....walnuts and prunes

Sunday we pruned the black walnut tree in my yard. It was long overdue to be pruned, technically long overdue to be killed. It created shade where I did not want shade, it randomly threw walnuts at me, and worse than that it grew at such an alarming rate that I feared being ravaged by the branches with every windstorm. (ok so maybe ravaged is a bit strong, but allow me literary license here) I bought a tree pruner some years ago,  giddy with anticipation of this day. It is basically a saw attached to a stick and a rope. You pull the rope the saw….saws. When my son pruned little trees around the yard it cut effortlessly. When my son in law used it to trim branches near his pool….effective and effortless. But of course when we tried to use it, nothing was effortless or effective. In fairness, the branch was much bigger than we should have been cutting with my little pruner. A chain saw would have been a better choice, but we had dug the pruner out of the shed and my husband was still game to give it a go. And if you know my husband, when he is primed and ready to go….you go….or it’s gone! And this applies to many aspects of our…..ok never mind! As the little pruner saw-teeth dug into the bark and then into the flesh of the tree I could almost hear it laughing at us, mocking our feeble attempt at such a large branch with such a small tool. I stood on the deck directing as my husband sawed from the ground. Not much progress. He ventured into the new shed with the old shit and came out with a ladder. He leaned the ladder on the side of the tree, climbed several rungs and began sawing with a hack saw. (which to me, is just a stickless pruner) Again, little to no progress. He climbed higher on the ladder as I remained vigilant at my post on the deck, ready to declare when the branch was ready to fall. I felt that leaning the ladder on the very tree you are hacking at is a lot like the dentist asking you to hold the spit tray while he yanks your tooth out. But my husband didn’t think that the fence would hold both him and the leaning ladder so the tree will just have to hold the spit tray.

With the humidity soaring the mosquitoes began devouring my arms and legs even as I stood inches away from a citronella plant.  How they didn’t just drown in my sweat is beyond me. My husband sawed, rested, sawed and sawed some more. I watched, sweated and swatted. For two hours we (ha) worked on the tree until I came up with a great idea. Gravity! If I could get a rope around the branch of the tree and tug on it as he sawed, gravity would help pull the branch away from its trunk. (See why he married me?) I looked everywhere for a rope and the best I could find was bakery string, purple wool and lots of colorful loops. (The ones you used to make pot holders with when you were in camp) I went back out to a resting husband with the bad news. He said to use the hose. After flinging the hose and not even coming close to getting it around the branch, hitting myself in the face twice with the nozzle I thought it best we moved onto plan B. I found a stick that helped me pull the branch low enough so that I was able to hang on it. I held on and hoped that when the branch snapped it didn’t come down splattering my over-taxed brains all over the backyard.  The walnut tree would have loved that!

I hung, he sawed and the branch finally seemed to give way. I could hear the snapping of the walnut wood which gave me a sick pleasure that I am sure I should check out with a therapist. The branch began a slow decent. I announced from my perch that it was indeed on its way down and warned my husband to come down off the ladder in case it doubled back. Of course my husband was not only off the ladder already, but half way down the driveway. I’m here hanging on the damn branch and he is bracing for an avalanche. My euphoria was short lived. The huge branch and its many branch-lets (?) fell straight into the lilac bush that had grown into a lilac tree. And just like that we were at a standstill. The tree was winning. I saw it smile. The bark curled up into a grin, I am sure.  Or maybe I was just delirious from the 10,000 mosquito bites I had welting up. So the branch, now not quite hacked off, not quite attached was laying across my yard, over my deck and imbedded into the lilac bush tree. My husband, not quite exhausted, not quite so primed and ready anymore was laying in a beach chair pondering our next move. Me, I was just scratching and cursing.

I am a giver-upper. I know when I am beaten. I know how to throw in the towel. If it had been up to me I would have called our ridiculously overpriced gardener and paid to have the tree removed in the first place. But now it was principle. A friggin’ tree was beating me. Us. Two against one and we were still losing. My husband finally decided to get out of the beach chair and come upstairs to the deck where I hung precariously from the branch just moments earlier and help me get the branch out of the bush. He pulled and I pulled and yes, I think the tree pulled back. But in the long run that branch that housed rodent squirrels and gave shelter to pigeon coop escapees….went down. Feeling very vindicated (and sweaty and itchy) I opted to leave the branch sprawled across the back yard allowing the rest of the tree to suffer the indignation of its loss. Instead, as my husband cut the branch into manageable pieces, I came in to take a shower and maybe call a therapist.

stay! Nay!

Some moron came up with a word for having no plans to go away on your week off of work….STAYCATION! A clever combination of staying home and going on vacation. And then there are the morons like me who, because they gave it a catchy name, thought it would make sense to stay home on my one and only paid week off of work. It didn’t.

Counting the Friday I don’t normally work in the first place, and both weekends I haven’t been back at work for 10 days. Ten. One week and two weekends. Guess what I did with those 10 days. Laid by a pool sipping Mai Tai’s? Nope. Frolicked at the beach while getting sun kissed? Not so much. Strolled on the boardwalk with my husband in the cooling night breeze? OK let’s not get stupid now! Here are my ten days off, and if you are jealous, god help you.

