Five Years with a Time Bomb

Five years ago this winter, I was diagnosed with MS. I woke up one morning with limited vision in my right eye. After visiting my eye doctor, he ordered an MRI because he suspected it was optic neuritis, a symptom of MS.

That was a very scary time for me. I didn't know much about MS, but I pictured myself in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. After the MRI, and the confirmation of MS, I saw a neurologist. He explained it all to me, and put me into a clinical trial for Rebif. That didn't go well, as it began to affect my liver. Plus it was kicking my ass with nasty flu-like side effects. I wasn't sorry to be taken off it. Ever since, for the past 4.5 years, I have been taking a shot of Copaxone every single day. And not a single negative side effect from it.

A little over a year after my initial diagnosis, I had another MRI. I wasn't sure that I wanted one. After all, do I really want to know if the disease is progressing if there is nothing that can be done about it? I'm kind of weird - I sometimes feel like what you don't know isn't going to hurt you. I know that is incredibly naive, but sometimes I really don't want to know. Do you understand what I mean? But the doctor talked me into it, and it was great news. Everything was stable.

This past month, I had my third MRI. The first one in three years. I have been feeling fine. No new symptoms. Life is good. I try not to think about it too much. Take my shot every day. I figured it would be the same as last time. No worries.

Well, this morning the nurse from my neurologist's office called. He is 'concerned' about the MRI from last week..... he wants me to come in to the office to possibly change my meds. I can't stop thinking about this today. I am completely bummed..... I have been doing fine. The disease has been benign for the most part. And now this? It just plain sucks. Hopefully, the monster will stay asleep... Now I will be paranoid about everything.

Another Day, Another Tantrum

Every parent has experienced the fury of toddler temper tantrums at one point or another. They are frustrating, at times frightening, and always annoying. And every parent also knows that the first rule of dealing with tantrums is DO NOT GIVE IN. And when the calm finally sets in, do not reward the child for calming down. All of that is negative reinforcement.

Well, once again, the toddlers of the world are having a tantrum. Muslim fury at pope jihad comments. Let's see what it is they're screaming about now.... oh, same old thing. They are insulted. They insist on an apology. They are a religion of peace. And one other thing - the shock and awe of it all is gone. When we hear that Muslims are 'furious' 'upset' 'demanding an apology', it all seems like the movie Groundhog Day. What? Again? *yawn* blah blah blah

And the grownups of the world are giving them exactly what they want: mass media attention, and apologies. Oh my.... that should hold them for a couple of days until the next tantrum.

This is getting very annoying and very old. If they want to be treated as equal citizens of the world community and sit at the table with the grownups, then they damn well better grow up themselves!

Sorry.... but I have no sympathy for them anymore. At all. They need to join the 21st century where everyone is used to being insulted at one time or another. Shit happens. People get insulted. People get over it. End of story.

Let's Talk about Radio

I really don't listen to radio that much. In fact, the only time I listen is when I am driving. A few years ago, I loved to listen to The Bob and Tom Show on 102.3 here in Austin. Unfortunately, the station didn't renew their syndication contract, the station changed formats (twice) and I don't listen to that station AT ALL anymore.

Bob and Tom had (have?) one of the best morning talk/comedy shows on radio. There were times that I would be laughing out loud while I was driving. I really missed them on my morning drive. Bob and Tom do internet stream, but you have to pay for it. Screw that. First of all, I don't have a computer in my car. And that's the only time I listen to radio, really. It's a shame because I really enjoyed them. They sell plenty of CDs and stuff on their website, but I'm cheap. I'm just not interested enough to pay for it.

After they were gone, I tried to listen to Dudley and Bob on KLBJ. That lasts about ten minutes with me, then I get disgusted and switch the station. It is very rare that they don't irritate me. I really tried to listen to these guys, because they are local, but no one is more annoying than Dale Dudley. He's an overgrown frat boy with a serious case of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) and he's always yelling about something. It's not the politics that bother me so much. Hell, I didn't vote for Bush. But I don't live my life complaining about him. There's an election every four years, and his two terms are almost up. I am fed up with the constant Bush hate. It's as bad as the Muslim riots. Repetitive and unimaginative. And Mr. Dudley is one of those obsessives who is off the deep end. I don't have to agree with people politically to enjoy them. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert - funny. Bill Maher/Al Franken/Dale Dudley - deranged and not funny. I'm just too tired of all the political hate in this country. Their humor is mean-spirited at times, also. It sort of reminds me of those assholes in high school who thought they were too cool for everyone else and spent all their time making fun of the kids who were 'not as cool'. These are the kind of guys that trigger the Columbine impulse in their peers. They have their fans, and that's great for them. I just don't like being annoyed when I'd rather be entertained. *shrug*

Well..... now I have this amazing thing called an Ipod. And I have just discovered Podcasts! When I was in high school in Philadelphia, I always listened to WMMR. And on ITunes, I discovered that WMMR's morning show, Preston and Steve is available for podcast subscription. And it's free! (for now anyway). I had never heard of these guys, so I figured I would give them a try. They are great! And it's good to hear about Philly again. So I can download their show, and play it in the car or when I walk the dogs.... I really enjoy it even if I get it a day later. I'm not sure why they offer it for free (and without commercials) but I love it!

It's amazing to me how technology is giving us more choices all the time.

Sad Anniversaries

Tonight is September 10. And we are inundated with television and print remembrances of 9/11/2001. And I have come to tears several times today. Damn the NFL and the wonderful pregame of the Giants/Colts game tonight in New Jersey. More tears. I don't mean 'damn them' in a bad way. Because in a way, I needed to feel this way today. I thought that I was beyond tears after five years. I am incredibly grateful that I am not.

So in the past couple of weeks, we have seen more of the Katrina devastation. And I am sad for all those whose lives are still in a mess. But at the same time, I can't help comparing the two events.

The attacks on the WTC center provoked so many emotions in me, and those feelings are still strong today especially. This morning there was a special on HBO. And I was moved to tears for the first time today. My son had a hockey game, and while I was sitting outside waiting for the game to start, I took a scrap of paper and just wrote the following: anger, horror, shock, despair, pride, anger, no fear, commitment, resolve, just do it, don't appease ever, firm. Resolve to live. They can be damned.

As you can see, the emotions were at the surface. And one word was repeated several times on that scrap of paper: PRIDE. I remember the NYPD and NYFD heroes. I remember thinking they were amazing - and how heartbreaking that so many gave their lives just doing their jobs. And it occurred to me at that moment: Where were the heroes of Katrina? That was what was missing in all that mess. Where were their police and their firefighters and their heroes? The WTC attack was shocking and sudden and unexpected and catastrophic. Katrina was no shock, really. Hurricanes never are. Yes, the levee breaks weren't expected....... but then again, who could ever expect anything man builds to withstand Mother Nature at her most deadly?

