A Tree Grows in Brooklyn...Damn It!

Last night I went out on my back deck to water my pitiful little tomato plants and the other vegetation that I thought was a good idea to cultivate. I say pitiful because thanks to a humongous black walnut tree my husband decided to plant some years ago, I have very little sun. Since my deck is metal and I am always barefoot I guess it is a actually a good thing since prior to the Black Walnut I pretty much seared the soles of my feet every time I went out there. My husband tried growing an apple tree. It died. He tried a pear tree. Ditto. The peach tree didn’t fair very well either. So he basically needed a tree that he couldn’t kill. (Boy would that come back to bite us) When he came home with the tree about 5 years ago it was small and barely cleared our 6 foot fence. He said the garden center told him there would be no walnuts since there would have to be a female black walnut tree within close proximity. (I guess we had a male although I have no idea where to check…and no, the nuts IN the tree don‘t count) Year one the tree grew ridiculously fast and reached the second story of my house. By year three it was almost three stories tall blanketing my yard and my unsuspecting sun worshipping neighbors in shade. Last year it bore fruit. Apparently some other gullible moron went to the same garden center and fell for the same no walnut story and in time a polination…um, romance began. Now I love walnuts. I like them sprinkled on my cookies, crushed on my ice cream and especially imbedded in my brownies. But walnuts from the supermarket are not like the walnuts this tree bore. Key Food’s walnuts come in bags and cans. This tree grew clusters of green rock hard balls. The squirrels have figured out that inside those green balls are the walnuts. Black walnuts. So they told their friends. And they told theirs. My yard and the treetops in all the surrounding yards are full of walnut loving squirrels…and my neighbors glare at me when they think I don’t see.

These bushy-tailed beasts sit high in the tree breaking open the green rocks and with no regard at all for what lies beneath toss the pieces to the ground. They’ve hit me, my dog and my grandkids. They hit my awning and it sounds like we are under attack. They hit my car and worse, my son’s car. There are hundreds of these green rocks clusters and they make off with every one of them. I have yet to find one intact that I can pry open and enjoy. But the worst part is that inside the green rocks is the part that makes this a ‘black’ walnut experience as opposed to just your run of the mill walnut. A black tar-like substance that stains everything it touches. The now dented awning, the now dented car and the sidewalk from my house to the corner are covered with black gooey stains. To add insult to injury the rodent bastards now find the need to bury their walnuts in my postage stamp sized lawn. The very lawn I pay an overpriced gardener to mow has more holes than a golf course. One day my little Mexican gardener asked me why I made the holes in the garden. I told him it was the squirrels burying their nuts. He said, in the best English he could muster….“if I catch him I’ll cut his nuts off“ …he laughed and pointed at his crotch. I guess he thought I didn’t know what ‘nuts’ were or where they were located.

I tried to hire a tree removal service. They basically wanted my first born. (which I actually considered as payback for those terrible teenage years) So I Googled ‘how to kill a tree’. The squirrel gods must have been watching out for them since I couldn’t find any site that told me in 5 easy steps how to annihilate a tree. I even looked on Youtube hoping that some other clueless husband brought home a tree from hell and his wife made him get rid of it…..and they video taped it. And posted it. But no luck. So as the season progresses and the green rocks are growing and the squirrels are massing, as my neighbors are scowling and my husband is getting used to his permanent position on my shit list, I am determined to hunt down the garden center that got us into this mess in the first place. I’m not sure what I will do when he is found, but I assure you it will involve nuts!

Leonid had a little lamb...

It’s gonna be a long summer. I have lovely neighbors to my left, to my right, across the street….and then I have my neighbors behind me. They are Russian. They are probably lovely people. I wouldn’t know since we have exchanged a total 12 words since they moved in 3 years ago. (read with thick Russian accent, please)

Leonid:   What is dogs name?

Me:   His name is Jerry.

Leonid:   What kind name is Jerry?

Me:   I don’t know, we just started calling him that and it stuck.

Leonid:   People across street named dogs Charlie and Harry. Names for people, not for dog.

Two weeks later Leonid has a dog.

Me:   Hi, What did you name your dog?

Leonid:   Philip

Me:   Philip? That’s more a people name than Jerry.