Friday - My dog needed to go to the vet because he has allergies that make him stink and scratch and apparently deaf. (yeah, him and my husband…good God!) I had to cover the car seats with towels, lift his stinky ass into the car and waste most of Friday sitting in the vet’s office waiting room waiting for stinky to get washed, shaved (don’t ask) and medicated. $364 later I leave with a wet and shaved (I told you don’t ask) dog who refuses to get back into the car. After much coaxing (ahem!) he gets back into the car and immediately pukes just missing the towels. After cleaning the car in the 92 degree heat I needed a nap. When I awoke it was time to start frying. I had my niece’s block party the next day and offered to make a chicken dish that basically involves cutting, egging, breading and frying. I cut, egged, breaded and fried til my feet fell asleep and my knees went numb standing in front of the stove.

Saturday - I had planned to start the renovations on my bedroom that have been in the planning stages for weeks. Unfortunately I got up later then I wanted to and by the time I had coffee, read the paper and showered all I had time to do was vacuum the living room since the stinky dog’s bath had caused most of his shedding hair to….shed. I threw a load of laundry in, emptied the dishwasher, unclogged the toilet, set my DVR and off I went to my niece’s. After circling the block thirteen times, finally finding a spot only a block and a half away I realize I do not have the chicken. Back home with only a whisper of hope that the spot would still be there when I returned. Silly me! I parked, walked and finally planted myself in a beach chair and attempted to get shit faced on homemade sangria slurpees. Didn’t happen but it was great fun trying!

Sunday- Did nothing and was mind-numbingly bored. I watched two DVD’s both comedies, both stunk! Anytime an adult actor attempts to play a child in a movie, break the DVD! As the day progressed and the boredom took over, I was able to find more and more things my husband did to annoy me. Not a major feat mind you, but I was definitely on a roll.

Monday - Made a list. Put all the things I wanted to accomplish that day so that I could cross them out one by one and feel somewhat productive. I threw away the list when I started adding things like refill hand soap dispenser and check if the lone tomato I was able to grow on my Topsy Turvy was ripe yet. (it wasn’t ripe, it was gone….the squirrels had struck again) I went to the dry cleaner, the bank and the post office. I topped off this rousing day of festivities by going grocery shopping. By Monday night I was exhausted from all the day’s activities so I stayed in and watched DVR’d TV.

Tuesday - After Monday’s dismal showing and babysitting in the morning, I vowed to do something exciting. It was 92 and I wanted desperately to be on a beach. Everyone was either working, busy with other plans or hadn’t worn a bathing suit since 1974. Although I will do a lot of things alone, laying on the beach isn’t one of them so I began the bedroom renovations. I made one of my famous lists. That, unfortunately, took more time than I actually devoted to the room itself. I pulled off two pieces of paper that were already jumping ship and took a mirror and painting off the wall. Ok enough for today, this was boring and not what I wanted to be doing on my STAYCATION! (I hung the mirror and picture back up when I couldn’t figure out what to do with them.)

Wednesday - My daughter and I decided to go to the Staten Island Museum. Me, her and the four grandkids. We arrived to find the kids were afraid to cut across the grass since they had found and tormented a snake the last time they were there. I suppose they were afraid it was payback time, so we took the longer route on the brick path. (ok so it was only like 25 extra feet but hey it was hot out) The museum was wonderful and almost air conditioned. It was hard to avoid the 25 little girls with pink camp shirts and big attitudes. If one more pink chick knocked my granddaughter down they would have had to eject me. If one more counselor pretended they didn’t see their commie campers knocking down the dominoes my grandkids carefully set up to knock down themselves, I would have been in cuffs. We carefully navigated the rest of the museum so that at no time were we and the disrespectful cretins in the same exhibit room.

Thursday - I have no idea what I did today. I can assure you it didn’t involve the sun or sand or UV rays. I probably had my ass on the couch in the A/C . Oh wait, I do remember downloading two songs to my ipod and a book to my Kindle. Yee ha! Look out, livin’ on the edge now! And yes, if my memory serves me correct, I made 75 lollipops for a friend’s engagement party.

Friday - I shopped for the food I would cook later for my block party tomorrow. I had everything but the eggs delivered. The delivery guy is rough with the bags and this time I bought jumbo eggs for my special deviled eggs. (technically are made by my friend but since I took them from raw to hard boiled, I took the credit) I dropped the eggs. Twelve jumbo eggs on the kitchen floor. I salvaged what I could and asked her to do the same with the ones I could boil. I sliced eggplant, breaded eggplant and fried eggplant. I cut chicken, breaded chicken and fried chicken. If I never see another drop of oil it will be too soon. (Unless I am slathering it on my body in anticipation of baking in the sun.) Another feet numbing fry-fest….I was shot.

Saturday - Happy Block Party! From 9am until 9pm we sat and drank, talked and drank, laughed, ate and drank with the neighbors….most of whom I never met in the 24 years I have lived here. We wrapped each other in toilet paper, threw water balloons at our children, dodged bikes and scooters and skateboards. We climbed, slid, and bounced as men with three teeth apiece made us snow and cotton candy cones. We danced and listened to the DJ Nazi who announced that he had to leave at 9pm sharp and literally unplugged mid song! The cooler empty, the uneaten food that hadn’t gone rancid in the sun divided amongst the guests, and my feet were ready to revolt and simply not function anymore. I all but walked on my knees to my house. Refusing to wash a dish or do anything that resembled cleaning I planted my exhausted self on the couch. Thanks to my daughter and son in law, the block party was a huge success.