That was the difference that I saw today, in a sudden epiphany. Where the hell were New Orleans' heroes? They weren't there.... they were failed by their public servants and their public officials. Rudy Giuliani was there, almost buried by the rubble, breathing the toxic air, leading.... where was Ray Nagin? Where were the friggin' heroes for the people of New Orleans?

What a difference...... I will never ever forget the firefighters and police of New York on that horrible day. I will never forget the sorrowful wail of the bagpipes at all the funerals for New York's FINEST (and "finest" is an understatement of epic proportions). I will never forget that in the horror of that day, I felt so much pride for these hardworking American citizens.

God Bless New York, all it's citizens and public servants, and God Bless America. And to all those who wish us harm, damn you to the bowels of hell.

Update: I came across this essay, Tribes on another blog which says everything much better than I could ever say... an excerpt:

So, on one hand, we have a very blue city – New York – confronted, out of the clear morning of a perfect fall day, with no warning – with a terror attack, and they march toward the sounds of screams and falling bodies and die by the hundreds. On the other hand, we have New Orleans law enforcement – also blue – whining about wet shoes and helping themselves to the happy period of lawlessness that followed an event that had been expected for no less than seventy-two hours.

In New York, we had a governor who got every available resource on the ground as fast as it could get there, and in Louisiana we have a governor who...cried. Governor, your job is to not cry. Your job is to be strong. We have plenty of civilians crying. You want to cry, cry in the car on the way home like everybody else did four years ago. Crying Governors, race-baiting mayors and looting police do not a Finest Hour make.

In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.

Now, much has been made of the fact that Ray Nagin is an incompetent, race-baiting black man, and Rudy Giuliani, who was neither, is white. Also, feminists are upset that people dare attack Governor Blanco because she is incompetent, weak, indecisive, and also a woman. And no doubt there are salivating long-haired, short-cortexed idiots just waiting for this to be over so they can sail into the comments section and tell me what a racist and misogynist I am.

Well, here’s the news flash: Nagin isn’t incompetent because he’s black. He’s incompetent because he’s incompetent. Condoleeza Rice is black. Colin Powell is black. Ted Kennedy, a man well-acquainted with rising water crises is as white as they come. Kennedy is incompetent; Rice and Powell are two of the most competent people on the planet.

This is about tribes, all right: not black and white tribes, but rather a battle between the capable and the culpable.

I have just one response: Hell Yeah! This is a long essay, but read the whole thing. It is well worth the time.

Shabby

September has come, but it is only chronological. The landscape does not change. The landscape of Texas in summer reminds me of northeastern winters - no color, no life except for the truly hardy, and no vibrancy.

The few flowers which have survived the unrelenting heat and lack of rain seem anemic and as faded as a 20 year-old silk corsage tucked into the bottom of a matron's hope chest. Even the crape myrtle which are still blooming lack vibrancy. It seems as though they have been washed in hot water and bleach. Faded and wan, the blooms seem to be disappearing into a monochromatic world.

The lawns which are watered are green and yet they are drab. Even still there are patches of brown, especially along sidewalks and driveways where the concrete soaks up the sun and radiates heat twenty-four hours a day. The trees live, and the flowers exist, but they are not flourishing. They look as tired as I feel.

This is late summer in Texas. Where the only color is the brightness of the sky. And yet I long for clouds. A gray day in this gray landscape is actually a blessing. It seems unfair that the sky is so blue and the sun is so bright when everything else lacks luster.

I cannot wait for it to end.

Trip through Texas

I never realized how much stuff my son had until we had to pack it all up to take him to school last Friday. I did, however, manage to pack it into the back of our Jeep Cherokee. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a squeeze. Being the great mom that I am, I volunteered to ride in the back seat. I just couldn't see my 6'5" son squeezed back there on about 18 inches of seat.... crowded by boxes and bags and other stuff. (click on pictures for a larger view)


So, off we headed on the 400+ mile trip to Lubbock. It was a long, boring, and slightly uncomfortable drive for me. So I pulled out my camera. Why not? When we first moved to Texas, I was surprised that it didn't look anything like I imagined it would. But Texas is a big damn place, and on the road to Lubbock, I discovered the Texas of my expectations. (Keep in mind you are getting the same view I had - through the window with glare and reflection,etc)

Small towns....


Miles and miles of open land....


Classic Americana billboards


A sign that we're getting closer....


The landscape gets harsher


Pumping oil


and windmills!


It was a long trip, and sometimes boring, but the size of this state, and the diversity of it's landscapes, is fascinating.

Oh, my son is settling into his dorm at Texas Tech and doing well. Of course, it's only been two days...... I miss him. I have great hopes for him. And I envy him. He has his whole future ahead of him. He's a smart boy. And a great kid. And I am proud of him.

Tombstone Puzzle

My grandmother's parents emigrated to the US from Poland sometime in the late 1800s/early 1900s. I am working on getting more info. Today I got this picture from my brother, who has been with my grandmother at the cemetary where her parents are buried. I have scant information on her family, so I asked if he would get me the info from the tombstones if he could.

My grandmother had told me her mother's name was "Dominique" or something like that... and my brother said that when he was there with her, she told him this was the grave of her parents and two of her siblings.

I am a little puzzled. First, there are two people with the same name apparently: Antoni. Antoni #1 was born in 1891 and died in 1918, according to the tombstone. Antoni #2 was born in 1884 and died in 1944.

Also, I am assuming Dominika is my great-grandmother. Her dates are listed as 1869-1921. Wawrzyniec is likely my great-grandfather and he is listed as 1829-1923.

So... is it unusual for a family to have two children with the same name? And, if Antoni #2 was Dominika's child, she would have been 15 when he was born. And her husband was 40 years older?

Isn't that illegal?

I do know that one of my other great-grandmothers was married at 14 back in 1906, so I guess it wasn't that unusual. But still....

I am just wondering why they would have two children of the same name, and is it really possible that a 55 year-old man was married to a 15 year-old. I suppose it was.... still kind of strange. A possibility is that she was his second wife and the elder Antoni was a child from a different wife. I have found that when a spouse died back in those days, there was always a quick remarriage in order to provide support(financial for the woman, childcare/household for the man). So maybe that is the explanation. I will probably never know because I doubt I'll be able to access any 19th century Polish records.

Edit 8/29/06: Got an email from my brother today. Apparently, I have misread the tombstone. He stopped after work and checked again. The dates for the second Antoni are 1864-1944. I would assume that he and Dominika (1869-1921) are husband and wife. Antoni 1891-1918 was likely their son. I don't have any idea who the fourth person on the stone is. Perhaps a parent of either Dominika or Antoni?

