Let's do the time warp, yeaaaaaah.....

There's nothing like being dragged kicking and screaming into a time warp at 5:30 on a Friday morning.

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this morning, I saw my ex-fiance Jody had friended some new people. One name looked kind of familiar, so I clicked on it and was suddenly transported back to 1989, and a seedy bar in Blacksburg, Virginia.

It was Dave. I had met Dave at a local bar called The Phoenix Club which was one of the few places underage students could go dance and get served at the bar with minimal hassle. Well, I never had an issue, which probably accounts for why I missed most of my classes in my second semester there. Ahem.

Dave was tall, with devastating dimples and blue eyes. The attraction between us was instantaneous. He was a second-year, I was a first-year, and we had absolutely nothing in common other than wanting to tear each others' clothes off. Which we did. A lot.

We did hang out a little bit outside of the dorm, but most of our quality time was spent rocking the loft in his room. It was silly and fun and honestly, I knew I would probably never see him again after the semester was over as he went to his home and I went...well, I didn't know where I was going to end up at that time. That's a long story for another time.

The last day before everyone packed up for the summer, I went over to his dorm room to say goodbye. He introduced me to two guys from my hometown, and as it would turn out within six months I'd be engaged to one of them.

Dave did send me a few letters that summer, written on lined notebook paper with a peculiar backhanded script. He was very funny and articulate and I started having thoughts that maybe, just maybe - he cared about me more than just a girl he spend few sweaty months with in his room in West A-J.

I didn't write back. By that time, I was on the downward spiral that would last the next two years of my life until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Plus, I decided in a brilliant moment to drop out of college. I knew I'd never see Dave again.

Well, not until 2011, at least.

He has an open profile so I took a few minutes to scroll through his pictures until I saw a few from college. The memories came flooding back - not only of him, but of the chaos that had enveloped my life there. Second semester was one of the most hellish experiences of my life, thanks to my psychotic roommate that would write threatening letters to me and made me scared to sleep in my own room. My nerves were such a wreck that I stopped eating and was 30 pounds lighter than I was when I left for school (which was already too thin). My grades tanked and I knew there was a good chance I was going to get kicked out of school.

As I see it now, Dave provided a safe haven away from all my problems back in Slusher Tower. He didn't care about all the roommate drama - not that he wasn't supportive, but really all he cared about was having fun and spending time with me. That's exactly what I needed at the time. Well, that and a safe place to sleep where I wasn't worried about my roommate smothering me in my sleep.

Years later, my fiance would tell me that Dave bragged about me to all his friends. "He said you were the best lay he'd ever had," he seethed, gritting his teeth. And you know, I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment considering most college guys think any sexual experience not involving a six-pack, a box of tissues and a bottle of lotion is the best.

That semester isn't something I've ever talked about much. It was painful, it was scary, and it was almost surreal. It was the end of my innocence and feeling like I could do anything. I was left an insecure, exhausted bag of bones. I still have nightmares from that time.

Today, for just a moment, I remembered the small glint of happiness that I had at that time. So if I ever see Dave - which could happen since he actually lives in our city - I'm going to have to find out a way to thank him for that. Hopefully that won't involve his wife punching me.

Afterlife

As I was surfing through my favorite blogs today, one in particular called out her favorite bloggers and in particular Amalah. I've never been a follower of that blog, even though it's one of the most popular ones on the interwebz. I followed the link, read a few posts, and felt the memories come flooding back.

Her father is dying of cancer.

I have really been missing my father lately. I can't help but think that since Nick was born exactly 4 months and a day after my father died, that somehow my dad had something to do with us getting such a sweet, sweet boy.

My dad was a total prankster, and absolutely adored dogs. When we moved back to Virginia back in 1997, a German Shepherd-mix was dropped off on the road by my parents' house and my dad ended up adopting him. Brutus was his best buddy for many years until he died of a heart attack while my parents were traveling in Europe. My dad was devastated and never, ever had another dog after that.

Fast forward to when we got Rufus. He has always been on the shy side, but when he growled at my dad and then my dad growled back, Rufus determined that Grandpa was not to be trusted. Thus began a dance between the two of them every time they were in the same room. Rufus would sidle up to my dad, getting juuuust close enough - my dad would attempt to pet him and Rufus would jump away, wagging his tail and grinning. The only time Dad was ever able to pet him was when Rufus was asleep.

My dad would absolutely adore Nick, not only because of his cuteness but also his sweet disposition. As a matter of fact, Nick is like my dad in dog form. Sweet, good natured, a little stubborn, and smart as hell. A deadly combination.

Last year was so draining. I adored my father to the ends of the earth. He was and is my hero. Watching his illness progress was one of the hardest things I've ever had to live through, if not the hardest thing. He was so brave, and faced death with a stoicism that I still admire to this day. He trusted in his God to hold him in his hand and guide him through his final days.

The last day he was truly lucid was July 31st, his 89th birthday. He suffered through his birthday party with our family and by the end was a total wreck from the pain. After that, they bumped up his medication and he remained in a haze for the next two weeks.

As I sat by his bedside that last week, I held his hands for hours while I traced every line, vein, and spot with my finger. He was completely lost in the clouds of painkillers, which only allowed him a few lucid moments each day and I treasured every second of them. I had already said everything that needed to be said, and heard him say everything that I needed to hear. There were only slow, steady motions of comfort left to offer. Smoothing his beautiful silver hair, giving him a manicure without him complaining about the ever present split nail on his index finger. Rubbing lotion onto his arms and hands. Giving him a nice, warm shave and brushing his teeth for him.

I wasn't there when he died. I had actually left work that day with the intention of driving down that night to see him, since we all knew it was getting close to the end. There were horrible thunderstorms though, and I decided to wait and leave in the morning. He died just before 11 PM that night.

After he was gone, my sister called me and could barely speak. When the phone rang, I knew it was all over. I laid in the dark for hours, with the tears coursing down my face with a mixture of sadness and relief. Peace had finally come. A peace he deserved.

There is a certain kinship that people share when they've lost a parent, no matter what age. You give each other that knowing look, the sympathetic nod, and you really get it. You realize that now you are the one to carry on the family traditions. You know that you can't pick up the phone and ask how to fix that broken window or for your favorite recipe. But you also know that although life as you knew it is gone, there is an afterlife of your own to be lived.

The last few days, I have been happier than I can remember being in a long time. Maybe it's springtime with the rebirth of life all around us. Maybe it's allowing myself to living again without being afraid to make plans for my life because of the unknown. Whatever it is, I'm happy it's here.

The yellow robe

As we return to the saga of Uncle Woodrow, when we left off my beloved Aunt Leola had just passed away. She was a very loyal and dedicated wife for many decades - and since they never had children of their own, they had each other and she doted on UW completely.

Without her, he was like a leaf caught in a storm. He was absolutely devastated, and would sit for hours weeping and wailing her name over and over again. My mother finally convinced him to go see his family doctor and despite his misgivings the doctor prescribed a little help for him.

Well, I think what he got was Zoloft, but they might as well have given him Viagra. He was a new man! Two months after my aunt passed away, my mother called me one night and declared that my uncle had gone insane.

"Your uncle, it seems, has decided that he's going to find himself a new wife!" said my mother. "And that's not all of it. He has grown a mustache." The disgust in her voice was barely disguised.

"A mustache? What in the world...."

"And that's not the worst part. He calls it...his tickler." She burst out laughing.

Seriously? His tickler? All these horrible visions came coursing through my brain until I lost all ability to speak.

Sure enough, when I went to see him the following weekend he had grown the worst looking pornstache I have ever, ever seen. Imagine, if you will, a balding grey-haired 80-something man with a ruddy face rocking a brown mustache somewhat reminiscent of Tom Selleck. It was simply put - horrible.

Oh, he was proud of it though. He believed that the ladies who were standing in line nightly to bring casseroles and various food offerings were just dying to be one-on-one with his Tickler.

Such wasn't the case, however. Everyone had loved my aunt so much that they continued paying their respects for months after the funeral. And my uncle, whom my aunt had kept so nattily dressed for years, had pretty much started looking pretty shabby. His typical outfit was a pair of stained pants, a rumpled shirt, hopefully a belt, and some holey shoes. Everyone felt sorry for the former preacher, so he was visited daily by groups of little old ladies from the church.

One day, however, the visits came to an abrupt halt. UW was completely befuddled. Where had all of his legions of female admirers gone?

Word slowly drifted back to my father through the neighborhood wags that apparently one day a carload of female admirers had come bearing gifts of Corningware loaded down with various casseroles surely involving cream-of-something-or-other soup. Dutifully, they filed up the front walkway and crowding onto the small concrete porch one of the ladies pushed the doorbell and they waited.