Sunday - Recovery. Slow, slow morning, coffee with a friend and the realization that my son (yes, the one that moved to Queens..sniff, sniff) had left a duffle bag here which I whole heartedly offered to bring to him. I sludged around for most of the day until it was time to leave for my son’s. Directions in hand, I got lost….found my way and thoroughly enjoyed an hour or so with my son in his still curtain-less apartment. (good thing they are on the 2nd floor )

I never got to my renovation project, never basked in the sun and did nothing that necessitated a post card….but I did go back to work today and truthfully I already miss my couch.

...gotta a marshmallow?

I have decided it is time to re-do my bedroom. My daughter bought me a beautiful bedroom set almost two years ago and as it sits in the corner looking sad as it peeks out of it zippered bag I wondered why I hadn’t used it yet. But I knew. It was because it would have been a sin to put such a beautiful set in such a crappy room. Many years ago I ‘decorated’ the bedroom. I sponge painted the eight wall-length closet doors to resemble a marbled effect. This was long before it was called ‘faux finishing’ and before Youtube had step by step instructions on how to accomplish it. It was also long before places like Home Depot held classes that no one attends on how to pull off this technique. So my closets look more like a sad mottled mess than the marbleized look I was going for. The walls were painted a light grey and I hung a border of pink and grey flowers. The curtains matched the border. It was a cross between Little House on the Prairie and My Secret Garden. Two pieces of border have started to show signs of mutiny as they hang on with ancient glue. The rug, before my dog added his little accent color, was grey on grey. How’s that for exciting??

Years ago we removed an air conditioner from the wall. The outside was covered easy enough by the new siding, but inside the bedroom was a void that I simply filled with crumpled newspapers and then plastered over. I think I saw that on This Old House, or maybe it was This House is Old…either way, it worked and I didn’t have to wait for or fight with Mr. Wonderful to get around to it. It wasn’t the best plaster job to begin with, but it got even worse when I wallpapered over the bumpiness. My solution, hang a mirror over the whole mess. And that worked too. Til now. The mirror with its, you guessed it…pink and grey flowers has to come down.

The ceiling fan that has been up pretty much since we bought the house 24 years ago has about 12 years of dust on it. (and they were worried about the air quality at ground zero…) I thought about taking down the fan and putting up some fun, sexy lighting…but then I thought who the hell has fun or sex in the…never mind.

I haven’t decided on a color yet. I thought maybe an accent wall, a nice bold green. Or burgundy. I went to Home Depot and saw colors like pistachio, mango madness and cappucino. It made me hungry. I avoided the section called Fall Colors since I assume come winter I will need to repaint. I found an entire section dedicated to Feng Shui and since I am pretty sure my Feng has no Shui left in it, I passed that up as well. There was the Zen section which is basically the equivalent of sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya my Lord” and making S’mores. Calm, tranquil, peaceful. I am not a very Zen-like person…for me it would end up looking the equivalent of finding out there are no more marshmallows and a bear has taken up residence in my sleeping bag. I found a wall of paint chips which were in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears. I took four of every color for my grandkids but saw nothing that worked for me. Paint shopping a bust, I came home to take another look at the room and considered wallpapering. Considered and then banished from thought as a momentary memory lapse allowed me to forget the bathroom wallpaper disaster.

My bedroom also needs corners…..there are no corners in my bedroom, at least none that aren’t filled with ‘stuff’. We have my husband’s valet that he bought because it had a pants presser feature. There has never been a pair of pants pressed or even remotely hung on that valet in 10 years. They sit puddled across the top. I would throw it out but then my husband would puddle his pants on the floor where the valet had stood. Trust me on this one. The other corner has a box containing a 20 foot Spongebob blowup, another of my husband’s idiotic eBay acquisitions. It has a hole so it sits in a box, in my room, in a corner, covered by a tablecloth, adorned with a vase. Spongebob is going down! (or maybe up…. into the attic) In another corner is a dress form which I bought years ago to facilitate my sewing projects. Since in order for a dress form to be useful, it needs to be adjusted to your exact measurements. I cried for over a week and then banished the portly dummy to the corner like some sick Time Out for being fat. There it has sat for over three years and other than scaring the hell out of my husband in the dark has few redeeming qualities.

The furniture will stay. It is still ghetto fabulous and besides all the drawers still work. I will need some artwork, some shelves and of course curtains. I am considering making the curtains since I do not need the assistance of my chubby assistant. Once I pick a color I will pick a fabric. Of course then I will need to decide curtains or drapes….single rod or grommet…swag or scarf….sheers or drapes….French or accordian pleats….or anything that doesn’t have little pink and grey flowers.

......leukemia and pig babies

My mother in law was in the hospital….again. We blamed the pacemaker. We blamed an ulcer. We thought it could be depression. Stress. High blood pressure. Low blood sugar. You name it we guessed it. Better to be safe then sorry….off to the ER.

Six hours and a tuna sandwich later they admitted her for tests. They thought it could be the pacemaker or an ulcer, possibly depression or stress. Her blood pressure too high, her sugar to low…so better to be safe than sorry they admitted her. Gee, I could have told them that.