In the Kitchen

Have you ever gone into the kitchen, turned on the light, and seen, out of the corner of your eye, something scuttle across the kitchen floor? That's a pretty freaky feeling, isn't it? It makes you jump, or at least makes your heart jump..... Well, it happened to me tonight. But the good news is that it was just a baby lizard. Now, I don't actually know the scientific name for the little lizards around my yard here in Texas. They are small, probably the biggest one I've ever seen was maybe four inches long. This one was a real tiny baby. Could not have been more than an inch and a half long. And it was whitish because it was on my white kitchen floor. So I guess these lizards are chameleons because they adapt to the background color?

Do you know the best way to remove a lizard from your house? No, don't stomp on it. I could never kill one. I think they are cute, and they serve a useful purpose because they eat bugs (which I have no problem killing if I'm confronted). I learned this trick when I lived in Florida from a neighbor, because I used to find at least one a week in my house there. I've been in Texas for ten years, and this is only the second one that I've found in the house (although there are plenty around my yard).

Here's what you do to safely and humanely relocate a lizard. Grab a piece of paper and a small tupperware container (or other generic plastic container). Quickly put the container over top of the lizard. Hopefully, he's not moving, because if he is you won't catch him. Note: Do not worry if you catch his tail with the edge of the container and it comes off. This is a defense mechanism. The tail will continue to flop around for a few seconds..... but just leave it. As long as the rest of the lizard is safely under the container, he's just fine. Lizards regularly lose their tails to predators, but they grow back. The continued movement of the tail makes the predator believe it has captured the lizard, while the lizard has a chance to escape. Isn't nature amazing?

Once you have the lizard (with or without tail) under the container, slip the piece of paper underneath. Make sure the lizard is between the paper and the container, then lift both at the same time. You are now holding the paper tightly against the container with the lizard inside. Carry it outside, and let the lizard run off into the grass.

Your house is now lizard-free, and the lizard has found it's way back into nature.

Doesn't get any easier than that, does it?

Weekend Update

Squirrel goes nuts! James Klute said his 3-year-old son was also bitten on the calf while they were kicking a soccer ball at the park.

The squirrel was sent off the field in disgrace after receiving a red card.

Urban Fish Farming In the basement of an ivy-covered building on the surprisingly leafy campus of Brooklyn College is something even more surprising: thousands of tilapia packed tighter than a subway car into 300-gallon fiberglass fish tanks..... "We're subsidizing everybody in the world to grow fish that we can buy back from them," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to me. We should be creating jobs here."

Yes, and real estate big enough to hold hundreds of 300-gallon fish tanks in New York City is definitely cost effective. Sounds like a winning plan to me.

Worm Entrepreneur Shut Down For the last three summers, 13-year-old Joey Cadieux has headed outside with his flashlight on rainy nights to collect nightcrawlers from his yard.

Purchased by passing fishermen for $2.50 a dozen, the wriggling worms brought him $7 to $10 in a good month, just enough for bike trips to his favorite neighborhood pizza joint.

But when a town official recently objected to his stenciled black-and-white "nite crawlers" yard sign, Joey's business got the hook.

Maybe Joey should get together with the urban fish farmer.....

The Perfect Storm

It took me two hours to make a rountrip to the skating rink tonight to get my son to hockey practice. The rink is about 8 1/2 miles away. Why did it take so damn long? Well, sit back and I'll tell ya.

The rink is south of me - just off IH35. From my house, I go east to get to I35, and then south to Austin. There are only two eastbound roads near me. The first one, 620, was shut right in the middle of rush hour traffic because of a gas main break. They are replacing the utility poles, and apparently they hit a gas main. So east and west traffic was closed.

I can get to the other eastbound road by going through my neighborhood and taking Hairy Man Road (yes, that's really the name!). Hairy Man is a winding two lane road.... Hairy Man would take me to the other eastbound road, it is approximately a three mile drive. So I headed that way. But so did every other single person who was pouring off eastbound 620 at rush hour. This is a backwater road, two lanes, and a couple of four-way stops. It took me 45 minutes to go three miles!!!! What the hell!

On top of that, where Sam Bass and I35 meet, a tractor-trailer had overturned. Luckily, it was after the access road on the northbound side, so I was able to get on I35 and head south.

And then, the same deal coming home. I left the house at 6:25. Got home at 8:30. This roundtrip normally takes me 1/2 hour.

On top of that, I only had a quarter tank of gas, and I was just praying during all that stop and go traffic that I would make it to a gas station.

The people who planned these roads obviously never considered the growth we have had in the last ten years and the lack of alternate routes.

Rock the Day

I love YouTube. Go ahead, try it. The search facility is great. I'll get your day started with something special. Knopfler and Clapton are two of my favorite guitarists. I promise to share more later.

Eric Clapton With Mark Knopfler - Layla


How about we amp it up a bit with some Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith?

Led Zeppelin& Aerosmith

Random Incoherence

We're going to hit 100 today. And the next day. And the day after that. Which makes me wonder: what in the hell was everyone whining about in the rest of the country all summer? Here in Texas, that's a normal summer. Okay, granted they aren't used to it. But still, summer is supposed to be hot. I don't like it, but you get used to it.

Getting a kid ready for college is expensive! Took Greg to Target yesterday and spent $200 on miscellaneous stuff for his dorm room. It's amazing what you take for granted after you have accumulated 30 years of stuff in your house. The stapler is in the desk drawer. But wait, he will be over 400 miles away, so he's gonna need one of his own. A couple of melamine plates and bowls for in-room meals. A rug for the floor, a pitcher with water filter, some replacement filters, some little plastic drawers for organization, collapsable laundry hamper, shower caddy, heavy duty bike lock, blah blah blah. We are so ready now. The big question is how are we gonna fit all this stuff into the jeep for the trip out there??

The world is in turmoil. Again. Can't we all just get along? I know the arab/palestinian/muslim world is in dire poverty and despair, but wouldn't it make more sense to invest in industry and education than weapons? Just askin'.

I love my Ipod. Have I mentioned that lately? All the CDs that have been gathering dust on my shelves have been reborn. I am listening to things that I haven't heard in years. We are creatures of habit. I've forgotten how good some of it is. I've also bought some new music which I've never heard before and discovered some current artists that I actually like! Welcome to the 21st century. It's about damn time.

Full Moon on an August Night

I love it when the moon is bright enough to cast shadows. The backyard is dark. But it's not. Everything is visible, even the long shadows of the trees. But yet, it's dark.

And it's still pretty hot at 11:00 PM, too. Funny thing about where I live, hours after the sun goes down and it's still 90 degrees outside.

