memorable first date, I realized that it was not only a memorable one, but was really to be my last.

The picture I sent Grant, from Christmas of '98. When I was completely single, with no hope, with three of my cousins' children.

 

The picture I sent Grant of my kitties: opening up their Christmas stockings from 1998, age 1.5 years old!

 

 

 

 


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Each to His Own But Someone is Always Doing Something

Posted on June 28, 2011 by

I read The Unxpected Circumnavigation:  Unusual Boat, Unusual People- Part 1 by Christi Grab as part of a member of the From Left to Write book club.  I was given a free copy as part of the book club.  This post was inspired by the book.

(Laptop update, yep, I am still using hubby’s.  The good news is that my laptop is finally ready!  The bad news is that I have not yet had the time or health to go and get her as it is a forty minute drive.  So if  you are new to my blog or catching up, Grants laptop has a possessive/quote key that works about 25% of the time.  As he is a professional writer I do not know how he can stand this, but there it is.  I write this to let people know that my grammar and editing are much better than it would appear. Thank you.)

 

The Unxpected Navigation is the true story of a 30-something couple who gave up their successful careers to pilot their own boat around the world.   When I decided to sign up, I thought, This is something I would never do, so it sounds very interesting to me to read about someone who would do such a thing.

It turned out that since it was something that I would NEVER want to do, the book was kind of something I would never want to read!  I do not mean that the book is not a good one, its just that I realized that if I never wanted to get myself into a boat and travel around the world, I do not want to read about someone who does either!

But I am very thankful for The Unexpected Circumnavigation because it brought back a concept that I had thought about a long time ago, long since tucked away in the inner corners of my mind.  A bit of background: From 2000-2006, I worked for a small company where I was a recruiter for the pharmaceutical industry.  It was a huge leap from my previous career, that of being an on-air personality, but back at the end of the century or beginning of the millennium, you may be old enough to remember it was an employees market.  I answered an ad:  Recruiter Wanted:  No experience necessary, will train.  That sounded good to me.  I wanted a REAL job, a 40 hour, nine to five-ish type of work week and I was tired of paying my dues in radio.

What I stepped into was an opportunity with a small but growing company where I had the freedom to make a lot of decisions and impact on the company, owned by my boss, Steve.  Steve had his quirks (even you have to admit that, Steve!) but he was the best boss I ever had!  When I was there a month he called me into his office closed the door and asked if I would accompany him to a conference in New Orleans.  Oh, no, he didnt hire me for what I had to offer, he hired me for…the other stuff he thought I had to offer. I remember saying, Are we going…just you and me?

No!  What do you think this is?  A date?  Kate is going too!

From then on Steve and I were okay.  And I got to go to some amazing cities in the United States and Canada. Steve and I got to know each other well enough where we could go on a business trip just the two of us and It was fine.  I was also meeting, becoming engaged and marrying my husband during this time period.

One trip we took, probably around 2004 was to Miami.  We worked hard and Steve always rewarded us. Being picked to go on a business trip meant that he respected you highly and that he trusted you would represent his company well. He spared no expense for dinners, bars, touring, etc.  Steve was very well traveled and would say to the conceirge, Dont take me to the tourist traps, I want to know where the locals go, tip in hand. One night we found a restaurant and nightclub in Miami.  It was where the local beautiful people go and tonight we were a couple of them!  While waiting for our dinner reservations we went up to the bartender who asked us what we wanted.

Did you ever have a Mojito? At this point in time this was more of a Cuban/Miami cocktail mainly consisting of rum, lime juice, sugar and mint, and not so much a mainstream drink like it is today.  We were waiting a long time but it didnt matter because by then we had each consumed two Mojitos.  Steve went somewhere else to smoke, leaving me with time to myself and I looked around.  People were dancing, great dancing, people were laughing, drinking, talking smoking.  Mojitos were the drink of the night and everyone was drinking them.  Everyone was having a great time, including me.  And then something hit me…there were people in Miami who partied in restaurants like this and drank Mojitos every night, and I had never thought about them, how could I have?  I thought about people in New Orleans on Bourbon Street drinking and listening to jazz, the girls on the streets being coaxed to pull up their tops for beads. I thought of people seeing The Golden Gate Bridge for the first time and climbing up those hills.

Those were the things I have seen, but what about the things I knew nothing about?  As in The Unexpected Circumnavigation. When Christie and Eric were traveling for TWO years, visiting 110 places in 34 contries, what was I doing?  I was working full time, breaking my butt trying to take care of my child too, I was getting sick, I was losing my job, I was being diagnosed with Lupus.  Christie and Eric werent thinking about me nor was I thinking about them!

But every once in a while I enjoy, well, actually, it more like boggles my mind, thinking about me being somewhere and someone who I do not know being somewhere completely different in this world.  Maybe they are celebrating Bastille Day, maybe they are having the best pasta they ever tasted in Rome, maybe they are a sick mother in an African country, knowing that they will soon orphan their children.

I like to think in life that we do get to enjoy and live out our dreams like Christie and Eric do, even if the dream is as simple as taking ones child to Disney World, as mine currently is.  Everyones dreams are different, their ideas of a good time so different then ours.

One thing I know now is that when I am at home with my husband and son on Tuesday nights watching The Looney Tunes Show on the Cartoon Network, there is no where else I would rather be.  Ive had my visits to Europe, Ive been to Los Angeles and Puerto Rico…but right now I am enjoying being with my husband and son, and I wouldnt dream of being in a place I have always wanted to go to, Hawaii, if it meant being without them.

The Drink That Started it All!

Another time, another place: San Antonio, Tx, circa 2004. From left to right, Me, when I was still well enough to look beautiful, Marie, Dana and Steve

Steve and I, all dressed up and working hard!

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