Leonid:   Yes it is. You got problem?

So friends with the Russians, not so much.

They also love to party. They have a great pool (jealous), they have a cabana and humongous barbeque, (jealous, jealous) and they fight constantly. (not so jealous anymore) The also found probably the only radio station broadcasting Russian music 24 hours a day. No Mariah, Jay-Z or even Manilow. They have Yulia Savicheva, Igor Blaska and Adam Lambert (don’t ask) You haven’t lived until you have heard Lambert’s “Whataya Want From Me?” in Ukrainian. From 9pm on Friday nite they sing, dance, swim, eat and party until Sunday nite at 10pm. (jealous again)

On most Saturday mornings they like to use their power washer for like three hours at a time. I have no idea how dirty a deck can get from one week to the next, but every Saturday morning, in the vicinity of 9am, like clockwork the whirr of the power washer graces my every pore. The constant and loud drone of the motor is bad enough, but when it momentarily stops (perhaps he has to switch hands) lulling me into a false sense of tranquility only to have it start back up again, I want to peel my ears off the side of my head. My electric bill is astronomical since my A/C has to be on so I can close the door, at least until I have had my morning coffee.

By noon the deck is presumably clean and the festivities begin. Now I don’t begrudge them a day of fun in the sun, and I certainly don’t resent their all night swim fests….but I want to at least be in on the fun. With the language so indecipherable I can’t tell if they are laughing or fighting. I can’t tell if they are talking in a drunken slur or singing. And I can’t tell if they're enjoying the evening breeze or making fun of my dog’s name. It is worse than sitting across from the Vietnamese girl that does my nails…she speaks little English and all the smiling and head nodding in the world isn’t gonna help me understand what she always finds so damn funny while she is buffing and filing. Maybe she’s making fun of my dog’s name!

Sunday was Fathers Day. Their yard was full of…well, fathers. Leonid, his father Yuri, and if I am not mistaken, Mrs Leonid’s father Ivan a butcher from Brighton Beach. Whether he is a chop, chop which-cut-of-beef-do-you-want butcher or chop, chop who- told-you-to-screw-with-the-Russian-mafia butcher I have no clue….but either way I hope they don’t piss him off while he is in a Speedo on a deck that over looks my pool-less yard. When we left for the restaurant that we were taking my husband and son-in-laws for dinner, the Russians were barbequing something that looked like lamb. A whole lamb. Ya know, Mary had a little one. It was attached to a home made rotisserie and being tended to by the son, Semen (no comment), the daughter Anna which is short for Anastasya or as they call her, Nasty….(again no comment). It smelled hideous. When we came back from the restaurant where thankfully no one had lamb, the meat was off the grill and presumably being eaten or sacrificed. I wondered if they slaughtered the poor thing yesterday with the pressure washer. As I watered the plants on my own un-washed deck, Mrs. Leonid (and I am sure they have a last name I just don’t know and probably couldn’t pronounce anyway) was coming out of the house with a huge tray of what had to be over 10,000 cookies. With jealousy setting in, I reminded myself that we had just finished our own dessert….a $24.00 Carvel ice cream log that I bought in place of the ‘sorry all sold out’ Fudgie the Whale cake I promised my husband, a stale Entenmann’s crumb cake and watermelon.

I finished watering, poured a cup of coffee, grabbed my book and sat down to enjoy the cooled off evening air. The all-Russian radio station grew momentarily and eerily silent until they all began to sing what sounded like the Russian anthem, which had no words until the 2000 Olympics when the Ukrainian athletes complained they had nothing (like their American counterparts) to pretend to be singing on the medal podium. (just a little fact you might want to throw around at your next dinner party) I took my coffee, my book, Jerry my stinky dog and went inside to the air conditioning and my American husband who hates lamb and thankfully does not wear a Speedo.

Lemon Jello

Today I had a colonoscopy. I have one every 3 years. They call it a procedure so they can bill the insurance company three times what it really costs The prep as everyone knows is the hardest part of the whole experience. Twenty four hours with no solid food (which I can do) just liquids (which I can do) but only clear liquids (which rules out milk which means no coffee for me…can‘t do!) Since I had to have something semi solid or lose my mind, I had the jello they listed as an OK food. Just not red or orange so I chose to eat Lemon Jello. (my close friends will definitely get the inside joke there). It was really Peach Jello but that wouldn’t have been as funny. Then you have to take 4 laxative pills. Who’d have thought those teeny pills could pack such a wallop…jeez!  Rumble Rumble Rumble. I will spare you the details, but lets just say you could drive a truck through my colon and not hit any speed bumps.