I had to go to the grocery store around 9:30. We were out of wine. Hockey tryouts are this week, and Jim went to the rink after work and was on the ice for four hours. I knew he would be looking for a glass of wine when he got home. Of course, I wanted a glass, too. And that is the only reason I would go to the store at 9:30 at night. People shop for odd things at the grocery store at night. There were two ladies ahead of me in the checkout line. The first woman had a container of Silk soy milk, some yogurt and a frozen Marie Callender Coconut Cream pie.... she wants to eat healthy, but she doesn't. That's cool. The second woman had a plunger and a bowl brush. I know why she had to make a nighttime trip to the grocery store. She had my sympathy. And I had my box of wine. Yes, I buy wine in a box. Is there a problem with that? It will last a whole week, or more. It's just more convenient. I prefer to get a bottle of some good pinot grigio or cabernet sauvignon, but for everyday, the box will do.

It's August!!!

Well, it is officially August, 2006. My oldest child will be off to college in three weeks. Am I sad? No, actually I am envious. He's going to start a great chapter in his life. I am going to miss him. A lot. The house will be a bit quieter. My grocery bill will be a little smaller. But I just got the first statement from the university and I think it's a good thing I'll be spending less on groceries!

We went up to Lubbock two weeks ago for New Student Orientation. The boy is already completely at home on campus, already knows many people, and didn't need me at all! I was amazed at the young people at orientation - I have never seen so many attractive young men and women in one place in all my life! Seriously, Texas grows some good-looking kids!

I remember what it was like to be eighteen years old. I guess that's why I have been spending so much time thinking about my youth lately. It's probably normal. If I could go back and do it all over again? I probably wouldn't change a thing. Seriously. What needs to be changed isn't the past, it's the present. I have to start thinking about the rest of my life! I still have a 16 year old at home, who doesn't need me quite as much as he used to, but 'the rest of my life' is starting already and life is too short not to take advantage of every minute. So, time for the second chapter, I think.

So what's next?

Early Summer Morning

It is 7:00 AM and it is 79 degrees out. There is a big dark cloud covering part of the sky, but I can see the sun trying to burn it off. Since my backporch faces east, I usually share my morning tea with the rising sun.

I love the very early morning. The hummingbirds are fighting with each other over the feeder (they do not like to share). Four of them dodge and dive at each other, while their high-pitched chirping fills the morning silence. But it is not completely silent, I can hear some lawn sprinklers somewhere on the block. My dogs are stretched out on the grass, not even noticing the tiny hummers battling above their heads.

I know that the sun is going to win the battle with that cloud. There will be no rain today. It will be another hot, sunny Texas summer day. Sometimes I long for a dark, gray rainy day. When I lived up north, we had lots of those. And they used to depress me. But when you have been living for ten years in a place where 60% of the year is constant sun, you actually look forward to those rare gray days.

When we get storms, they tend to be violent. The rain sweeps down in torrents, and the thunder is loud. Very rarely do we get those soft rains. I would love to wake up in the morning to the sound of a gentle rain and a dark day. The kind of rain that lasts all day and encourages you to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.

Summer of '76

The first real job I ever had was at the Philadelphia International Airport in 1976. My dad worked for Eastern Airlines, and he basically got me the job. I worked in the gift shop on concourse B. The shops were run by Aero, which was a subsidiary of ARA. They had a contract with the city to run the shops and the food service in the airport. This was back in the day when airports didn't look like shopping malls or food courts. There was limited choice when you travelled.

It was the bicentennial summer, and we had to wear these ugly red, white and blue nylon smocks. It was actually a great job for a seventeen-year old. It was so much better than working at Burger King or something. This girl was a child of the suburbs, and the airport was a dynamic place with all manner of fascinating people.

Obviously, airport security was a joke back in 1976. In other words, there wasn't much security at all. There were a few homeless people that pretty much lived there. One little old man was known as "Birdman" because he was always whistling. He usually slept across the terminal chairs at night.

And whatever happened to the Hare Krishna freaks? We used to have so much fun tormenting them. I remember a customer rushed into the gift shop one day and was just pacing around. I asked him if he was looking for something. He said that he was trying to avoid a Hare Krishna guy (who was standing outside the door looking in). They used to have these books that they would hand to people to look at, and then shake them down for a contribution. The implication was, if you don't donate, you give the book back. Well, this customer took the book, didn't donate, and came into the shop before the Krishna could stop him. The Krishna's weren't allowed to set foot in the shops. So there was this angry guy outside the shop waiting for my customer to come back out. My customer looked at him, handed me the book and said "Here, you keep it". I looked up at the Krishna guy and made a point of dropping it into my trash can where he could see it. Oh well..... get a real job, loser. He turned a few pretty shades of red over that. When did the Krishna's disappear from airports anyway? That's one positive thing about air travel in this century.

It was really a fun job. Our shop had two cashiers, and my partner was Linda Takacs. We owned concourse B! Linda was a couple years older than me, but damn, we had some fun. Whatever happened to Linda? And we always had a lot of laughs with the stockboys.... John Franzini, Dennis Hardy, John Hardy, Bill Coughlin, and the boy who would become my husband a few years later, Jim. And 30 years later, we are still together. Who says that summer romance doesn't last?

Immersed in Old Stuff

My mother left today to visit my brothers back in Pennsylvania. For the past two weeks, I have been wading through boxes of old pictures, plus all my genealogical research, to put together a package of our family history for them. Now that it's all organized, I can take a deep breath and review all the things that I've unearthed in the last few weeks.

First, back in my Odds and Ends review, I posted a picture of a Strong Fire Truck that I found on Coalregion.Com. At that time, I wrote

My mom thinks this is the firetruck that she and my dad rode on their wedding day (my grandfather was a volunteer fireman)

Well, I found a picture of that event, and I think my mom was correct! Sure looks like the same truck to me!

I have lots to write about, but for now, I'm going to finish watching Trading Spaces and go to bed.

History of Grocery Stores

I'm kind of weird. Well, I'm sure anyone who has read any of this blog can figure that out by themselves, but I'm just warning you.

In my 47 years, I have lived in 7 different houses, and a few apartments. Four different states. Many different towns. And since grocery shopping bores me, I tend to let my mind wander when I'm forced to do it (which is at least once a week). This past Sunday, while pushing the cart with the unruly wheels, I was thinking about how I can relate all of the places I've lived to the grocery store chains that I've patronized.

My earliest recollection is of Secane, Pennsylvania. There was an A&P directly across the street from our house. But mom didn't really shop there except when we ran out of milk or bread. No, her preferred grocery store was the Acme on Baltimore Pike near the Bazaar. You didn't buy your meats there though. For meats, you had to go to Roy Tweedy's butcher shop on MacDade Blvd. And for cold cuts, there was a deli across the street that had the best. Everything else came from the Acme. I'm not sure when butcher shops and deli's stopped being so important. I don't even know when I was last in a butcher shop. But in the 60's and 70's, mom always made a special trip to Tweedy's for her meats.