After a two weeks in the hospital with no definitive diagnosis she was released and told to follow up with her doctors. The orthopedist, the cardiologist, the gastroenterologist and now, a new one…..a hematology oncologist. She called it her ‘blood doctor’ but I knew better. Apparently so did she since she asked everyone she knew if she had leukemia.  I assured her she didn't although I was just being optimistic and asked her if she had a health proxy.  She said, just let me die.  We both laughed.

We drove to the doctor who’s office was across the street from the same hospital she checks in and out of pretty regularly these days. There is never any parking, legal or illegal so we agreed I would just park in the lot. I pulled in and pressed the button and waited for the machine to spit out a ticket that in due time would be exchanged for somewhere upwards of $12. No ticket. Press. No ticket. Press. Nothing. I opened my window and motioned to the indifferent woman in the booth. She asked me to back up and use the other lane. The other lane wouldn’t give me a ticket either, and so, as if it was my fault she got out of her air conditioned booth and gave me a ticket and an attitude. I was on my best behavior for my mother in law, so miss attitude caught a break instead of my fist. We parked, took the elevator up to the ground floor and a second elevator bank. The doctor’s business card had no room or floor on it so I called the office. The exact conversation:

“Doctor’s office.”

“Hi, can you tell me what suite you are in?”

“Hold please.” almost 2 minutes later...

“Doctor’s office”

“Hi, I am downstairs, can you tell me what floor and room you are in?”

Silence. Dial tone.

“Doctor’s office”

“Hi, please, we got disconnected please just tell me what suite you are in?”

“I told you 4G ma‘am, I am busy here.” Click. Best behavior…best behavior.

The elevator door opened and we were hit with a blast of hot air. I flashed back on every fire safety lesson I have ever had as a child as I thought for sure there was a fire somewhere. I knew between my mother in law and myself, stop, drop and roll wasn’t gonna work as neither of us would ever be able to get up again and simply perish on the dirty carpeting in the hallway of the 4th floor. I peered down the hallway and saw no flames even though the heat was intense. We made our way to 4G which turned out to be a supply closet, but 4B had her doctor’s name on it so we entered.  (So much for the busy little receptionist with the thick accent and lousy attitude)

The office had a small waiting room where there were 4 people already seated and waiting. A knitter, a snorer and I assume her husband and a woman reading a book called How Successful People Speak, and then proceeded to belch out loud.  She's gonna need more than the book! As I filled out the new patient forms and sweat poured from my forehead, it was apparently clear what the heat was from….the air conditioning on this side of the building was not working. My mother in law who talks until you want to stick a metal rod in your ear and who is in denial about her hearing loss wanted to know why it was so ‘damn’ hot in there. After repeatedly explaining about the broken A/C, she turned to a me and said, ”I don’t think the air conditioning is working.”  Best behavior…best behavior.

After over a hour of fanning myself with a mammogram brochure and being told by the knitter that I was exhausting more energy fanning myself and therefore making myself hotter, I was ready to scream.  Thanks but no thanks for your unsolicited advice....go back to knitting your booties or blanket and let me sweat and fan in peace.  Listening to my mother in law's stories about life as a kid, complete with the one about the lady who got scared by a pig while she was pregnant and had a pig baby, prompted me to ask the receptionist from hell if she knew how much longer it would be. I found it rather suspicious that no one had been called, and all too soon found out that the doctor wasn’t even there yet.  Engineering showed up with a fan which would have actually helped except when they plugged it in it sparked and they whisked it away leaving us dripping and fanning ourselves once again.  (Well, I fanned... the knitter, knitted.) My mother in law who decided to talk to her captive audience about how many times a night she pees asked what happened to the fan.  I jokingly told her the air was fixed and she heartily agreed that it was feeling cooler already.  We were finally called to the rear office where we remained for another 40 minutes before the doctor came in.  This was an outing for my mother in law, a day away from her house....for me it was supposed to be my day off.  She rambled and I listened to her stories as intently as I could considering I hadn't eaten since 7am and my blood sugar was probably 12 and my body could no longer even produce a bead of sweat. 

The ‘blood doctor’ was about 4 foot 10 and looked disturbingly like the munchkin coroner from OZ.  He was Phillipine, looked Mexican, had a German name and spoke with an Italian accent.  Man I'd hate to see his family tree.  And it got worse. When he spoke it sounded like he had just inhaled a helium balloon, and as he continued to talk I continued to look for a hidden camera, Ashton and the Punk’d crew. He asked her in his shrill, high pitched Italian articulation how she was feeling. I wanted to scream HOT! But I didn’t, best behavior.  Best behavior. He gave her a clean bill of health, no blood disorders, no leukemia, nothing to warrant going to an oncologist, and no reason to make a follow up appointment. (ok I decided there was no reason for the follow up appt)  As I hurried my mother in law out of the office before she began to tell yet another ''life in the hills of Illinois" story I realized this had actually been a good day.  She was healthy, I had lost 6 pounds in the sauna office, I now knew not to expend energy by fanning myself and lunch was on her!   Hmmm, too bad I don't like lobster!

i'm melting, melting..........