I gave myself 45 minutes to do a 10 minute drive to the ‘procedure’ location. I knew it would be hard to park and I was right on the money. There was a mini van with Pennsylvania plates in front of me obviously looking for a spot as well and driving like he had no where to be anytime soon…I had 20 minutes now. I saw a spot on the corner at a muni-meter….now if I could just manuever around him and get there first. I honked, he pulled over, I passed him and I got to the spot first. Linda 1 Pennsylvania 0 

I walked the few blocks to the office and went straight to the 3 person elevator. It opened and 5 people walked out. I got in and went to the procedure floor and when the doors opened it was like Dorothy seeing Oz for the first time…only different. There were no flowers and little people, no yellow roads or storybook houses. There were, however, Hasidic Jews in full prayer mode, people so old they didn’t look like they could handle a procedure of any kind except maybe an autopsy, and more Russians than the Kremlin has seen in years. I felt like I needed my passport just to get off the elevator.

I sat. I waited. The soccer game was on the TV. No one watched. I sat. I waited. The barely audible radio was playing rap music. I sat. I waited. I rumbled. A lot. I came to two conclusions in that waiting room. One - The Hasidics must be big sinners. Every one of them had a bible or prayer beads and they rocked as they prayed to their God and I thought, what could these good god fearing people have done so wrong, that after fasting for 24 hours and subjecting themselves to jello and black coffee they still had to pray for divine invention?? Perhaps they were praying for good ‘procedure’ results, in which case I hope their God gets so overwhelmed with prayer that he gets the charts confused and my results are blessed as well. Two - I am not fond of non-English speaking Russians. Understandably they can only speak to other Russians but, there is such a thing as the universal language…it is called a smile! But nope, unless Svetlana or Igor are chatting them up, not a blip toward the American gentile. Ok so I wasn’t there to make friends…just patiently wait my turn. I did however, make eye contact with a lovely little Italian man that reminded me of my father…funny thing was he was reading a Russian newspaper….hmmm?

My name was finally called by a little Irish nurse with a big broad smile who took me into a room, handed me a gown that wouldn’t fit me on a good day and told me the anesthesiologist would be in shortly. A nice looking boy, yes BOY, walked in and asked a few questions about my health and told me he was the anesthesiologist. I called him Doogie….he laughed. Brownie Point!! I asked him what kind of anesthesia he was using….he said, “not the one that killed Michael Jackson”. Uh oh! I considered trying to make it back to my car in the robe with my ass hanging out….but then he added..’only kidding’ and I mentally returned from escape mode.

In the operating (er, um ‘procedure’ room) my doctor who I trust with my life (literally, I guess) came in and told me I was in good hands and told Doogie to proceed. As Doogie put the IV in my hand, he asked me if I watch TV and what shows were my favorite. I assume that was done to distract me from the fact that my bare ass was hanging off the side of a steel table. As I was telling him I watch a lot of reality junk, he leaned way in and whispered, “I just started watching the show 24 but it ended. Jack Bauer is the Man!“ It was at that moment I wanted the anesthetic to kick in, blissfully allowing me to leave this odd conversation only to wake up in the recovery room happily farting along with the other post-ops.

The procedure done, the results good, fully dressed and ready to roll I headed for the coffee room, a faster’s paradise. Coffee from that pot with the little pods, cookies, peanut butter crackers, juice…ah, now this was OZ for me. I could see the sign before I even opened the door….Coffee Pot Broken Do Not Use….and a little jar of instant coffee. No milk either, powdered! I considered the instant with the powder and realized that I could wait til I got home for my coffee…but I grabbed a pack of cheese crackers and mini chips ahoys for the road.  I returned to my car to find an expired muni-meter ticket on my windshield.  Oh well, Linda $35  Pennsylvania 0

heigh ho, heigh ho its off to work i go.........