What came afterwards is something no man of the cloth would ever dream of doing. My uncle answered the door dressed in nothing but a short, yellow robe. Said robe was apparently a few inches short of covering his manhood.

Little Woodrow was out there for God and all of Creation to behold.

According to the neighbor, the casserole dishes were quickly deposited on the dining room table, and the women were so anxious to leave that they almost backed into the yard across the street.

Sadly, the endless parade of goodies came to an abrupt end, and eventually UW shaved off his Tickler. It wasn't working anymore.

Good old UW

My father had the most wonderful sister named Leola. No, no one seemed to know exactly where her name came from. But she was as kind and sweet as God makes them. I don't think in all the years that I knew her that she ever said a cross word about anyone.

Leola was a saint. Not only because she was so kind and giving, but because she was married to my uncle Woodrow.

Uncle Woodrow, or UW as we came to call him amongst the family later on, was one interesting character. He was raised very poor during the Great Depression, and like many others of his generation never lost that fear of losing everything. He had a few brothers, one of whom was a very successful businessman who convinced UW to go in on a deal he'd worked out on a little something that might make them a dime or two.

At that time, UW was working as a postman, so he really didn't have much money. But he took all that he had and invested it with his brother and ended up becoming a millionaire. They owned the first handful of Holiday Inn franchises in the state. Talk about dumb luck, huh?

At this point, UW gave up working as a postman and said he had the calling to become a minister. He turned out to be a fairly popular minister, no doubt largely in part to the fact that everyone adored my aunt Leola. If the church doors were open, she was there. If you were sick or had a death in the family, she was there. Everyone loved her.

Now, what y'all have to realize is that no one in my family knew that they were wealthy. As a matter of fact, they lived extremely frugally - so frugally that it made us almost sick to our stomachs later on after my aunt died. But I'll get to that in a bit.

He had some odd quirks that we still laugh about, one particular one being that he refused to let the postman deliver the mail to his house and had a post office box instead. Why, you ask? Because he thought the postman would try and steal his mail and all of his stock dividend checks that came in. Kind of ironic for someone who had been a postman himself, no?

My aunt got breast cancer and went through all the treatments - went into remission and then almost five years to the day after she went into remission she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She decided not to undergo treatments because the chemo from the first diagnosis was so horrible she said she'd rather die with dignity than fight something that was a losing battle. My sweet aunt died three months after I got married.

UW fell apart. Little did we know how much he had relied on my aunt for everything...and I mean everything. Every morning before he got up, she would go out and get his newspaper, cook him a full breakfast, and have it all ready for him. She took care of all of his clothes, the housekeeping, everything but the money and bills. That was purely his domain, and probably because he considered it "man's work" versus washing clothes which would definitely "women's work" in his eyes.

On her deathbed, Leola had asked my father to watch out for her "Woody" and take care of him. Sure, my father said. Poor guy. He had no idea of the mayhem that would occupy the next few years of his life. See, UW was in bad health when my aunt died - and he was so devoted to her that we figured he would be in a downhill race against time to the Pearly Gates.

Um, yeah, not so much.

*****

Next time, part 2 of the story. Y'all are gonna love this one.

The Turtle

Years ago, my mother decided that she wanted a minivan. And in her typical fashion, she and my father went down to the local car lot and got a very non-descript white Dodge minivan. We dubbed it The Turtle - it puttered along, wasn't going to break any speed records, but was definitely going to get you there.

Two years later, my father decided that my mother needed another new car, so he went to the Chrysler dealership and bought her something. Another white minivan. It was almost identical to The Turtle.

So Dad took over primary custody of The Turtle. He plastered the back with Army stickers and World War II veteran decals. He eventually put a hand brake in it when his leg went numb and he almost hit the gas pump at Sheetz. His service in World War II, and his frozen feet, were repaid by peripheral neuropathy that danced around like the Devil for years, coming and going.

When Dad eventually lost the ability to drive, The Turtle stayed parked in the garage mostly undriven because you could only stand wrestling yourself into the van with the hand brake in the way every so often - it would scrape your kneecaps if you weren't careful. As I discovered later on, my father would sneak out for a drive every now and then when my mother wasn't home. One weekend, my mother went up to the church to water the flower beds and my sister and I were lounging around the breakfast table soaking up some caffeine and generally having a lazy Saturday. My father was gamely loping around the house doing one of the few chores he was still able to do - gathering up the household trash.

"Dad, let me go with you up to the dump, okay?" said my sister. He disappeared out the door with the trash, and she continued sipping her coffee and reading the newspaper.

The next thing I knew, I saw The Turtle go flying down the driveway and veer left out of the driveway, headed to the dump. "Well, I think you probably should've gotten dressed a little faster, Kath. Dad just took off in The Turtle for the dump." She spewed coffee all over the table and ran out into the driveway...but The Turtle was long gone.

"Oh Jesus...Mom is gonna KILL YOU!" I moaned. And we both waited at the window for him to come back. We flipped a coin and decided if he wasn't back in ten minutes, I was going to go after him.

He came back. And the smile on his face was a mile wide. Mom never found out. We were saved from her wrath.

The Turtle was more than just a minivan. It was my Dad's last bit of freedom. A man who had traveled the world, his body now torn apart by cancer, clung to a little white minivan that could still take him places.

My mother sold The Turtle today. A local man with four kids bought it and was tickled to death to get a 15-year old van with only 70,000 miles on it. While he was at the DMV getting new tags, Joey and I scraped off my father's stickers and used GooGone to make sure all the adhesive was gone. My uncle had already taken off the hand brake, my mother had cleaned out the inside, and all that was left was an anonymous white minivan.

Thank you, Turtle. I hope you have a wonderful new home. And I hope you take them on wonderful new adventures. Little did they know what a gem they were getting.

But does Verizon have coverage in heaven?

I've come so close over and over during the past few months trying to decide if I was ever going to write again here or not. Sometimes, I feel like I'm definitely not one of the "cool kids" of blogging - I don't go to BlogHer, I don't have advertisements, I don't win any awards, I don't make thousands of dollars blogging. No, in the land of the Bloggers Who are Too Cool, I'm the band geek with my long hair caught in my braces. I've gotta go, my mom's here in her paneled 1977 station wagon to pick me up from practice, 'kay?

But you know, that's okay. I miss writing. Sometimes I need to just have a little verbal vomit even if I'm the only one who reads it or "gets it". I've come to the realization that it's okay to blog just for me...and hell, it's way cheaper than therapy.

I really could have used it these last few months, although reading about death and dying is probably not something most people want to do.

My sweet, precious hero - my Daddy - is gone.

The long and the short of it - the cancer got very aggressive. The medicine - or maybe the cancer - made him so sick he couldn't eat. He was up and walking up until the day before he went in the hospital. One week there, four weeks in the nursing home, and he slipped away.

The last three weeks have been hard as hell. At times, I find myself walking in circles, not sure what direction I'm headed in. I try to keep my shit together for Monkey Man and Joey, try to look like I have it all together at work, and then something hits me and I dissolve into a wretched, sobbing mess. I have really good days, and then I have really not-so-good days. Not really any middle ground there, huh?

That's okay, too. I have to be gentle with myself. It's not every day you lose the man who has been your hero since day one. I miss him like crazy. I catch myself, at times, thinking that I need to email him a funny joke or call him to ask how his yard is looking. And then I know, unless Verizon has cell phone coverage in Heaven, that's not going to be very easy.

It's not to say that the entire experience was without some moments of levity. We had a crazy cast of characters at the nursing home, we had all kinds of monkey wrenches thrown into the planning of the funeral, we had interesting family dynamics and not to be totally forgotten, the infamous incident of me trying to make the dog puke in my mother's front yard. Oh yes sir, there were some good times to be had.

So bear with me - I am hoping that sprinkled through here and there, I'll be able to recall some of the good and bad that happened and get it down so I don't forget. So Monkey will be able to read it one day when he's old enough to really understand. So that maybe my heart will feel a little better.

Now if you'll excuse me, tomorrow is the first day of school and I forgot to get a damn book cover for Monkey's math book. I need to get my shiz together and make a run to Office Max.

It seems like it all turned out all right

Saturday night, when I was sitting in my cousin Laura's living room getting a dose of psychotherapy (and interrupting her poor husband's movie watching), my Blackberry started to go off like nobody's business. Finally, I picked it up to see what the hell was wrong and when I opened my Facebook application I just about dropped the phone. I think I was probably 12 shades of white and green too.

It was my ex-fiance.

I hadn't talked to him in 16 years.