I wasn’t born with the calm, cool or collected gene. I never said I was unshakeable, unflappable, or unexcitable. So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it has taken me 4 days to even recount our Sunday outing to Madame Tussauds wax museum in Manhattan to see the Wizard of Oz 4D experience via the NYC subway system.

I think it was my idea. Maybe it was my daughter, the one that had the coupons. At this point I am willing to take the blame, err... I mean credit for this wonderful summer day in the city. (Midtown. Times Square. 96 degrees…..just a few points to consider)

I didn’t sleep the night before. I had nightmare after nightmare but nothing related directly to our decision to take the train in. Nothing related to the fact that the weatherman was calling for hot sticky humid mid 90’s. And nothing related to the fact that the last time I was on a train was 7 years ago and 22 years before that. Seven years ago we ventured into the city for a friends 50th and proceeded to meander around the city via urine soaked subway cars and menacing dank train platforms. And while the birthday weekend was a huge success, it was then that I swore off subways, trains, railroads, railways and basically anything I needed a metro card for. (I did however score a really cool subway line t-shirt as a reward for my fortitude, or perhaps it was to shut me up.) This time there were eleven of us, including my four grandchildren and the birthday girl herself. This time no t-shirt in the world was gonna help.

With no sleep, I showered and ate breakfast like I was gonna walk the green mile. Not exactly a fitting way to start a fun-packed Sunday with the family. We agreed to leave at 10 and meet at the subway station…which would have been fine if my husband hadn’t insisted my son in law take a parking spot that was 2 blocks away.   90 degrees

We all met in front of the train station to buy our metro cards. Only the birthday girl had one already.  Hmmmm?? Insert the bill, it comes out. Insert it again, nothing. Insert it upside down we get the screen to chose which card we would like to purchase. We chose, it can’t make enough change. We chose again and we finally have our metro card and the angry crowd building behind us is relieved. One by one we proceed to swine and enter. Swipe and enter. Swipe and….swipe and….swipe and nothing. Our metro card is not working and before my husband got locked up for defacing MTA property, birthday girl swiped her card and we entered. We opened the gate for the carriage setting off an ear-piercing yet unanswered alarm. So much for post 9/11 security. We climbed the stairs, which while still dank and foul smelling did not seem so menacing in the light of day. After a quick assessment of who had who’s hand and where each grandchild specifically stood, I took my first breath since the metro card purchase. And we waited for the train. When did they make the platforms so damn narrow? I think maybe, possibly someone said something to me, but I was vigilant at my post to protect my grandkids from becoming a horrible news headline….CHILD PULLED FROM TRACKS BY VIGILANT GRANDMA….. 91 degrees

It dawned on me that there was a possibility that the subway car would not be air conditioned but since standing on that platform any longer than necessary was not an option, no A/C and we were still getting on. Lucky us, air and seats. Not together, but do-able. My grandsons were further away from me than I would have liked when the entertainment entered the car. A homeless, drug addict magician who had metal rings that he attached himself to the poles with. Yay! Give the guy a buck and let him move on. My husband, who to this point was trying to look nonchalant with the whole experience (other than the metro card fiasco back in Brooklyn) was mesmerized by the digital map that counted off the stops we would be making. He stared up at it for most of the ride, announcing the stops much to the enjoyment of the other riders although it is doubtful that any of them spoke English. We were the only ’Americans’ and yet the only people who looked like tourists. Except maybe the birthday girl who remained just far enough away to feign anonymity. I blew her cover by taking her picture along with the grandkids, their parents and the magician. My husband announced our stop was next and I mentally prepared for the exodus and the hands that needed holding. Birthday girl was on her own. We made it up two flights of stairs, each one had exactly 13 steps. I counted. It kept me from screaming. The daylight and exhilaration of the 42nd street crowds made me smile. That and the fact that the museum was only a scant half block away.  93 degrees

For the price of the wax museum we could have gone to an all inclusive Punta Cana resort for the weekend, and that was with the coupons. The museum was packed with everyone from everywhere. Times Square is truly the crossroads of the world. Not a road I am too comfortable on, but I have bigger things to worry about…..like the trip home. Floor after floor we photographed the kids and ourselves hugging and yes at times grabbing our favorites. Birthday girl was disappointed that Rod Stewart had not made the waxing process yet and my husband admired Lady Di way too long. (if he told me once more about how he met her I was gonna shove him into her waxy figure)  The 4D OZ experience was wonderful perhaps because I am a huge OZ fan or perhaps because we were sitting in air conditioning and for the first time in hours I wasn't dripping from any body parts.

All geared up for the gift shop and the kids didn’t want anything. I wondered why. I found out moments later. We were going to the Toys R Us in Times Square where there are floors of toys to chose from. I made a feeble attempt to buy a $10 bag from a vendor en route but the sweat dripping off my nose stopped me from even considering a transaction out here in the heat. We made it to the world’s biggest toy store, with the world’s biggest indoor ferris wheel and the world’s biggest crowds. As the kids picked their souveniers I once again strategized our trip back to the subway station. Armed with the metro card that didn’t previously work, I swiped, we entered. No one but me was impressed. Following the signs to our train, I held on perhaps a little too tight to my grandson’s hand (I hope he wasn’t planning on playing the piano any time soon) when we realized that my daughter had stopped to use the rest room. THE REST ROOM IN TIMES SQUARE! Had I taught her nothing?! Note to self: administer penicillin    94 degrees