My husband is on the verge of retiring at which time our marriage will be on the verge of expiring. Having him home all day, every day just isn’t gonna work. Since I only work part time, the 16 hours a week I am away from home wont be enough to restore my sanity. He recently started taking a day or so off each week just to see how it feels. He explains it is a big deal for a man to retire. (He should only know how hard it is on the woman.)

The first week it was kinda fun to have him home. I made him toast and eggs while he made the coffee. As we ate breakfast together...I read the paper while he watched the news. I did the dishes while he took out the recycling. A real Ozzie and Harriet moment. Week two…not so good. I did the dishes while he watched TV. I folded laundry while he napped. I vacuumed while he snacked. A real Archie Bunker moment. But by the third week I told him that if I saw him so much as sit down while I was washing, dusting or folding something I would have him killed. To his credit he did try. He waited til I was in the bathroom to sneak a snack. He waited til I was on the phone to sneak in a nap. With all this sneaking he figured it was easier to just go to work. Not as stressful.

We tried to figure out what to do with all our new found time together. I opted for making sure his life insurance policies were all in order while he suggested we could travel across the country in an RV. He suggested an RV! A recreational vehicle. The man has no recreation unless it is changing someone’s oil.  I imagined myself trapped in one of those one room on wheels  and thought of the endless hours of driving down some rural roadway as we discussed, ummm while we talked about the….errrr….yeah my point exactly. What the hell would we talk about as we motored across state after state.? And where would we be heading anyway? Graceland?  Dollywood? I thought perhaps traveling abroad. He made some sexist joke…a broad…ha ha get it…(I hate him!) and it was dropped. And for that, I got out my pad and made him a list of things that he could do around the house. Things he started and never finished.

The barbeque ignitor. He ordered the part, picked up the part, and examined the part….that’s as far as it got. Three years that part is in the junk draw waiting to be an ignitor.

Clean out the shed. We have two. One was here when we bought the house and he immediately filled it with crap. At best the first foot in was accessible. So for a Father’s Day oh so many years ago the kids chipped in and bought him a shed to go with his Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake. He transferred the ‘old shed shit’ into the new shed making it ‘new shed shit.’ Several years later we bought another shed, for the bikes, lawn mower etc. It was a huge shed that cost way to much but I foolishly thought that the ‘new shed with the old shit’  was coming down when the new kid in town was erected. Wrong. He just filled it up with more crap. So we have two sheds that are totally useless as far as storage goes. I have no idea what is even in those sheds….but if my husband goes missing….well don’t look in the sheds!

Change the outlets. I am married to an electrician that from all accounts is a very good one. I wouldn’t know however since every outlet in my house is from 1970 when the house was built. To plug in my vacuum I have to use the outlet attached to the overhead fixture in the bathroom. Of course that outlet only works when the light is on. And when that light is on, the vent fan is on. Between the vacuum and the vent fan noise you could lose your mind. To plug in my cell phone charger I have to unplug either the microwave or the radio. If I unplug the radio I lose all my pre-selected stations, if I unplug the microwave the clock is never right. So even though my cell phone now works I spend countless hours re-programming and/or resetting an appliance that has no business being friggin' unplugged in the first place. So more times than I care to recall, I have charged my cell phone while I am shit….um, peeing. When Christmas rolls around it becomes a nightmare of extension cords and twinkie lights. Fa la friggin’ la!

Throw out some papers. My husband has piles of papers everywhere. He thinks they are orderly because he hides them behind things. The windowsill in the kitchen has a foot deep worth of papers he thinks is hidden by a tiny 5 x 7 frame of my grandson. The decorative keyholder (cleverly disguised as a…key) is where he displays his collection of….rubbish. Theatre ticket stubs, motor oil coupons, faded receipts and anything that he can stuff between it and the wall. We have two file cabinets and one closet shelf that he also has stuffed with statements, directions, manuels and anything that can‘t fit behind the keyholder or my grandson. I have a paper shredder and an fervent need for confetti.

As I proceeded with my list, I looked up to see that my husband’s eyes were welling up. I felt bad for him, realizing that it was time to retire.  As he walked towards the door and I asked him where he was going, he smiled broader than I have seen in a while and said…”work, I don’t have the strength to retire”.  I stuck the list behind the keyholder!