We have exchanged a few emails since then. We've actually friended each other on Facebook. Joey is fully aware of this, and I haven't had the cojones to ask if his wife approves of this.

By the way, he is very happily married with three adorable kids. Living in North Carolina, owns his own business as some kind of "business coach" which sounds kind of sketchy but hey, I'm not married to him so what do I care?

Amazingly enough, he has been very kind and gracious. I wasn't really expecting that. In one email, he told me that the best thing that had ever happened to him was meeting his wife...and while it stung for a brief second, I felt a huge relief. I never was vain enough to think I ruined his life or anything dramatic like that, but I did worry about him and hope that he had gone on to find the happiness that he deserved. That he had wanted with me and that I couldn't give him. That I have now.

The result all of this is that it's opened up a part of my life that I have never talked about with a lot of my friends. I've also had to explain to Monkey Man that yes, Mommy at one time was going to marry someone else other than Daddy but thankfully she came to her senses. Or something like that. I've had to listen to my mother rehash a careless comment that my ex made in front of her 18 years ago that she's never forgotten or forgiven him for.

And the strangest part of all...seeing him now, and realizing that egads...I dodged a bullet. The years have NOT been kind to him and his appearance. His employment history has been somewhat sketchy which would have been really hard to live through. His parents are still super involved in his life to the point they still try to run it for him. Hell, I have my hands full with my in-laws but they certainly don't try to run our lives for us.

Overall, though, I'm glad that I heard from him again. It's good to put that part of my life to rest and realize that we both went on to meet people that we were far happier with and that love us unconditionally. And maybe that was the best gift we ever gave each other.

Don't ask, don't tell

For one magical week when I was about 5 or 6, my mother and brother Dave took off to Hawaii, leaving my father and I at home. I believe that my mother had an old friend that had moved there and she and my brother were heading there for a visit, but I'd have to ask her to confirm that.

Anyhow, my mother did the requisite cooking ahead of time, leaving us with Tupperware containers with spaghetti sauce and who knows what else. I don't believe that other than K rations, my father had ever done more than make himself a ham sandwich, so my mother's efforts were hugely wasted.

At that time, my favorite restaurant in the world was McDonald's. Even though my mother tried to convince me that the hamburgers were possibly made from kangaroo meat, there was nothing better in my little world than a good little hamburger with those onions sprinkled all over and a good smear of ketchup too. She would moan and roll her eyes every time I asked for McDonald's and just keep driving past, leaving me in the back seat of the car to fog my window up with my unrequited love for the dry little hamburgers.

But not my dad. He just wanted his little girl to be happy. And so every night that week, we sat outside of the Hackettstown McDonald's at the concrete tables and he had a Big Mac and I had my Happy Meal. And at the end, we always had sundaes. He would have a hot fudge sundae, and mine was strawberry. We would sit in silence, savoring not only the sweetness of the sundaes but the forbidden fruit that my mother would surely disapprove of.

"This is going to be our little secret, okay?" he grinned at me. "Don't tell your mother."

I'm not exactly sure what my mother said when she came home to find all of the Tupperware containers untouched.

*****

Fast forward to three years ago. My dad took Monkey Man somewhere in his white minivan that we have affectionately dubbed The Turtle. Later on that afternoon, they came back and I noticed Monkey Man carrying two small motorcycles.

"I'm not supposed to tell you about these. Grandpa got them for me from Toys R Us," he admitted sheepishly.

Some things never change. Not that I'm complaining.

*****

Every time I call my mother, it's something else. On Sunday, while my sister was visiting, Dad fell out of his chair in Sunday School and scared the bejeezus out of everyone there.

I feel the days slipping away.

Reunited...and it feels so weird

After exfoliating myself to the point of no return, I packed my shee-it up and headed up the highway to my friend Shai's house.  Her real name is Laura, Shai is her middle name which we all called her in high school and it's been a hard habit for me to break since apparently I'm not supposed to really call her that anymore.  But I do.  

Shai lives up in the northern part of Virginia and the game plan was for me to come up to her place on Friday night, spend the night, and then we would take off for New Jersey the following morning.  Shai is married to a great guy named Dave and has FOUR GIRLS ages 8 and under.  Lord help me, there is a special place in heaven for her, preferably with a lot of wine and sushi. 

We hadn't really had any time alone together in about ten years, so the second I hit the door Friday night we pretty much only stopped talking long enough to eat and sleep.  It was NUTS.  Seriously, my throat was scratchy for three days after we got back, probably more so from the

 talking than from the vomiting.

Oops, spoiler alert!

On Saturday, we rolled into our hometown around 2 PM.  We grew up in a bucolic little town in northwest New Jersey called Long Valley.  It is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth.  

New Jersey????  Beautiful????  You probably think I'm insane.  And in some ways, I am, but I am totally being truthful here.  It's in the mountains, it's very New-Englandy with all of the old homes and small towns.  A lot of that had fallen away from my memories since it had been a good 20 years since I'd been back there, and as we drove along the winding roads lined with trees, I was totally overwhelmed by exactly how beautiful it truly is there.

We had a pretty idyllic childhood.  It was such a time of innocence there - we remembered riding our bikes up and down the mountain, exploring through the woods and gallivanting down to the country store to get gum and ice cream.  Things that kids really can't do anymore.  Things changed when we were sophomores, and one of the underclassmen in our school was raped and murdered.  Everything changed once Rachel was gone.

We went to the Brew Pub for lunch (we have an effing BREW PUB?  Egads!) and then spent a few hours driving around all of our old haunts and remembering all the good and bad times.  Really, there were way more good than bad times there.  We were lucky, so lucky.

Eventually, it was time for us to head to the hotel to get all gussied up for the reunion.  And when we got there, it took me a bit to kind of warm up and feel comfortable seeing faces that I hadn't seen in decades.  Old boyfriends (total:  3), my arch-nemesis from childhood, good friends that I hadn't talked to or seen in years.  I did have one former classmate dogging me all night to hook up with him, but fortunately (or unfortunately at the expense of losing dinner), I ended up with food poisoning and ended up hugging the toilet bowl around 1 AM.  Seriously, the guy was so persistent that I finally snapped at him, "Dude, unless you're planning on holding my hair while I puke, this is NOT going to happen."  He did actually email me a few days later and apologized for being so forward, thanks to The Devil Alcohol.  Whatever, dude.  I didn't even have the balls to tell Joey about it, since he wasn't exactly happy about me going to the reunion without him and knowing The Old Boyfriends were going to be there...

So a few cool and yet odd things happened:

1.  I reconnected at last with my friend Diana - we have been friends since 3rd grade and due to a lot of personal BS she went through right after college, we lost touch.  It has been fantastic to get back in touch and we have been corresponding regularly since December.  I also got to meet her most awesome husband Jason.

2.  I also saw my friend Tina - her dad was my dad's doctor (got that?) and she and I have been friends since probably 4th grade.  She is absolutely one of the smartest effing people on the planet.  

3.  My arch-nemesis since childhood came up and threw her arms around me, screeching how happy she was to see me and how she remembered that she, Diana and I were BEST FRIENDS.  And Diana, who has zero filter on what escapes out of her mouth, snapped right back, "That's not how I remember it!"  Priceless, truly priceless.

4.  The popular kids were still cliquey.  And that was okay.  My friends looked way better than they did, snap!

The next day, we dragged our hungover asses out for some good ol' diner food and then headed down to Hackettstown to our former church.  We had intentions of slipping in to check out the sanctuary since we spent hundreds of hours there at the church, and when we got in there we ran into our former minister and choir director...who REMEMBERED US INSTANTLY.  It was freaky.  And they had just finished a huge, gorgeous renovation of the sanctuary that was so amazing that it made me cry.  I felt like I had just walked right back into my home.

And...speaking of home...that was the WORST part of the trip.  Seeing my childhood home.

My parents bought the house in 1968 for about $25,000.  A modest brick rancher with a front porch and a full basement.  We had a huge old oak tree in the front yard, a big back yard bordered by a nature preserve.  It wasn't anything glamorous, but it was ours.  It was my home until I was 17 years old.

So we drove by the house to take a picture.  I don't think we have a single good picture of the house, and we had heard from a former neighbor that the dentist that purchased the house had put an "addition" on it.

Addition my ass!  Look at this!

It bears no resemblance at all to our former house.  And the damn oak tree is gone.  I double-checked the address to make sure it was the right house and then burst into tears.

It was almost like having my childhood taken away from me.  Yeah, it's just a house...but it was my HOME.

Anyhow, we arrived back home late on Sunday night, hoarse and hung over and exhausted.  It was a ton of fun but the driving and riding was really a lot to cram into less than three days.