The platform was so packed that people were actually standing within the yellow line. The one they painted so that people would know that they were inches away from being dismembered by a 200 ton speeding piece of metal. The one that my son in law thought would be a good place to walk with the carriage to circumvent the wall to wall people all set to get on the same train as me and my ten pack. The train ride home was as eventful or uneventful as the ride in. My husband playing conductor calling out stops, the birthday girl sitting as far away as possible, and the kids watching the entertainment which this time was a sad rendition of La Bamba. A woman started eating rice and bean out of a Styrofoam container completely oblivious to the reeking subway stench. I silently mocked her only to find my daughter, the one that would be getting the pencillin shot, eating out of a zip lock bag. A snack she had brought presumably for her daughter.  95 degrees

We arrived back at the Brooklyn train station, set off the same alarm, said goodbye to those who found a decent parking spot and made our way to the car with me sweating and swearing and planning our next outing.

sorry fellas.........

On Wednesday evenings we put out the recycling in our neighborhood and other than having my green recycling bin stolen twice, I think it is very theraputic to clean out the old crappy magazines that are clogging up the magazine rack in the bathrooms.

For some reason I get like ten magazines a week. Some I ordered as part of a school ‘make the grandparents feel guilty” fund raiser, others were promotional ‘get one year free if you order NOW’, and others I have no idea where they came from but I am guessing my husband filled out one of those annoying little cards that they embed in the magazines. Mostly they are family type magazines filled with recipes and tips like how to look thinner in photographs. (Gonna take a lot more than standing sideways and bending a knee. At least for me.) Some of the magazines are craft magazines, which of course I ordered with all good intentions of becoming the next bohemian artist to show at a SoHo storefront. So that ain’t happenin’ either. I could have learned how to make a footstool in 10 steps or less a project I will never undertake no matter how few steps it takes. The only person I know that uses a footstool is my 82 year old Aunt Joy Mae from Illinois? A few of the magazines are my husband’s, all filled with Vettes, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins….he drives a Chevy Pick up and I have a Dodge….’nuf said. But my favorite magazine of all is my People, a gift subscription from a friend that I recently renewed. I can catch up on all the people that are getting married, breaking up, going to rehab, losing weight, gaining weight, looking good in a swimsuit, need to invest in a beach cover-up, ranted, raved, used the “N” word and crashed their car….and then when the neighbors and I are finished gossiping about each other I like to find out what the celebrities are doing. Hey, look at that….they are getting married, breaking up, going into rehab, losing weight…….

I found a few missing items at the bottom of the magazine rack. An earring that I swore I lost in a pool, which tells me that I was walking around for a few days with only one earring and no one bothered to tell me. I found an old wheat penny, which my husband collects and insists are worth money….yeah 2 cents. Maybe. And the biggest find was the stylus for my Nintendo DS game (and they say I’m not technologically forward, ha). I use the DS to keep my brain from atrophying by playing Brain Age while my legs and feet go numb from sitting on the bowl too long. (too much info, sorry!) The stylus has been missing forever and I had to use my nail to point and click to find out my true Brain Age. The lower the score the younger the brain. When I scored 39 I was happy…now if I get my true age I am thrilled. The brain has gotten old and tired in the wake of the missing stylus. Oh and I found a french fry. Since as far as I know my husband doesn’t snack in the bathroom I assume it was one of my grandsons.

I bundle the magazines with bakery twine and put them in my newspaper recycling bin. I take pride in the fact that the bin is almost half full already and I have two more bathrooms to do. I anticipate the finds at the bottom of those as well.

The bathroom in the basement which used to be my son’s apartment (she wipes a tear from her eye) has mostly year old magazines with naked women sitting on cars, naked women smoking cigars, naked woman wearing sports equipment, naked women in…well you get the idea. I dust them off and leave them there in the hopes that when next my son visits he will stay a bit longer…hopefully not in the bathroom the whole time.  Note to self: Grandsons cannot use downstairs bathroom.

The bathroom upstairs, I suppose if it were more conveniently located within my bedroom, would be called the Master Bath. But since it is at the top of the stairs it is simply, the upstairs bathroom.  That bathroom had the following:  A Beavis and Butthead sticker book….his not mine, no comment. *SAVE* A book on coin collecting, which while I had it out checked out those wheat pennies he neurotically collects. Yup, 2 cents. One particular year, 3 cents. He lied. *SAVE*  Union Life magazine….. basically a list of  union workers who died that month and how much their widows collected.  Seems a little gruesome to print a list like that, but I guess he just keeps checking to see if his name is in there. (when it is,  he can stop collecting his god damn pennies.) *TRASH * A People magazine from August 2009 with Kate Gosselin, pre-Dancing With The Stars makeover bitching and moaning about Jon and the media. Hellooo…..the media is the reason you are in my bathroom magazine rack in the first place and without Jon there is no little tribe to exploit, *TRASH* A catalogue for sheds…oh no ain’t going there again.  *TRASH* Another catalogue for sheds with things circled. *RIP AND TRASH* Three hard cover books made their way into the rack designed for magazine grade paper….The Life Story of Abbott & Costello, ditto Soupy Sales and TheYankee Years…his, his, mine. *SAVE*, *SAVE* and *SAVE* Two old Law Digest magazines that somehow made their way from the basement to the upstairs bathroom in pristine condition. I am guessing no one is reading them. *TRASH*  Another earring appeared, a Spongebob toothbrush, 3 pennies (none wheat), something that resembled a huge dead bug or a petrified prune but turned out to be something made out of plastic that melted into a blob, sixteen rubber bands and my husband's comb which he has been looking for since April.