When we moved to Aston, we shopped at a different Acme, closer to our house. Cold cuts were gotten from the local Wawa, though. My mom never bought cold cuts at a grocery store (back then). She would still make the longer drive to Tweedy's now and again, but she had learned to tolerate the meats from the Acme.

I moved to New York in 1980 when I got married. There were two big grocery stores there. ShopRite and Grand Union. I always shopped at Grand Union. For everything, including cold cuts. I don't think I ever went to a deli or a butcher shop.

On to Florida, which was an interesting experience. I have never lived in a place that had so many grocery stores! You couldn't drive four blocks without coming to another one. But there were really only two: Publix and WinnDixie. And wherever there was a Publix, there would be a WinnDixie across the street or at least in the same block. It amazed me that you never had to drive more than five miles to find a grocery store. How could one area support so many stores?

When I lived in Florida, though, I always shopped at Publix. Just liked it better. And it was amazing how much cheaper my grocery bill was in Florida! I never realized how expensive things were in New York. Now, there were two Publix stores that I liked. One was a bigass store at Glades and 441. Really nice - but I learned to avoid it between January and April. Why? Snowbirds. The population would double in the winter. So I would go to the Publix on Sandlefoot during those times. Now, there was an excellent deli near my house and I did get cold cuts there on occasion, but not too often.

In Texas, we have a few choices - Albertsons, Randalls, and HEB. That would be H*E*B. It's initials, not a word. The guy who founded the chain was named H.E. Butts. I think it was a wise move to just go with HEB. At any rate, I shop at HEB now. For everything.

Sometimes, I find myself saying "I'm going to Grand Union", which really puzzles me. I haven't shopped at Grand Union since I left New York in 1994. It must be senility setting in.

Oh, and of course Walmart is everywhere..... but I HATE to shop at Walmart. I don't want to buy my food where people are buying tires and sneakers and toilet seats, okay? I just want a grocery store. In and out, without having to deal with all the rest. They opened a HEB Plus store here recently and I hate it. I think they are trying to Walmarticize it. NO NO NO. Just groceries, okay?

But, I do hate grocery shopping. So why did I just spend so much time writing about it? I already told you that I'm weird.

Incredibly Beautiful Morning

It's 81 degrees out right now, and there is a nice breeze. Seems like the soggy weather we had last week is finally gone.

I just hung out some wash on my 'illegal' clothesline. Damn fascist homeowners association doesn't allow clotheslines. So mine is just below the fence so that no one can see it from the street. I don't understand their thinking. With energy prices high, it only makes sense to hang out as much wash as you can instead of burning up the meter with the clothes dryer, right? And I'm kind of old-fashioned - I just like hanging my clothes outside. No, I don't hang everything out, but some things just get beat up in the dryer.

The good thing about Texas, if you get the wash out early it usually dries within two hours. The bad thing about Texas, if you don't bring it in quickly, the sun will fade it....

Time to take the dogs for a walk before it gets scorching hot.

White towels only, Mom!

So the boys just left to go to the gym, again. Greg just got off work, came home, changed his clothes, packed his gym bag, grabbed his brother, and they're off.

In my younger years, I probably would have enjoyed the gym at 11:00 at night. Now? Not so much. I'm sitting here with my glass of wine, barely motivated to type up this post.

But Chris, he was complaining. Tells me that we need white towels. I believe he is suffering from that rare teenage disease called "Hue-phobia". Believe me, my towels are not all yellow, pink and orange. I have some green and some blue. But I really don't have any white. I do have a few beige towels, but that's still too much color for 'the gym'. I am told that I must invest in some white towels. Never in my life have I seen a kid so distressed by the fact that he has to drag a steel blue bathtowel to the gym.

I know where his allowance is going to be spent next week. If he wants white towels, I'm sure he can stock up at Big Lots or something.

Happy Birthday to Me

I spent most of today being very depressed. Knowing that you are going to be forty-seven years old tomorrow will do that to you. I've really got to make some changes in my life, and I just don't know how to do it. I'm just no fun anymore. What happened to the girl who was funny and lively and had lots of friends? I feel as though I've retreated further into myself these past couple of years.

Then at 6:30, the phone rang. My wonderful husband, who has been in China for the past three weeks, called to wish me a happy birthday. Well, it's 7:30 tomorrow morning there, so he's right on time. He said he had a present for me. I assumed he meant he bought something in China and I'd get it when he comes home on Saturday.

Then he said to go to his nightstand and open the bottom door. There was a package in there, all wrapped up, with a card. The man bought my present and wrapped it before he left three weeks ago! And, he got me an IPod!!! I have been wanting one for so long, but I just couldn't justify spending the money on it. My son has one, and I borrow it all the time. I love it..... and dammit, he bought me one for my birthday. The IPod is amazing, but just the fact that he thought ahead and had it ready for me on my birthday is just soo... well, he's awesome.

I love that man. For 29 years, he has always put so much thought and care into every gift he gets me. He picks out the most beautiful cards.

Forty-seven doesn't seem so bad anymore. It's going to be an awesome year. It has certainly had a great beginning.

Another Saturday Night

... and I have no life, dammit!!

I've been working on photo archives for the past two weeks. Okay, I'm trying to get my family history files up to date. I went out and bought some acid-free photo boxes for some of these old photos. A few of them are in very fragile state. I've scanned them and will probably send them to Walgreen's to get copies made.

I found a really great picture of my grandfather and my father, from 1934. My pop was about two years old. Very cool.



Someone please remind me to backup my photos!! The blank CDs are all upstairs in Chris' room and I keep forgetting to bring some downstairs so I can backup my geneology stuff. I would hate to have to put in all these hours again!

Why am I doing this? Does it really matter? Are my kids going to ever care about all this history? I also want to make copies for my brothers.

The amazing thing about doing this is that you never finish! I want a complete record for my kids, which means doing my husband's family also. I haven't even started that! Although his aunt has done quite a bit of research on his grandmother's family already. They've been in this country since it was a colony of England. Very old Philadelphia family. Friends with Ben Franklin even. This great-granddaughter of lowly Polish, Slovak, and English coalminers who crossed the Atlantic in the early 1900s feels very unworthy.....

Ah well, I come from very sturdy stock!

In the garden

Friday and Saturday night were stormy. Those nightstorms that roll in after midnight and wake you from a sound sleep with crashing thunder. By Sunday afternoon, it was sunny again.

I was just weeding the garden and tidying up from the mess that Mother Nature had wrought. My fountain had lots of mulch and leaves in it. I decided to drain the basin, rinse it, and fill it with fresh water.

When I lifted the lid off the base, there it was. A snake. Okay, so it was only about six inches long. So it was a garter snake. But it was still a snake! I called my oldest son to come out and catch it and relocate it away from our yard. He tried to grab it, but it headed under the basin and out of reach. Arggggh!!!