I was really glad that I went, mostly from the standpoint that sometimes you have to revisit your past to appreciate what you have in your life right now.  My friends and I huddled together over a glass of pinot and marveled at what a charmed life we had back in those days.  And all of us have gone on to have pretty good lives for the most part.  I would like to think that things will just continue getting better and better.

And the best part - realizing that even though times change, and people change, your friends will probably still be the same.  And you will talk until you are hoarse and laugh until your sides hurt.

Me, Tina and Diana

Me and Shai

Old friends

So today, I logged on here as usual to go down the blogroll and check in at all my favorite blogs and realized HOLY CRAP it has been almost two months since I posted anything.  And really, my posting in 2009 has been downright pathetic at best.  I think it was Joansy that said that she finds herself getting on Facebook way more than Blogger and how you get to missing the outlet that blogging provides.  I think it's safe to say that I fall into that category too...there's only so much of myself that I want to put on Facebook for the world to see.  Like pictures of my boobs, right?

Sorry.  I'll try to do better.  

We have a lot of catching up to do.  I have been busy as hell with a few important things that have been going on...reuniting with my college friend Amy, my high school reunion (!), and of course our trip to Vegas with Heather and Scott of Mama Maven and Man Overboard fame.  Not to mention just regular life in general and spending a lot of time trying to hold onto my job.   I finally let Reyna go after seven years and having the last straw with her, so now I have housekeeper to add to my list of responsibilities.  Joey has been having a ballbuster of a time with work, culminating with a colossal mistake at work that left him reeling.  My father's cancer is spreading, spreading, spreading.  

And yet, I have a lot to be thankful for.  Monkey Man is the light of my life, and even when things are crazy and bleak he manages to make me smile by just walking in the room.  I have a wonderful husband who, even when things at work were going to hell, didn't hesitate to bring me a yummy dinner home and then turn around and run out to get sugar cookie dough at 9:30 at night for Monkey Man's spring party at school.  I have great friends that buy me beer and wings and make me laugh until my sides hurt.  

And of course, there are the marathons of Real Housewives of New York.  What about that doesn't make life seem better?

*****

Let's start the catching up with going waaaay back to February and my lunch date with Amy.  

Amy was one of my best friends in college.  We were as close as sisters, and then my feelings got hurt when she ended up dating my ex-fiance.  Not good.  We hadn't spoken in probably 12 years when suddenly she tracked me down through The Devil Facebook and we eventually ended up arranging to have lunch one rainy Saturday in February.  

I was nervous.  NER-vous.  I called Mer on my way over to the restaurant, feeling pretty panicky about how things were going to go.  Was it going to be icky and awkward?  Were we going to click like we used to?  Was the dreaded subject of HIM going to come up?  Ugh, I was scared.

Lunch ended up lasting almost three hours.  It was just like the old days, just a little grayer and wrinklier.  She's married with three girls now, living up in northern Virginia.  We caught up on what we'd been doing, how we met our husbands, and all that good stuff.  And we laughed.  A lot.  

As things started to wind down (she had a deadline to be back at her mom's to get the girls), I asked her how her old roommate Marie was doing.  "Oh," she explained, "I haven't talked to Marie in years...she ended up hooking up with a guy that I was dating...."

The words hung heavy in the air between us.  What to say, what to say - the wrong thing could implode this delicate dance we'd been doing for the past three hours.

"Well, you know, we all do stupid things when we're young without thinking.  The important thing is moving forward and forgiving people," I said.  She exhaled loudly, and a visible look of relief washed over her.  

It was good.  We are actually planning on visiting her family later in May for a weekend sightseeing in DC, so that's exciting.

*****

Tune in again for updates on what else has been going on, which may or may not include being propositioned for a threesome, vomiting, and  baseball season.  Which may or may not all have happened concurrently.  Later!

Reconnection

It's been an interesting few weeks in my life.

Let me back up to December.  On December 5th, my birthday, I got an email from one of my oldest friends, Diana.  

I had not spoken to Diana in probably...oh, 16 years maybe?  And it wasn't like we had any big falling out.  She had a series of personal crises that kind of took over her life and she fell off the face of the earth.  Y'all wouldn't believe the story if I told you, and honestly I don't really want to post it on The Internets, so you're just gonna have to believe me on this one.  It was pretty bad.  

So back to my birthday.  She sent me an email on Facebook basically saying, "I know today is your birthday, I think about you often and would love to talk to you."  I just about fell out of my chair, and jumped right back on email and sent one back.  And over the past two months, we've been delicately rebuilding this friendship again.  

Then, I found out that my high school in New Jersey is having a 20th reunion...albeit a year late, but hell, we're doing it!  I kind of hemmed and hawed about going, and finally Diana talked me into going.  And now one of my other close friends from high school - who happens to live about 2 hours from here - and I are going to roadtrip up there for the reunion.  I finally got confirmation from Laura today that she was up to going.  Poor thing has 4 kids under 8 years old, she NEEDS to get away for a weekend.

Slowly but surely, I've been reconnecting with friends from high school on Facebook and email.  I thought they had all forgotten about me.  Hell, I moved the summer before our senior year, and really didn't stay in touch with much of anyone - why would they care?  But they do.  One of my exes (not a serious ex, kind of a "let's date, oh this was a bad idea" ex) emailed me earlier this week and put it well - "You HAVE to go.  Who knows if we'll ever have another reunion?  And besides, I think you don't realize how many people remember you and ask me about you.  Not to mention, my wife is dying to meet you...."  Okay, so if the wife is in, well...I have to go!

So while all this high school fun was going on, remember that friend request I got from my former best friend from college?  The one that dated my ex-fiance?  Well, I accepted the friend request.  We messaged back and forth a few times.  Then, a few weeks ago, she sent me a message saying that she missed my friendship and wanted to see me.  

We're having lunch on the 28th.  I am so freaking excited I can't stand it.

I guess 2009 is turning out to be my year of reconnections.  I've determined that come hell or high water, I'm going to reconnect with old friends this year.  There's no reason not to.  I think in the past I've been scared to stick my neck out and reconnect just from the standpoint of not wanting to face rejection if they weren't interested.  But...they are.  And that's the amazing part to me.  

*****

On another note, but definitely friend-related, Cat Door's biopsy came back completely normal.  He has some, um, calcium deposits in his prostate gland that he's taking medication in the hopes of dissolving them (I guess into the bloodstream?  Not sure how that works) but other than that, he's good to go.

I am so freaking relieved.  

WWYD? WWOD?

Lots of times, Mer and I will be trading emails back and forth about things and a situation where we don't know what to do will come up. The inevitable question is often - WWOD?

What Would Oprah Do?

Since she's turned herself into a modern-day messiah of all things, it seems only fair to use Oprah as our barometer of all that is good and right in the world. Don't know what to serve at your next dinner party? Don't know how to tell a friend that they've overstepped the bounds of sanity? Don't know where to go on vacation? Just ask yourself - What Would Oprah Do?

Well, first of all, Oprah probably wouldn't give a shit what she was serving at her dinner party since she has People that worry about that stuff for her. So if Oprah deemed that dinner would be Eye of Newt, her People would fly all over the globe to make sure the appropriate Eye of Newt was acquired in time for the dinner party.

Secondly, Oprah has Gayle. Gayle is perfect in Oprah's eyes. So there would be no need for Oprah to even worry about a wayward friend.

As for vacation, well, Oprah can go wherever the hell she wants to. So she wouldn't be stressing about how many days to get on her damn Park Hopper pass at Disney.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the resources not to have to worry about stupid bullshit? Then you could just truly decide what you wanted to do based on what you truly want. WWOD?

So last night, after having my teeth kicked in by Badass Friend, then being somewhat publicly smacked in the face on my wall in Facebook by another Badass, I got a friend request that took me by surprise.

It was Amy. Amy was my best friend in college. We were inseparable, to the point where when we graduated I even lived with her parents for about four months while I got a job and found a place to live. We were almost like sisters.

What ended the friendship, you ask? Well, she dated my ex-fiance behind my back. He and I had a very amicable breakup, and if she had bothered to ask me if it was okay to go out with him, I would've been thrilled. He was a great guy, she was a great girl, and they would've had a good time together. Instead, the two of them decided that sneaking around was preferable. When I found out, I was so hurt that I stopped returning her phone calls and finally told her that the trust between us had been broken.

The last time I saw her was 12 years ago - I was in a David's Bridal up in the northern part of the state with my mom and sister to try on wedding dresses, and she just happened to work there. It was awkward, stiff, and strange. It had been three years since she and I had parted ways.

