Thoughts on a winter day.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I freakin’ love snow! We have been promised numerous times already this winter that the heavens would open up, but no. A couple flakes here, a couple there, and it all adds up to nothing. I would love to be that wrong at my job and still collect a paycheck! Speaking of paychecks, our fearless leader gave us a 1% raise and froze the cost of living to last year’s rate. Better than a poke in the eye as my Grammie would say! I finally figured out how to get back on here, and I was greeted by notification of over 7,000 spam posts on my website, mostly about casinos. I learned how to delete today! Every new year, I think about what I want to be when I grow up. This year was no different. I’ve nixed going back to college because what am I going to do with a degree at this age? I thought about journalism but do I really want to deal with an editor? That’s why I not writing a book now – the publishing industry is too chaotic. I want to enjoy myself and write what I want to write without oversight. That really won’t happen until I retire maybe the end of this year and I get my first amendment rights back. But in the meantime, I can just putter around here. I’ll have to get on more frequently to keep my site under control from the spammers tho.
Thoughts on a winter day. Read More »
Welcome back!
To me, that is. Had a devastating incident happen to my family which knocked me out of the block for, well, almost two years now. Trying to get back up and carry on, so it was an absolute pleasure to read the past comments from my friends about my site and my writing. You give me hope. Now that I have figured out how to get back on here and post, I hope to become a regular. It’ll just be fun stuff, no politics or religion, so no haters. Looking forward to connecting with the real folks out there!
More Carp Reunion
This is only the second reunion we’ve had since we stopped playing ball in 1997. There were quite a few people who couldn’t make it this year who wanted to attend, so we may have another one sooner than we had this one! The carp trophy was in attendance along with the two Hallowed Books of Carpness, which is a compilation of the insulting missives our law firms sent to each other over all the years we played, along with photographs memorializing all the insanity which, as Janet Kusch so aptly put it, “we were lucky to live through all of that!!” Amen to that! So here’s a few photos along with names since you might not recognize these folks after 26 years. At some point during our long run of this annual event, the paper mache second place carp trophy that I lovingly created went missing whilst in the possession of the Feiken’s firm (since they had it most of the time anyway). For years I asked whoever I came across if they ever knew what happened to it. Well, surprisingly, I got my answer at this reunion when I looked in one of Jackie’s two photo books. —–> She stuffed it in the porta-john! I was SHOCKED!!! It was a work of art! As I drove away from the Brown Iron Brewhouse (excellent place BTW – lots of gluten free options including beer!!), I received a text from Janet, who I left temporarily possessing the trophy and the Hallowed Books of Carpness, saying “She’s doing it again!!!”
Almost Home Alone!
At 12 years old, Patrick kept insisting that he was old enough to stay at home by himself if we wanted to go out to dinner or run an errand or two. He’s practically grown up, he’s old enough to babysit, he can take care of himself – all kinds of reasons were coming out of him. But film clips from all the “Home Alone” movies would zap through my head every time he brought up this suggestion. My husband and I were on the fence about it, but we knew we had to give it a try should the right opportunity present itself. One spring evening, John and I wanted to go out to dinner, but Patrick had other plans and refused to come with us. He pleaded that we leave him home alone. John and I looked at each other and agreed that maybe this would be the first time. John is a big weather fanatic, always catching it on the news and watching the clouds. He’s also into emergency preparedness and often combines the two. As we were grabbing our coats and keys to head out, John told Patrick where the flashlights were and where the fire extinguisher was. He also put the house phone on the kitchen table with our cell numbers written out, and instructed Patrick to stay away from glass windows in the event of a tornado. He further told Patrick if he heard the air raid sirens, to take the flashlight, phone and dog into the basement immediately. By this time, I was already in the car waiting to pull out of the garage because I have heard John go into protect-mode many times before and didn’t need to hear it again, although this was the first time it was directed to Patrick. Finally, John came out of the house and got in the car. I backed up about two feet when all of a sudden there was some very loud pounding on my driver’s side window. It startled the heck out of me and I hit the brakes and snapped my head around, only to see our little boy crying his eyes out, trying to catch us before we left. “Don’t leave me, Mema! I want to come with you!!!” John’s weather speech turned our brave young man back into my little sweetie-beatie. I guess we’ll have to try this when it’s not tornado season!
Almost Home Alone! Read More »
The Good Old Days: First At-Home Conference Call in 2003
Here’s what happened at my house during my first conference call back in 2003 when I was still working for the law firm. My son slept in that school-less day because we were going to go stand in line that night for the release of the latest Harry Potter book, and I didn’t want a really crabby kid there with me. He slept in so long that I didn’t have time to take him to latchkey before the scheduled conference call. I shooshed him and my 100 pound chocolate Lab into Patrick’s bedroom on the second floor and told him not to make a peep while I was on this very important call. I went across the hall to my room and called in on the landline, but no one could hear me. I ran downstairs and got the portable phone and discovered I still couldn’t be heard. Finally I just gave up, hung up, went back upstairs to redial and luckily got in. Not five minutes later, the doorbell rang so I set the phone down, ran back downstairs and discovered a friend of Patrick’s at the door. I let him in at the same time Patrick came out of his room and let the dog loose. Buddy charged down the stairs, jumped up on poor Chris and slobbered all over him. All Chris said was, “Boy, he’s ‘way bigger than my dog!” I quickly ushered all three of them back upstairs into Patrick’s room and I got back on the phone. Within three minutes, Patrick picked up the extension, because Chris had to call his grandmother to tell her he arrived safely. I put the phone down, ran back downstairs to grab my cell phone so Chris could make the call. Once back upstairs, I showed them how to use the cell phone (they were 8 and hadn’t had their own phones yet). I went back into my room to return to the conference call. I then realized that my cell is a 313 area code and we live in 734, Chris’s grandma lives in 734, and they probably would not be able to figure that out, so I put the phone down again and went to Patrick’s room to help but they were all gone. The room was empty. I ran back downstairs again, found them, dialed the number for them, and then went back upstairs to get caught up on the conference call. While I was finally settling in on the call, I heard Chris out in the front yard through my open second floor window say to Patrick, “Let’s go to my grandma’s house” and off they went. All I knew about where Chris’s grandma lived was that it was across from the school. Perfect. Finally, a half hour later, after I finally was able to hang up, I leashed the dog and walked a few blocks over by the school looking for two bikes, of which only one would I recognize. I somehow eventually stumbled across them and managed to get the grandma’s phone number. I went home and collapsed. So that’s how my first conference call went. I had another one the next day but this time, I had a plan: The dog will be at the vet, Patrick will be at latchkey, and I won’t be answering any doorbells!
The Good Old Days: First At-Home Conference Call in 2003 Read More »