I know snakes are good for a garden. Well, at least the non-poisonous variety. And, after all, I had provided water, rocks for sunning, and plenty of cool safe places to hide, hadn't I? I practically invited him to move in! But, there is just one thing. I.DON'T.LIKE.SNAKES!!!!

I love the lizards. They are cute and they eat pests. And they are fun to watch. But a snake? Can I learn to love a snake? Well, snakes eat pests too. So they aren't so cute. Can I go out on the back porch without looking for him? Wondering where he is? I hope so.

Today I found myself trying to find it. Well, not that I would do anything about it, but just so I knew where he was. I'm paranoid. I keep expecting him to be everywhere that I'm walking or doing anything. I'll get over it. I'll forget I ever saw it. But it's going to be awhile before that flower bed around the fountain gets weeded!

Lot and Bessie

Who were Lot and Bessie? They were the parents of my paternal grandfather. I am looking at a copy of their marriage certificate. It is 100 years old. It is in terrible shape and I hope to find a way to preserve what is left of it. (click to see larger copy)

At some point, my grandfather must have pasted it to a brown grocery bag because it was starting to fall apart. That has held it together for now, but I'm sure the glue has contributed to the sorry shape that it is in. He also took the time to transcribe the certificate on a piece of notebook paper. Smart man, my grandfather. He had very old-fashioned, elegant and beautiful handwriting. The transcription:

This certifies that Lot Millard of Mt. Carmel, State of Pennsylvania, and Bessie V. Frederick of Mt. Carmel were by me united in marriage according to the ordinance of God and the laws of the State of Pennsylvania at Mt. Carmel on the Eleventh day of April in the year of our Lord 1906.

Witnesses:
Miss Orpha Brown
Mr. Richard P. Morgans

By Rev. R. Smith Stull

Because of the size of my scanner, I wasn't able to get a scan of the whole document, but I got most of it. A trip to Kinkos for a proper copy is in order. I want to preserve the original somehow, but I also want a good copy.

Lot was born on June 28, 1884. I found that out from the caretaker of the cemetary where he is buried. That kind old man actually walked to the family plot and sent me transcriptions of the headstones. It was a surprise when I got his letter. Even more of a surprise that my great-grandfather and I share a birthday!

I have a copy of the Bessie's social security application. She has listed her birthdate as January 10, 1892. If that is correct, then she was 14 when she married Lot.

My grandfather was born April 22, 1909. Lot was killed in the coal mines on August 13, 1909. My grandfather only four months old. Bessie only 17. Lot was 25.

Bessie remarried. That's what women did in those days. I don't have the exact date or place, yet.

Obviously, this certificate meant a lot to my grandfather. He never knew his dad. And yet he lovingly tried to preserve this all those years.

There is so much more that I have to go through in these boxes. I have had a quick glance at some pictures and things. I have to get organized and find a way to safely store and copy all of the family history.

Ten after Midnight

Just waiting for the boys to get home from 24HR Fitness. It must be nice to be a teenager and have the energy to work out this late at night. I can almost remember.

So I sit here, surfing the net, with HGTV on in the background, the dogs snoring at my feet.... and I wait for them to come home. If I went to bed, I wouldn't fall asleep anyway.

I wonder at what age you stop worrying about them? When Greg goes off to college in August, I'm not going to have any clue what he's doing or where he is at any point in time. I'm not looking forward to the inevitable tug of war when he comes home and has to go back to the rules of the house.

There are so many adjustments that I'm going to have to make in the next year. For him, there are so many new experiences to be had. I do envy him. He is at the beginning of the rest of his life.

Ah...... they are home.

Good night.......

Reflections....

For some reason, I have been looking at things differently today. Just reflecting on where I've been and how I ended up here in central Texas.

Thanks to Jim's job, we've lived in New York, South Florida and Central Texas. Sometimes I think back on the first years of our marriage living in upstate New York. That was a beautiful place to live. It was very rural, for the most part. Traffic was non-existent. The winters were harsh. The mountains were gorgeous in the autumn. The sweet corn was incredible! The pizza at the Hurley Mountain Inn was the best.

Skiing at Highmount and Belleayre in the winters. Summers on the boat out on the Hudson River. We were there for 13 years. I remember the last time I crossed the Hudson River, over the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge to catch the plane to West Palm Beach. It was Good Friday, 1994. I was actually happy to leave. It had been a rough winter. There was still snow on the ground at that late date. The palm trees and beaches of Florida were looking awfully good to me at that time. And they didn't disappoint. I call that my 'two year vacation'. Boca Raton. Beautiful. We spent that Easter Sunday on the beach with the kids. It was surreal. I loved it there. It was good for my soul.

Then we moved to Texas in 1996. Hotter summers and colder winters. I hated it. I mean I HATED IT.

But Texas is home now. I actually like it here. Well, except for the summer and the traffic. Oh, and I miss sweet corn. Real sweet corn. The corn here is....... disappointing. Dumb, isn't it?

But I looked around my home today. Worked in my garden. Sat on my back porch. This is my home. My boys have basically grown up here. Ten years. The second longest that I have ever lived in one place. And I will probably finish my life here. And it won't be so bad. Well, except for the summers. And the traffic.... But our home has always been our family. Where will my boys end up after they finish school? Will life lead them to other places like it led us? I hope they are never too far away. But I will understand, and I will be happy as long as they are happy. And I hope their adventures will be as wonderful as mine have been!

Graduation, home, assorted rants and breakdowns

School is over. Greg has graduated. Summer vacation has begun. It's only been two weeks and chaos reigns.

First I must rant about my mom. Yes, again. She is so obsessive about 'picking up'. She goes into the boys' rooms and she has to pick things up and put them away. Never mind that Chris has cables for his guitar amps, USB cables for all of his electronic gadgets, hookups for the PS2 and the DVD players, cell phone and MP3 chargers, etc. She insists that it must all go into a basket or something. Which always leads to us searching for something..... Is it too much trouble for her to just stay out of their rooms? They are 18 and 16 years old. They aren't slobs, it's just that there is so much gadgetry..... and I just wish she would leave them wherever the hell they are! grrrrrrrrr... I really need to just tell her. But she is the queen of passive-aggressiveness. "Well, I just won't do anything at all around here... " grrrrrrrrr again.

But she's going away for four weeks in July and August. I can't fucking wait! Am I a terrible daughter? She is going to visit my brothers. I am so looking forward to the break. Now that the boys are older, she just insists on always getting into their business. They are good kids. I give them their space and their privacy (okay, so I do keep a discreet eye on them, but they don't need to know that.). She has always been a control freak, and I am the complete opposite. They've given me no reason to distrust them, and I don't need to micromanage their lives. Back off Grandmom!