All of my close friends know that I'm a World Class Grudge Holder. I've been known to hold grudges for decades. I've been trying to be better about it, because really all it does is weigh me down with negative energy. And don't I have enough bullshit going on without harboring a bunch of old grudges?

Her friend request still sits untouched. I really don't know what to do. Part of me misses that friendship - and part of me is still kind of wounded that she chose someone else over me. Yeah, I'm like a jilted lover, I guess.

So, what would you do...accept the friend request, or just ignore it? I'm interested in what you would have to say. Especially since this is probably way beneath Oprah, since Gayle is probably not interested in Steadman anyway.

Texas - part one

Since we had to depart the RVA at the ungodly hour of 6:40 AM on Thursday, we got up at the buttcrack of...well, it wasn't even dawn yet. It was damn early, y'all.

The trip down was relatively uneventful. Heck, we breezed right on through and arrived in Dallas, picked up our rental car (by the way, if you ever fly into DFW airport I highly recommend Hertz - they had us in our car in under 10 minutes thanks to me pre-reserving online) and hit the road. I was almost pinching myself because, well, we had arrived on time. With our luggage. It was almost too good to be true.

We headed on toward Abilene and stopped for lunch at a barbeque place. It was kind of an odd setup, it was almost like cafeteria-style and then you sat wherever you wanted. The food was pretty good, but halfway through our meal I suddenly had to go to the restroom. As in, "I haven't peed in what feels like three days and no, I can't wait." Or as in, "I am three years old and wait until just before I pee my pants before I let anyone know I need to go, thus ensuing in a mad dash to the restroom." And since it was that certain time of the month, I decided to allow myself a little privacy and not ask Monkey Man if he wanted to go.

I'm sure you know how this goes. The very instant I'm ensconced in my stall in the ladies' room, Monkey Man announces that he has to go. Right. Now. And no, he can't wait. So Joey hustles him into the men's room to do his duty.

I come out of the restroom, probably two gallons lighter, and as I walk to our table I notice the strangest thing. There's someone sitting there. At our table. With new trays of food. Oh, I figured maybe the boys had finished up their food and were waiting outside for me - so I went out into the lobby of the restaurant to look for them. No boys. Then, I spy them coming out of the men's room and the look on Joey's face when he realized that some lady was sitting at our table was one of total shock. All of our stuff was gone. Including Joey's prescription glasses, which he had put on the tray.

A few panicky moments later, I found a managerial-looking person and asked if they could check and see if Joey's glasses were back in the kitchen. He sheepishly emerged and apologized, but there was no offer of replacing our lunches.

Note to self: Do not attempt to leave boys alone at tables again in hopes of having privacy in the bathroom. Murphy's Law will mean that one of the two will have to Go Right Now and then you could potentially have your food removed.

Meanwhile, I received a text from my nephew Steve who had decided when he originally booked the trip that he was going to fly directly into Abilene. He was stuck at the airport - had been there for 45 minutes - waiting on my sister to come pick him up. I texted back - "If you're still there in two hours, call me and we'll just swing by and get you when we pass by the airport." Luckily, I think they showed up shortly after so he wasn't stuck in Cowtown's airport waiting on us to finally make it there.

We finally got into Abilene around 3 PM and after a quick shower we were ready to go. The rest of the famn damily showed up shortly after and we all headed out to a really good dinner at the Lytle Cattle & Land Company. Lots of deep-fried stuff and some delicious steaks. Oh, and these things called swirls - margaritas with sangria swirled in there. Yeah, I might as well admit it here that I got more than a little tipsy at dinner. My mom was there, so sue me. I need to drink heavily just to block her bitching out.

On this trip were my parents, my sister Kathie and her husband Richard, my brother Dave and his wife Karen, my nephew Steve, and the three of us. Ten total. The family dynamics are really interesting - I'd say my sister and I are probably tied (although she probably would edge me out) as my dad's favorites, whereas my brother Dave is undeniably my mom's favorite. The dude can do no wrong as far as my mother is concerned. Like we had to sit there at dinner and listen to what a good baby my brother was. As far as I know, it wasn't like I was a total hellion or anything, and the bastard tortured me incessantly for years. Ask me sometime about my toilet phobia and you'll see how mean he was.

Friday was museum day. We all trucked on over to the museum and spent a few hours looking at the exhibits. It's the only museum of its kind in the country, and when we were there seven years ago it was still really not finished. I guess it's always going to be a work in progress as people donate more items, but they have really done a nice job. Monkey Man thoroughly enjoyed seeing the halftracks like my dad drove and all the guns and military paraphenalia.

One part I wasn't really prepared for was the room about the POW camps and the concentration camps. I had seen a short documentary recently about the division's part in freeing many camps around Landsberg, Germany, and it brought me to tears with all of the suffering the detainees faced. Well, they had that same documentary playing on an endless loop and I guess my dad hadn't ever seen it, because I spied him sitting there watching and then he waved Monkey Man to come over and watch it with him. Yikes! I ixnayed that immediately. I walked him around and showed him the still photos and tried the best I could to explain in terms that a 6-year-old could possibly understand what horrible atrocities had been committed. I'm not sure he understood completely, but I felt okay about it.

As I walked around that room, my nephew came over to ask me some questions and soon we were approached by a tiny little man, using a walker and an oxygen tank. He was wearing a military-style jacket covered in medals. I asked him if he had been in the 12th Armored Division and he said no - he was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne. As in he parachuted in on D-Day. He proudly showed me all of his medals as his wife stood by smiling and patting him on the back. He had received 26 medals and citations for his service - and although he didn't belong to the 12th AD, he lives in Abilene and had asked his wife to bring him over when he heard the 12th guys were going to be in town for the weekend. He wanted to see "his brothers". I asked him if he was scared to jump out of an airplane, and he replied, "There's a secret to it. Don't jump down, jump out. Then your head gets right."

"He is my third husband," said his wife," We just celebrated our seventh anniversary. We met when I was 70 and he was 80. He might be my third one, but he's the sweetest one yet!" My heart just melted.

As he walked away with his walker, I almost started bawling. Hearing the stories, seeing all the pictures, imagining what these men - who were boys then - experienced, was almost more than my heart could take.

It's easy to forget in this time of all media, all the time, how primitive the intelligence was at that time. Like the whole concentration camp thing - my dad told me (and I read recently in a book about the division) that they knew nothing about their existence, they had stumbled across them in their journey across Germany and were stunned at what they found. "It was just one day, but it was a day that has hung in my mind almost every day," he told me quietly. "That day, we got word that there was a farmhouse nearby with some Germans holed up in it. Another guy and I were sent in there to see what was going on, and we discovered a civilian couple hosting a dinner for some Nazi troops. People were starving less than a mile away, and they were eating like kings. So we took them outside, and...." His voice faded and his eyes watered. I knew what happened.

So it was a really emotional day. Listening to all of my dad's peers talking - telling what they can still remember as the memories are starting to slip away. Watching my dad seem to slip far into thought at times, like he was being transported back to 1945 as he trudged through the snow.

Dirty little girl

Summertime brings all kinds of memories of childhood. Like the time I fell out of the big oak tree in our front yard. Days spent out in the sandbox making mud pies galore. Riding our bikes up to Naughtright Road to the horse farm up there and paying a dollar to ride the ponies. Oh, and there was the time Kelly dared me to grab the electric fence wire.

That might explain a few things.

But one memory of mine is the three weeks I spent at Camp Mogisca up somewhere in the wilds of New York State. My neighbor Kelly and a few girls from my troop went up there one steamy summer...seems to me we were about seven years old at the time. And I don't think I'd ever been away from home longer than one night.

I was excited about horseback riding. I had started taking lessons the year prior, and I was convinced that we were going to get to ride every day. Um, not so much. I think we rode once.

Then there was the swimming. I wasn't a strong swimmer so I got to take lessons while the rest of my friends must've had hidden flippers because they were exempt from them and had fun horsing around while I worked on strokes. I hated pool time.

The hikes, Lord the hikes. I ended up with huge blisters since by day three I had run out of clean socks. And Camp Mogisca don't got no laundry service.

The freedom was the best part, though. We felt so big and bad hanging out with the teenage counselors who pretty much let us do whatever we wanted as long as no one got hurt. We could stay up late, we could talk all night, whatever we wanted was fine with them.

The one thing they probably should've made us do, though, was take a shower. Seriously, I don't think anyone in our little "tribe" showered for the entire three weeks. Hey, more hot water for the counselors, right?

At the end of the three weeks, as the school bus carrying us back home pulled into the school parking lot, my mother said you could smell it a mile away. We had a huge blue station wagon with wood paneling on the sides, and she made me sit in the jump seat in the waaay back. With all the windows rolled down. Then I was promptly dumped in the tub and three changes of water later was finally deemed fit to come out.