The bathroom purging complete I tied the remain bundles and deposit them in the green bucket. Sorry fellas, you’ve used up all your relevance and it’s off to the big salvage yard in the sky. But then I realized it was Thursday and missed my recycling day. Guess they will just have to wait in periodical limbo until next Wednesday.

...cramps and crackers

I have a stomach ache. Don’t leave.…I won’t be dazzling you with tales of trips to the bathroom, won’t be subjecting you to mental pictures of bowl hugging and nausea. (I want you to know I spelled nausea all by myself, no spell check.) I do however want to vent about being sick, but not THAT sick, sick enough, but not doctor sick…you get the picture. Frankly it stinks. No one feels sorry for you, no one babies you, no one offers to make you tea. And everyone expects life to go on as usual, and of course it should and of course it does….

I have been hurting since Monday when I swallowed resort pool water that quite frankly I don’t think should have been ingested considering the amount of diaperless babies I saw swimming.  Some days it is really bad, sometimes not so much. On Thursday I watched my grandkids so that my daughter could go to work for a couple of hours even though it was a bad day.  (hope they remember these things when it comes to picking out my nursing home) I knew I wasn’t feeling well when I didn’t have the patience to put together the Dora puzzle for the eleventh time. I knew I wasn’t feeling well when I gave them animal crackers for breakfast and more telling, I watched Barney with them…twice! As soon as my daughter arrived to collect her kids I told her I needed to lay down and basically threw her out. I nestled myself on the floor amidst the toys and puzzles, grabbed a pillow from the couch, (yes the decorative ones I won’t let my husband use) and blissfully fell asleep. For 8 minutes….til the phone rang. The phone that of course was not nestled with me on the floor. I ignored the ringing figuring that by the time I got my sick bloated stomach off the floor and found the phone it would be too late. Back to sleep. Two minutes. Cell phone ringing from inside my pocketbook which was again somewhere other than nestled with me on the floor. I got up as quickly as my twisting gut would allow and found my pocketbook and my cell phone and then it stopped ringing…of course. I checked to see who it was and it said RESTRICTED which could only mean two things. It was Verizon calling to upgrade my service for an additional $20 a month which ain’t happening ….or….it was my brother-in-law who for some reason has it set up that his cell comes up restricted. (Like someone wants to get hold of his number and breathe heavy..?!) I checked the house phone and it was a RESTRICTED number as well so I guessed it was my brother in law and called his cell. His phone played a minute version of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World before he answered. My mother in law had to go to the hospital, that he was taking her now, and could I meet him there so that he can leave. ( he isn’t too well himself)  I agreed, grimaced and beeped my husband. Yes beeped. He has a beeper…welcome to 1985. I cursed the bowel gods as I waited for him to call back. Of course today, the day I need to be asleep on the floor amongst tea sets and fisher price, he is in a ‘dead’ zone. He doesn’t get the beep for over a half hour during which time I am slowly getting dressed against all better judgement, to go to the hospital. (I better be in that will!)

I picked up my daughter (not the one I previously threw out) to come with me in case I ended up on the floor myself enroute to the hospital and so that I didn’t have to look for a parking spot which is virtually impossible to find. We got to the hospital, I found a spot across the street…ACROSS THE STREET…you have no idea how huge that is. As I made my way through the ER with over 60 cubicles filled with the sick, sicker and sickest... I held my breath. I felt that in my stomach twisting condition I was way too susceptible to germs. We found my mother in law, stayed til they gave her pain medicine and admitted her. I was jealous. Just a little of that pain medicine would go a long way for my sorry little intestines.

On the way home my husband called to check in on how his mom fared in the ER, to say he was on his way home and should he go home or to the hospital. He also asked what we were having for dinner. I hung up.  We ate tuna that night. On crackers. Not the breakfast animal crackers, but on low sodium Ritz crackers which all things considered was worse than had we spread it on the camels and elephants.

I found my way to the floor once again. The toys were gone but my stinky dog decided I must want to play if I laid on the floor. He nudged and scratched and dropped balls on me. My husband, reminding me through it all, that he loves me. Not my husband, the dog. I gave up on the thought of sleeping. I turned on my computer and went on to Facebook to complain about the pain in my belly. My Facebook family all wished me well, and ya know I think it worked.

go ask Alice..........

On June 30, 2010 Mr. Wonderful and I were married 36 years. I think that bears repeating....36 YEARS! 432 MONTHS! 1728 WEEKS! 12,096 DAYS! 290,304 HOURS! 17,418,240 MINUTES! (feel bad for me yet?) In our usual celebratory fashion (ha..!) we planned a night out...for him, a free Morton’s Steakhouse dinner...for me, a free Broadway play. (I promise I will explain all this free stuff later) I changed my hours from afternoon to morning so that I would be home in time to get dressed to leave for dinner. He had to take the day off....to rest up for the big night out. Going anywhere with my husband is always an experience. We have to leave way too early, get there way too soon, take roads no one else would and not a traffic jam in the world annoys him. My kids go every year to the Thanksgiving Day parade with him, where they are made to leave at the crack of dawn, drive down Flatbush Avenue with the kamikaze dollar vans and then park almost in another borough and always facing south. (don’t ask) But leaving him there to save a choice spot, sitting like the egg hatching Horton while they get their kids breakfast somehow evens the score. So on this night  we will leave for dinner and an 8 o'clock show at........4:00pm.