Greg's graduation gift was a new computer. I set it up this week. He's been using a six-year old dinosaur. The new one is great..... I kept the packing materials because we'll have to pack it up in August for him to go to school.

Chris went to volunteer orientation at the hospital today. He's really looking forward to working there this summer. I hope he likes it. I think it will be good for him. I remember volunteering at a hospital when I was in high school. I loved it. And my favorite job when I got out of high school was also working in a hospital. I should have gone to school and become a nurse or a lab tech or something.

It's already damn hot. Definitely felt like summer today. I couldn't make it through the afternoon without taking a nap. I hate this. The heat just sucks the life right out of me. The doc said that it is pretty much a given that MS patients don't handle the summer's well. I think I should move to Alaska or something till summer is over.

Milestones

My oldest son has graduated from high school. 29 years after I graduated from high school, I found myself trying to remember the ceremony. I can't remember a single thing! Seriously, not one detail about the whole graduation. I remember high school, and I still remember some teachers. But the ceremony itself? Complete blank. I must have slept through it.

So here we are, celebrating the Class of 2006. And we are at the graduation ceremony. The band plays "Pomp and Circumstance", the speeches, they each cross the stage to get the 'token scroll' and then it is over. Balloons descend from the ceiling. The speakers come alive with the opening riffs of the class song, chosen by a majority vote of this class of 409 students. Imagine my surprise when I recognized the opening of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "FreeBird". Yes, the class of 2006 chose a song that is over 30 years old. Freebird was huge when I was in high school. And today, it is the class song of my son's graduating class.

I wonder where are the current rock anthems? I think it's cool. In my heart, I will always remember the 70s and the great soundtrack of my teenage years. And it seems that my kids are appreciating my music, also.

Less than a week.....

In one week, my oldest will be graduating from high school. Where did the last 18 years go? I have two wonderful sons. I know that I'm a mom and slightly biased, but I really am blessed.

For four years, Greg has attained academic achievement (honor roll), has a 4.2 GPA, is a member of the National Honor Society, the Math Honor Society, has had three years of leadership positions in band, had a major role in the production of "Beauty and the Beast", and he has the best laugh of anyone I know. He has a booming laugh which reminds me so much of my dad.

Chris is just finishing his freshman year. Chris also got academic achievement this year with a very difficult schedule crammed with pre-AP classes. He was on the freshman football team and he played high school hockey, plus he was a member of a AA travel hockey team.

Both of them are very smart and very talented. And I have no idea what I ever did to deserve them. There have been times when I wonder who I would be if I hadn't quit my job 16 years ago. I need to get back into the workplace, especially with Greg going off to college. I'm scared though because I have 16 years of nothing. Nothing except two incredible human beings who are a better reward than any career I could have had. So I think it was worth it. Well worth it.

But now I have to get up the courage to try to get back into the workplace. I keep putting it off. I don't know that I have anything to offer. And, to be honest, I'm not sure I can handle working 40 hours a week. Especially with summer coming. Physically, I have a hard time handling the Texas heat. It drains the energy right out of me. People with MS should not live in this kind of climate.

Wish me luck. It's time for me to get out there and do something. But what? I really do need to do it, not just financially, but sometimes I just feel stagnant. I just have to do it. I'm scared.

Some cabernet sauvignon, Marvin Gaye, and a bubble bath

When we built this house, my most important request was a great big tub (preferably a jacuzzi). Well, I got my wish. And tonight, Jim is playing hockey, Greg is at a friend's house, Chris is upstairs watching tv, and I decided I needed a good long bath.

Feeling a little mellow, I bypassed Aerosmith and the Allman Brothers and chose The Very Best of Marvin Gaye, CD 1. Poured the wine. Started filling the tub, adding my cucumber&melon bubble bath (I'm not a floral person, I prefer the tastier scents), lit all the candles, turned off the lights....

Turned on the CD player before I got in the tub. Oh how I love Marvin Gaye. This CD has all his duets with Tammi Terrell. Absolutely gorgeous music. You can close your eyes and just float away. Perfect.

A nice,long bath in a candlelit room with the perfect music is like taking a mini-vacation. There is nothing better to lift your spirits.

Odds and Ends

I spent some time in here talking about my mother's hometown of Strong, Pennsylvania. I found a really cool website, Coalregion.com and it's so spot on about the area!

Even found a picture of an old firetruck that used to reside in the hosey. Those are the houses at the top of the 'patch' near the hosey. (I hope the owner of that site doesn't mind me stealing it!) My mom thinks this is the firetruck that she and my dad rode on their wedding day (my grandfather was a volunteer fireman).

I am going to recruit my niece, who still lives in Mt. Carmel, to go out this summer and take some pictures of specific landmarks. Including my grandparent's house and some other areas I would like to see again. I bet she wouldn't mind.

I also have a copy of my great-grandparents' wedding certificate from 1906. It's a beautiful certificate, but it's not aging well. The writing is almost gone. I really need to find someone who can preserve this. It's a hundred years old! I can't believe that my grandfather kept it all those years. He even copied everything it said on another piece of paper. Smart man, my grandfather. I guess he knew it wouldn't last.

My grandfather also kept journals of every penny that he spent. Every doctor's visit, every nail, every gallon of paint.... dates and prices. It's an amazing little piece of history.

Well, that's enough for tonight. My sons are going through pictures of the eldest's high school years. He graduates next week. Where did the last 18 years go?

Feeling Old

Jim was looking for darts. A good set. He's had a set for years, but he decided that maybe there was something better these days. So we were told to go to The Gas Pipe on Burnet Road.

We walked into this store, through the bamboo beaded curtains, and walked straight back into 1981. In 1981, we were living in upstate New York. We were in our early 20s. We were having a carefree crazy life. Walking into this establishment was like having a flashback. The smell of incense was heavy in the air. There were showcases full of pipes, papers, and 'water pipes'. Of course, these are all meant for tobacco use. What other possible use could there be? It's all legal and stuff, with a wink and nod. Sign outside reads: "You will use the proper terminology inside, or you will be asked to leave." In other words, it's NOT a head shop. Really, it's not.

There was a store in Woodstock (the town, not the concert) that was so very much like this. As a matter of fact, at that store, back in 81 or 82, we bought a three-foot red plastic 'water pipe' (for tobacco use only, of course). Oh hell, that wasn't what it was used for. And we called it what it was, a bong. And there wasn't any legal reason that a store couldn't sell it to me for any reason that I wanted to use it.

I remember when we moved out of our first house, in 1993, I found that red bong in the back of a closet when we were packing..... Wow. Hadn't seen it for years. Now I'm getting reading for the movers to come, I have two young children, and I threw it away.