And I think she burned every item of clothing in my bag. It was that bad.

I got to telling the story the other night at a happy hour for work and my friends were howling with laughter. "You? Seriously? I can't even imagine!" howled Cathy.

Yup. And I believe that Camp Mogisca is probably to blame for me being so high-maintenance now. Or at least I'd like to think so. I can tell you this much, though - I'm very proud of the fact that no one has had to burn my clothing since then. I'm just sayin'.

Catching up

No, not on blogging. Way more glamorous than that. On laundry.

Seriously, I have done more loads of laundry this weekend than I care to count. And not just clothes, but bathmats and towels and all kinds of stuff.

This has been our first weekend home in a month, and on Thursday we jet off to Texas on what might be summed up as The Most Expensive Short Weekend We've Ever Had. Vegas doesn't count because we can expense that.

So in the meantime, since flag football practice starts with a vengeance this week, I have to get as much done today as I can so it's not all waiting for me Wednesday night. Did I mention our flight leaves at 6 AM on Thursday? Um, yeah.

*****

Speaking of catching up, Joey's college roommate Flash and his wife Debbie (and their 2 kids) were in town yesterday, so we enlisted a babysitter to watch the kids so we could go have a nice dinner. You know, one where no one is fighting over who is looking at someone cross-eyed or invading their personal space.

We all used to be pretty close. Pre-kids, we spent almost every weekend during football season together, and then we took a few trips together. Once the kids came, though, things change. They usually do.

It's not that I'm opposed to religion. Or anyone's religious views as long as they don't try to shove them down my throat or make me feel badly for not having the same views that they do. But honestly, I could go a whole lifetime without every conversation being dominated by religion. And that's how it's been with them for the past three years. Two years ago during their annual Manstravaganza four-wheeling trip, it was so bad that Joey came home wondering if he and Flash could still be friends.

I guess sometimes we outgrow our friends like an old, comfy t-shirt that finally shrinks up so much you can't wear it in public anymore. Sure, you can wear it in the yard or to lay around on a lazy day, but you don't wear it like you used to. It makes you feel uncomfortable.

I think that's where we're at with this friendship. It's not that we don't love them, and we certainly don't expect them to give up what they believe in. And it's not that we feel like everyone we know has to play beer pong with us. It's just...well, the religion talk is stifling. And uncomfortable.

Anyhow, it was a nice dinner and the food was great. The conversation, though, was awkward. So I'm not sure we'll be doing that again anytime soon.

*****

Another thing I need to catch up on is my reading. I ordered a book about my dad's World War II unit so that I could read it before we leave for Texas. Well, the sucker got here on Friday and I haven't cracked it open yet. I better get motivated....

*****

Last, but not least, I heard from an old high school friend yesterday. Long story short, Dave and I have known each other since probably 2nd grade. We dated a few months in high school and it just didn't work out - no hard feelings. We had a lot of classes together and he was always one of my favorite people (despite the fact that he was one of Mr. Magliaro's pets in trig class and I'm only mildly bitter about it since I barely skated by in there).

Back in January, I had gotten one of those silly emails from Classmates.com about someone signing my "guestbook". They totally suckered me in to paying for the membership so that I could see who it was. And it was Dave - and I didn't email him back.

Enter Facebook...he sent me a friend request and when I checked him out, his profile picture had him and three cute little boys. Okay, I felt better about responding. Is that shallow or what? We've been exchanging emails for the last 24 hours and it's been good to catch up. He has become pretty successful, as I figured he would. Happily married with three adorable sons. I'm really happy for him.

Will we talk again? Who knows. But it's kind of nice and fun to find out what happened to him. He was a great guy.

Now, who else will come creeping out of the woodwork from my past....

Like lemmings off of a cliff

Every thirty-something woman in this God-forsaken city will be at the movies tonight watching the Sex and The City movie. Including me.

I never had that kind of experience. I grew up 45 minutes outside of NYC proper and spent a lot of time there but mostly with my parents. Maybe the closest that I ever got to experiencing the freedom of Noo Yawk was when I was 18 and went back to visit my best friend from high school along with my boyfriend, Angry Rocker Dude. We spent a whole day in the city doing all the touristy fun things, eating at Carnegie Deli, all that good stuff. The best part of the trip was the fact that Angry Rocker Dude had never been on an airplane before, so when we caught the small puddlejumper from our hometown up to Newark Airport, his whole extended family - who I'll call The Clampetts - showed up to see us off. My mother was mortified, but honestly she should've been glad that they left their pet chickens at home.

Most of my time in the city was spent going to various museums and cultural events. Mom was always really big into that, not to mention that my dad enjoyed driving our car into the city because it reminded him of driving a tank in World War II. I shit you not. His tactic usually involved not making eye contact and getting one fender in first. Make sure you pack an extra pair of undies for those trips.

When SATC came out on HBO, I didn't watch it because of the stars. Or the humor. Or even, God help me, for the sex. I watched it because I missed that damn city so much. I relished each and every episode and secretly envied the fact that not only did these people have a cool job where they got to be in the city all the damn time, but that there was a whole show about the consummate "single woman experience" based in the city. That's what I would've chosen for myself, but it just didn't happen that way.

I'm hoping against all hope that the movie will be good. Not great, but good enough to enjoy with the Badasses tonight, most of whom have never been to Noo Yawk and won't understand someone who wasn't watching the show for all the regular reasons. Nor will they understand why someone would leave the chickens at home or why you should pack a change of undies when riding with my father in the city.

*****

Today was the class party. I made cupcakes with vanilla icing and red sprinkles on some and blue sprinkles on the rest.

The rest of the menu was pretty tame. Hot dogs, chips, watermelon, and cupcakes. Lord, did we have cupcakes. Because not only did I bring some, but one of the other Peanut Allergic kids' moms brought some too. Each kid ate at least 2 cupcakes and then were being shipped home on the bus to some lucky parents.

I somehow ended up helping serve the food to the kids, who lined up to receive this bounty on their red and blue plates. The boys all suspiciously eyed me and asked repeatedly if I was REALLY Monkey Man's mommy. The girls all told me I was pretty. Nothing like a little ego boost from a bunch of six-year-olds, huh?

It was fun, and even when he was trying to act all cool in front of his friends the teacher told me he'd been so excited all week about me coming to his party that she got a kick out of it. I guess I need to do a better job of popping in every now and then.

Truth or dare

This should be fun! If you leave a question in the comments, I'll answer it in the following day's post, okay?

Let's start with Joansy: "When will you be in Las Vegas again?" God, I wish I knew. Probably next February if the stars align and our convention is there. I'm hoping to con a friend of mine into flying there with me later on this fall, so you know if I do that we'll have to meet up again! And have more martinis, hooray! I just actually took the receipt from Spago out of my wallet yesterday...

Then Tree asked some great questions:

"Where did you leave things with your mom?" Well, about the same. I haven't actually talked to her in over a week, but I need to call her. I got word last night from my sister that it seems as though my father's prostate cancer is back - or at least his PSA levels are up again. So I need to bite the bullet and make that call. In other related news, I have the name of a therapist who a friend recommended and I have to make that call too. Sigh.

"Are you going to run that race in a couple weeks?" Yuppers, or at least if my application is accepted. It's a small race, only 1,500 runners and walkers - compared to 35,000 in the race I blew off last weekend. I did it 2 years ago so I'm familiar with it and look forward to it! And I'm hoping to run an 8K in conjunction with our marathon in November. Maybe a few others this year.

"Do you have an interest in a half marathon?" Um, not really. I think I'm not physically fit enough to do that, I struggle just with a 10K!

"What is your favorite meal that you make?" Probably a good beef tenderloin filet on the grill with some au gratin potatoes and grilled asparagus. Good stuff! Oh, and a good red wine.

"What is the favorite dinner to order at a restaurant?" It really depends, but I'd say anything with beef. I do like salmon a lot too. I avoid chicken because hell, I get that at home. A lot. Some kind of potatoes. Grilled veggies. And of course, dessert - anything chocolate with some ice cream. Yum.

"What gourmet meal would you like to learn to cook (assuming of course that you do not already do that!)?" Honestly, I have no clue. I've never done a prime rib before. And I'm not good at cooking fish myself other than shrimp or scallops. I've tried just about everything else though!

"What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?" Right now it's the pomegranate martini. Before that it was a whisky sour, and before that it was a Lynchburg Lemonade - hence my nickname for years, Lynchburg Lizzy Lu-Lu. Ahem. I also love a good Merlot, the more expensive the better!