The nightmare that is Flatbush Avenue doesn't disappoint. Dollar vans, crack heads, traffic. Ah, the start of a wonderful evening. We drive past Morton’s looking for a spot. Nothing. (I mention there is a parking lot next door in the hotel...no response) We circle the block. Still nothing. Twice. Nada (I mention there is a parking lot next door in the hotel....no response) A quarter of a tank of gas later as I circle and he navigates a look of amazement comes over him as he proclaims, "Look, there's a parking lot in the hotel next door." I applaud his discovery, park and say nothing. That, in a nutshell, is how we are still married after 36 years, 432 months.... (feelin' for me yet?)

We 'self park' I presume because the cheap bastard doesn't want to spring for the $1 valet tip. He will say it is because they will scratch the car. He has to choose the spot, not too near a turn or a wall or a crappy car. I drive a god damn Dodge! By the time we park and locate the elevator we are hardly speaking. Well I am hardly speaking, I don’t think he even knows I am pissed off. The elevator opens and we are on the convention floors of the hotel where there is a ballroom dancing competition. There are tables selling everything from jewelry to ball gowns, tiaras to tights. Every guy looked like a young Liberace dressed in oh-so-tight pants that left nothing to the imagination and showed their bulging...biceps? And the women had on more makeup than the gown mannequins. We headed for the nearest EXIT sign we could find. Through each EXIT door came another hallway, with another set of sale items, more Liberaces and several prancing high-heeled women. They sailed passed us practicing their passé dobles and Pechangas. I felt like Alice in Wonderland after falling in the rabbit hole with Twiddle Dee pulling up the rear. We finally reached a door that let us out into the 2nd floor lobby of the hotel. We headed for the escalator which of course was not working so we walked down the steepest and longest flight of stairs I have been on since I packed on these last 20 pounds. Who over tells you that going down isn't as hard as going up has never been on this gravity defying escalator from hell.

We walked into the restaurant and was instantly greeted by a hostess, a host, a waiter, three bus boys and a man in a suit, presumably the maitre d. We were shown our table, handed a menu and asked if we had ever been there before. They lit our little pig lantern and adjusted it to a romantic hue. (Of course I couldn’t see a damn thing since my gradient eyeglass lenses take forever to lighten in the darkness.) I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the little lamp on the table was a pig, when there wasn’t a damn pork product on the menu. A cow I would understand, the pig...not so much. I found out later it has graced their tables since the first restaurant opened in 1978 and for $80 I could have my own pig light. Gonna pass, maybe next time. Every one of the wait staff that walked by said hello and asked us how we were doing? Every one. Every friggin' one.

A waiter that we hadn't seen yet or been greeted by came to our table pushing a cart full of steaks. Each was a different size and cut and I dare say, price. As the waiter held up each wrapped steak and described its cut and aging temperature, all I could think of was that I had a McDonalds Snack Wrap for lunch. We ordered drinks. We ordered salads. We ordered steak, a potatoe and creamed spinach for two. (insert any joke you‘d like here) The house Merlot was wonderful and served in an oversized wine glass which made me feel like Alice again. (one glass makes you larger…. one glass makes you small) The waitress anxiously, although not patiently, waited for me to open my present which my husband had put on the table next to the flaming pig lamp. He ordered the Porterhouse which looked like something Fred and Wilma would be grillin’ up, hanging off the plate on two sides. Mine was the ‘smaller’ Ribeye cut which was still about six servings on the Weight Watcher menu that I have long discarded. Deliciously cooked to perfection. The potatoes were steak fries and any sort of healthy preference in spinach was thwarted by the creamed part of that recipe. Full, and in pain, we ordered coffee and dessert. Upside-down apple pie Haagen Daz a-la-mode. Tell me you could have resisted that???

I opened my gift. A beautiful necklace that has the infinity symbol on it which leads me to believe he is either telling me we will be together forever or there is an Infiniti QX45 parked outside for me. SURPRISE!…nope, we’ll be together forever.

The coffee came. The irresistible and yet unfinished desert came. The bill came. A friend gave us a $100 gift card to Morton’s some time ago and we just got the opportunity to use it. And we only had to add $145. Two people, two drinks, two steaks, two hundred forty five dollars…tip included. The good news is they validated the parking ticket and therefore it only cost $12 to park in the hotel lot.

The Broadway show we went to was courtesy of one of my daughter’s friends who bought them years ago for someone who couldn’t go. With a few phone calls the tickets got traded in for anniversary seats. Thank you Lisa…both of you! Jersey Boys was so terrific and the seats were so good that I didn’t even mind the chatty little oriental girl next to me or the fact that she sang along way off tune…Shelli, Shelli baby…..!

Happy 36 years to us, and to another 36! (did I really just say that?)

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!