"What is your middle name?" Since I got married, I use my maiden name of Johnson as my middle name. My "real" middle name is Booth...yes, I am a distant descendant of John Wilkes Booth. It's my grandmother's maiden name. Ironically, I'm the only child in our family that got a weird middle name - the rest of them all got normal "first name" type of middle names like Ann, Allen and Lee. I got screwed on that one.

"Do you see yourself living in the same house until MM graduates high school? Would you consider moving after he leaves for college? Where would you move?" I really haven't thought about it. We've moved every five years since we've been married, but this is the first house we've had that we both agree feels like HOME. Plus our friends live nearby, the schools are good, and so on. We will probably be here at least through middle school if not longer, depending on whether the school situation stays the same. And I'm sure we'd downsize after Monkey Man moves away...we don't need all this room for just the two of us (or maybe we do, heh) so perhaps we'd get a cool condo or something like that. Joey likes having a lot of property to ramble around on so he would probably hate that idea, though. He'd like to move closer to our family, which as most of you readers know it would be a cold day in hell before I'd consent to that. So I guess in summary, I have no freaking idea!

"Have you been looking for a new job or are you happy with the status quo for now?" Funny you should ask. Two weeks ago I got a call from a headhunter that I'd been talking to a few years ago. He had heard that I was a LEED Accredited Professional and had a few opportunities available. I started drafting up my resume and almost had it ready to send to him when I realized that honestly, other than dealing with a super-crabby boss, I like where I work. My friends are there. I have a flexible schedule. I have just enough responsibility to be challenged but not so much that I have to work nights or weekends. And, the other kicker is that two members of our five-person team are leaving in July to head off to MBA programs in other states. Leaving right now would not be a good thing...and honestly, I really have no desire to have a "career" anymore other than exactly what I'm doing. It's not always fulfilling, but it does allow me to do things like take vacations without worrying about what's going on at the office, or taking a half-day off to go to a program at Monkey Man's school. So I guess until something falls into my lap, I'm just going to stay put.

And the final question from today comes from The Piper Family: "How did you end up in the construction field?" Let's just say it was lack of anything better to do. When I graduated from college in 1993, the employment field in this state was pathetic. Seriously, almost no one in my graduating class had a job lined up for after graduation. I really didn't know what I wanted to do - I thought maybe working in a law office would be great and I had done an internship for a team of lawyers and loved it. But unfortunately, I wasn't a paralegal and although I sent resumes to every law firm in the city worth a toot, I didn't get a single interview.

The biggest part of this is that I had decided to move here to be with my boyfriend. A college friend had fixed me up with Bill and we had been doing the "commuter romance" for about six months. We were pretty serious and I figured if I moved here then the natural progression would be that we'd eventually end up married. The friend that fixed us up had gotten a job up around DC so her parents kindly offered me a place to live for free until I could find a job and an apartment.

The other part is that my parents told me I had to have a job by June 30th or I was going to have to move back home. That was clearly not an option for me.

So anyhow, Bill's stepdad worked for this big mechanical contractor here in town and mentioned that I could probably get a job there. All I knew about mechanical contractors was way back when I was in community college and working the night shift at the Super 8 Motel, there was a group of mechanical contractors staying there for about two months while working at a glass factory. There was this one really hot guy who would bring me dinner and milkshakes all the time, so I was pretty smitten with him. And no, I didn't go to his room with him. Anyhow, all I knew was that mechanical contractors at least made enough to buy milkshakes for girls at hotels. I didn't exactly know what they did, although later on I got to know way more about ductwork, piping, and sewer lines than a girl should know.

I got the name of the office manager at the company and sent her a resume. And then sent her another letter. And then called her. Finally, she called me and said, "You are probably the most persistent person I've ever seen, so I have to bring you in for an interview and see what you're all about." I went in for the interview and although they didn't have a position open, they ended up creating a job for me and the rest is history. I stayed there almost three years until I got sick of the BS there (lots of female beeyotchy politics there) and ended up with my current job. I've been here almost 12 years. Shit, I've been doing this for a loooong time.

Oh, and what happened with Bill you might ask? Well, I discovered that maybe the long distance thing worked better for us. Seriously, the guy was annoying as crap. For one thing, he was a bodybuilder and ex-Marine, so not only was his diet totally bizarre but his table manners were atrocious. Like picking up an entire chicken breast on his fork and gnawing on it like a wolf. He worked as a manager at a video store...not a district manager of Blockbuster like he'd told me. It was some random video store chain here in town. And the kicker was he lived with his mom and stepdad - it was supposed to be a temporary situation, but then when they started building a new house and took me on a tour, I realized that they were building enough room for all three of her sons to live there FOREVER. And the sons didn't seem to really want to live on their own. Red alert! FREAKS. So we broke up, he cried, and I moved on to an even worse boyfriend for the next two years. Sometimes life sucks that way.

So anyhow, if ya wanna know my deepest, darkest secrets...leave 'em in the comments!

New and improved holiday, with less family and more drama!

Somehow this year turned out to be one of the rare years where we didn't travel anywhere for Christmas. Nor did anyone travel here.


It rocked.


Back when Monkey Man was little, we made the decision to stay home for Christmas and then use that week between Christmas and New Year's to make the road trip to see all of the grandparents. We did that for two years with pretty good success. Then last year when my dad was sick, we did a pre-Christmas jaunt down there and ended up back home on Christmas Eve. We did have my sister and brother-in-law over for dinner but other than that, we were just trying to recover from the madness of the weeks prior to the big day.

This year's madness has been even a little much for me. The three weeks prior to Christmas - or maybe it was four weeks - were so jam-packed with crap that by the time Sunday rolled around (which was our first real "day off") I was exhausted.

On Sunday, though, we had the Forced In-Law Interaction. And honestly, on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the possibly best visit we could've had, I'd easily give this a 9. No drama, no fits, no rude behavior. The restaurant sucked. Sunday brunch with Santa had the most random offering of food imaginable, it was almost like the cook said, "Hmmm, how can I make this interesting? I'll put out some French toast. Some sliced fruit. Chicken casserole. Tacos. Lasagna." Um, WTF? It was just kind of gross, but since this is the "best place in town" we just sucked it up. My in-laws thought it was spectacular, of course. Oh, and Santa looked like a 23-year old skinny college student. Anyhow, we were supposed to open presents after lunch, but it was pouring rain so we all just shoved our gifts in each others' cars and took off toward home. I'm sure my mother-in-law was upset about it, but there was no way in hell we were standing out in the rain to open gifts.

On Monday, I did the last-minute grocery run which was kind of like being a gladiator. If I'd had a sword and maybe a club it would've gone a lot more smoothly. You know it's nuts when the store has employees that are doing nothing but walking up and down the aisles picking up trash and replacing items that have been dropped/knocked over/misplaced. I wouldn't want that job if my life depended on it. Anyhoo, we ended up meeting my nephew Steve and his wife Yancey at their new house (too cute!) and went out for dinner and to look at the Christmas lights downtown. If I could figure out how to download pictures off of Joey's camera there would be one on here...but I can't. Argh.

Yesterday was quiet. Kind of too quiet, maybe. We made the requisite amount of phone calls to family and friends that kind of put me in a funk. My mother was decidedly cold to me on the phone - she acknowledged receiving her Christmas gift and never said thank you or that she liked it or anything. I guess maybe she's angry with me for being upset with my sister last week. After I hung up I just kind of sat there for a while. It really hurts that no matter what I do, what I say, it's never good enough for her. I'm kind of done with the whole thing. I'm thinking maybe I need to go talk to someone and find out better ways of coping with this short of just cutting my mom out of my life. I know she's had a really rough year - their lifestyle has changed so drastically since my dad's illness and it has thrown her for a loop. I get that. But every time I offer help she turns me down. I can only offer so many times. You can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped or is too prideful to accept help. Not to mention she can be so fucking nasty sometimes that it's no wonder she was estranged from her sister for almost 18 years or that she doesn't have many friends or that my brothers have so little to do with her.

Anyway, that kind of put a little bit of a damper on the day for me. We hung out at the house, Joey helped Monkey Man assemble at least 9,672 Lego kits, and I watched a lot of crappy TV. What is it with the new Lego sets anyway - remember when we were little and all they had were the big sets with ten kajillion Legos that you could build all kinds of cool stuff with? Now everything is a "set" and once you get it assembled into whatever the set is for, you're done. Not a whole lot of imagination or re-use going on with those. Monkey Man was also the proud recipient of a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform, helmet, and "locker". He wore that damn helmet almost all day, it was comical watching him try to talk on the phone while he still had the helmet on.

The Santa haul was awesome. Santa (um, that would be me) gave Joey this cool laptop stand that he can wheel around and use downstairs in the Man Cave when he's watching TV. He had formerly been using the coffee table down there which is oh so ergonomically not working for him. He also got Guitar Hero II and III and is waiting for the appropriate time to get his rock on (not when Monkey Man is around because he isn't great at being patient). Some shirts, socks, Lowe's gift card, candied pecans, new books. He did okay. My mother-in-law gave him some odd hood/neckwarmer thing that is just the gayest thing ever. I told him if he wore it he would have to change his name to Miss Thang. I suspect it will get "lost" in the Christmas trash.

Me, I got some iTunes money, a new North Face jacket that I desperately needed, two identical JJill sweaters (he ordered 2 different colors and they shipped 2 of the same color), and a really beautiful black leather Coach bag. It is hawt.

And the Monkey Man - other than the aforementioned Lego sets and Steelers stuff, he got golf clubs, a globe, the Underdog DVD, an Erector set, a racetrack, and a bunch of monster trucks. We won't be going near any toy stores for a while.

So the other excitement going on around here is that we have mice. Jay had told me that they had mice and apparently a lot of their neighbors do too. They live around the corner from us so I knew right then and there that the little fuckers would be showing up at our house in short order. Then one morning late last week, I had gotten up at 5:15 to let the dog out and popped into the powder room next to the garage door to relieve my aching bladder, and as I was sitting there in a daze I heard scribble, scratch, scribble. I rubbed my eyes and then made a little more effort to listen. Nothing.

Then the other night, we were eating dinner at home (!) when I heard something again. This time in the kitchen. But every time Monkey Man would hush long enough so I could listen, it stopped.

Yesterday I was fixing our Christmas lunch and, um, found some evidence. Ew. So I guess you know what I ended up doing - calling an exterminator and cleaning out cabinets. Blech. Like the kitchen didn't already look like a bomb had hit in there after I fixed lunch.

Today I'm off of work so I can be with Monkey Man. We're going to meet Joey downtown for lunch and if I'm feeling particularly brave we might venture to the mall. Or not. Then we ship him off to one of the Badasses for two days so we can work and actually get paid so we can pay off the Visa bill this month. Our anniversary is Friday, Joey is going to DC on Sunday to watch the Cowboys play the Redskins, and Monday I have to work and then we're having a party. I must be insane. Who invites a ton of people over and ends up working all day? Me, that's who. Hopefully we will close early but I'm not counting on that.

I did think of a funny Christmas story from my childhood this weekend. Back when I was about five or six, my brother Dave had already gone off to college and had come home for Christmas break. I still believed in Santa that year, and I was so excited that I could barely sleep all night. Well, my brother came stumbling in from the bars around 2 AM and I heard him in the living room and thought he was Santa. I went running in there and no, it was Drunk Dave who was sitting there shelling pistachios. "Did you think I was Santa?" he slurred. "Well, you can open your presents if you want to."

So at 2 AM, I shredded into all of my Christmas presents and sat there for playing with everything. Finally around 4 AM I staggered back to my room and fell asleep. And imagine my parents' surprise when they awoke to discover that not only had Santa come, but that their angelic daughter had obliterated every present of hers under the tree.

Give me an inch, I take a mile. Not to mention that it was the year that I got a huge bucket of Slime from my brother. Remember that stuff? I got it EVERYWHERE. My mother was less than enthused.

So this year, Monkey Man got his traditional package from Uncle Dave and Aunt Karen. She works for a huge bookstore chain and is a children's literature specialist so she sends the most awesome books. And inside, a card addressed to me, from my brother: "Next year, Monkey Man gets a big bucket of slime. I was going to do it this year, but Karen stopped me."

God bless Karen. My carpets thank you.

Clinging stubbornly

It's my last day being 37. Yeah, I'm being totally dramatic about it in a purely cynical kind of way.

I was thinking about it this weekend. Honestly, my life since I turned 35 has been completely awesome. I'm not sure if it was finally shedding all that weight I gained when I was pregnant/nursing/depressed, or maybe it was moving into a new job with a new boss, or the adventure of moving out of the office to the jobsite, or even moving to our new house.

It's almost hard to believe what life was like before that. We ran into our old neighbors, Steve and Kathy on Saturday night and I guess it really dredged up a lot of memories for me about our last house. We lived there for five years - five years that really didn't have a lot of joy in them. I sound pretty gloomy saying that, but it was an accumulation of things. We sold a house that we loved hoping to buy our dream house - the house sale didn't go through thanks to the psycho sellers, so we ended up settling on our second house.

Buying that second house was a mistake in so many ways. It was a longer commute. The house was beautiful but needed a lot of crap to be replaced (we spent thousands of dollars and replaced everything including the roof, washer, dryer, stove/oven, dishwasher, water heater, microwave). It was in an odd neighborhood - we did the classic mistake of buying the nicest house in a so-so neighborhood and then watched the neighborhood do a gradual nosedive into...well, not such a nice place to live. We were ostracized by most of our neighbors who were older with kids in high school and resented having two "youngsters" move into one of the biggest, nicest houses in the neighborhood.

It was lonely. I never felt like the house was a home. It felt like a huge weight that was slowly smothering my spirit, my laughter, my life. Then were all the unhappy years of infertility. The post-partum depression which made me feel like an unworthy person who had finally been given this wonderful gift but couldn't enjoy it at all. Losing my nephew which was such a stunning blow and left me questioning everything.

It wasn't a happy house.

Three years ago this month, we sold that house and were in the process of building this one. It was scary as hell - we had no idea how the house would actually turn out. We knew a few people that lived around here but really didn't have any friends. The mortgage was scary as hell. It was a pretty big gamble.

It's been one of the best things we've ever done. We've made possibly the best friends we've had since moving to Richmond almost 15 years ago. The commute isn't great, but it could be a lot worse and when I pull into our neighborhood every night I can't believe how lucky we are to live here.

I finally feel like we're at home. I haven't felt that way in a long, long time.

Anyhow, the last few years have been really good to me. Not perfect, but I finally feel like maybe I'm back to being my old self. And maybe there's a little bit of my new self in there too. When I turned 35, I was scared about what it was going to be like. And as I creep toward 40 it's a little scary, but exciting too.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

A year later, and a little perspective

I was scrolling through my calendar the other day logging in appointments when I suddenly remembered what today's date was.


It was a year ago when Monkey Man was put in the ICU. If you're just tuning in, you can read the gory details here.


I had just finished with my dad's own illness and near-death experience only a month prior to that. And on that cold October day, my world came crashing down around me.



It wasn't until later that I discovered how sick he really was. The ENT nonchalantly mentioned that he was septic by the time we got him to the hospital - the staph infection had moved into his blood, and he was in danger of dying without proper medical attention. I sat there in his office, numb. I drove to a lunch date with Monkey Man in the car to meet Cat Door, and as blankly as I could announced that my kid almost died and yes, I'd like a chicken sandwich please. Later on, Cat Door would tell me that he was absolutely scared for me because I was just so...emotionless. Like I just couldn't even acknowledge those terrible words for fear I'd break down.


There is nothing more sickening than that drive to the hospital - don't pack anything, get your ass there as soon as possible - and facing the unknown. And knowing that as the mommy there isn't anything you can do but be brave and not fall apart like you desperately want to. So you stand there in the cold hospital room making phone calls and staring out into the cold gray skies and not wanting to believe that this, this is your life.


*****


So here we are a year later.

Monkey Man made a slow and steady recovery. We got those stupid tonsils out and it took a few months for him to get back to normal. Oh, and probably a few hundred bucks in antibiotics. That was a lot of fun.


And suddenly, he began to grow. And grow. And grow. He ate like nobody's business. He slept better. He was rarely sick anymore and the constant sinus infections waned to almost nothing. (Knock on wood.)


The other night, he reminded me about the spinal tap and the IV's and how scary it was. "But I was big and brave and the doctors made me all better!" he smiled.


Yes, yes they did.


*****


It's hard for me to express what that whole experience did for me. To me.


It's funny how sometimes an event like that really shakes you to the core. Makes you question everything - like, is it really worth getting upset at some asshole for cutting in front of you on the highway? And it makes you enjoy the little things, the simple things that you do with your family. For yourself. For other people.


Last year I had a little bit of a career crisis. And of course, once I went through all the hospital BS suddenly it wasn't important anymore. It wasn't about feeding my ego or getting a title. It was about keeping a job with people that supported me and gave me the flexibility to be with my family and take care of them. And that means way more than any old title does.


And most of all, it just reinforced that being the mom of a Monkey Man is simply put, the best. That he is still here to do the little stuff like sticking his toes in the ocean for the very first time. And I'm there to hold his hand, too.