Yes, we all grow up eventually. And I grew up probably back in 1985 or so. Regrets? Not a single one. Before or after I grew up. And yeah, I would love to be 22 again, just for a day or two. Really really fun times when there wasn't as much to worry about.

The Gas Pipe. I felt so old when I was in there. So old and conservative. But damn. It wasn't always that way. And I can certainly appreciate that some things should never change, no matter how much we try to legislate them away. And that is a very, very good thing.

Oh - and he didn't buy the darts. He said that they were nice and everything, but there was nothing wrong with the old ones. Some things just aren't meant to be replaced. Amen.

When did this happen?

When did I start to become so conservative? Trust me, I wasn't always like this. I am a very reluctant conservative. What is in a label anyway? There really isn't a label to describe me. I never thought about myself being in a particular group.

When I was 19, I was working in a law office as a secretary. One of the lawyers asked me if I was registered to vote. No, I wasn't. He walked me over to the courthouse and told me to register. He said he didn't care who I voted for, but that it was my responsibility to vote. And that was that. The first presidential election I voted in was 1980. I voted for Reagan. I was 21 years old. I had come of age in the Carter years, which were a mess. The Iran mess, gas rationing, interest rates about 17% and up..... those were some really bleak years. I voted against Jimmy Carter. That was how I saw it.

In the 90s, I was a Clinton voter. I liked Bill and Hillary (although I thought she was the smarter of the two). The 90s were good years. And in 2000, I voted for Al Gore. Not because I liked him all that much, but because I wasn't all that impressed with George Bush as governor of my state. I actually thought Al was a bit of an idiot, but whatever... I really really started to hate Al though when he just wouldn't concede and let the country move on.

I have always taught my boys that being a gracious loser is more important than winning. And what happened in 2000 tore the country apart. It was close. It shouldn't have been that close, but whatever. By dragging this thing out, it created deep scars in our society that have not yet healed. I honestly think we would be a better country if Al Gore had just conceded. I bet if he had, George Bush would not have been re-elected in 2004.

For some reason, so many in this country are treating this as a competition, a championship like the Super Bowl, if you will. It has become ugly and vicious and it doesn't have to be that way. And it all started because Al Gore didn't do the right thing for this country. It may not have been fair, but we would be in a better place today if that rift hadn't been torn open.

So this past election, 2004. I didn't vote for a presidential candidate. I voted in all the other categories, and left the presidential ballot blank. What? Nothing wrong with that. I wish they had a box marked "None of the above". I'm sorry, but John Kerry is an idiot. Another politician born with a silver spoon in his mouth who has no clue about what I deal with on a daily basis. Just like our president. There really isn't that much difference between the two. Career politicians. Rich career politicians. I have made up my mind that I will only vote FOR someone, not AGAINST someone. The lesser of two evils just doesn't cut it for me.

I wonder if I will vote for a president in 2008? They better field two good candidates who speak to me. What is it that I expect? I expect them to stop pandering to the extreme fringe lunatics of their parties. I expect them to start speaking to regular Americans, like me, who don't care about the extreme ideas.

What do I believe?

I believe that we should spend less money. Downsize the damn government. Make personal responsibility a mantra. I do not want a nanny state. I want less bureaucracy and more freedom. Rewrite the tax code. You shouldn't need a PhD to figure out how to file your taxes. I does not have to be so complicated.

Gay people want to get married? Let them. It doesn't threaten me. I don't care one way or the other. I just want them to stop screaming about it. I want to stop being hit over the head with the 'gay agenda'. I get it. I don't care. You have a right to your life. I have a right not to have to hear about it. I'm not your enemy. I'm not against you.

Abortion? I personally could never do it. But that's between a woman and her conscience. It's not that important. Drop it already. It's legal. It's going to continue to be legal. I don't care. Alright?

Global warming. I believe it. It's happening. So fix it. Why are we still using fossil fuels anyway? I can carry a telephone in my pocket and use it anywhere - why has the telephone evolved in the past 100 years but we are still using fossil fuels to move our cars? Come on people, you can do better than that.

Islamofascists - the biggest threat to the world as we know it. And everyone panders to them... don't offend them. Don't profile them. Let them be. Hell no. They oppress their women, kill gays, are the single most intolerant people on this earth... and yet they are given some kind of protected status? Fuck that. Time to wake up and stand up to them. They are multiplying like rats.

Immigration. Secure our damn border already! Tell the immigrants marching in the street against OUR government that they ought to be marching in Mexico City against the government that is at the root of their problems.

Conservative/liberal.... I am a woman without a label. And I know that I am a woman without a presidential candidate too.

I need more rocks!

It's going to be hot today. And it's not even May! Okay, so it's close enough.

Took the dogs for a walk today and brought home some more rocks. Why would I carry a bag of rocks home? Well, because I need them for my garden. No, I'm not planting rocks. Borders! I like to use them for borders. I installed a pretty urn fountain and planted some flowers around it. Now I need rocks for a border. I would rather use something more natural than any of those manufactured things you can buy at Home Depot. Here is a picture of my work in progress. Little yard, big dreams.

I planted some verbena because the butterflies like it. I put out the hummingbird feeders yesterday because they should be migrating back shortly. After ten years, I've finally learned how to garden in Texas. It takes a lot of trial and error to find things that you know will grow. I planted some asters for the first time. We'll see how they endure the heat. They will only get morning sun where I've planted them, so hopefully they will survive.

My roses are flourishing so far this year. I do have a problem with blackspot on one of them. Trying to contain that and eliminate it. Wish me luck!

Time to take a shower and get to the grocery store.

Ten Years in Texas

This is the second longest I have ever lived in one place my entire life!

The record is eleven years on Zandhoek Road in Hurley, New York. The very first home we ever bought. 1982. $38,500. No, it wasn't a dump. Homes were pretty cheap back then. But interest rates were high. Our first mortgage was 17 1/2%%%. How's that for an interest rate? That house would be paid off now. Damn. It had a gorgeous view of the Catskill Mountains. Biggest problem was the backyard. Pretty much all downhill. Not much usable space. But it sure was pretty.

If you had told me 25 years ago that I would end up in Texas, I would never have believed it. Then again, I was always open to new places. Left Philadelphia after I got married in 1980 to live in the Catskill Mountains. Four hours away from home was perfect. Far enough away that the family couldn't just 'drop in', but close enough for a weekend visit back home. It's not that I'm not a family person, it's just easier to like your family more when you don't have to deal with the internal politics on a daily basis. Plus it forced me to grow up and it made my marriage the most important relationship in my life immediately.

In 1994, we moved to Boca Raton, Florida. Now THAT was my favorite place to live ever. From our front door to the beach was twelve miles. It was perfect. I call that my 'two year vacation'. We moved to Texas in 1996. I hated it at first. But now, it's home. And it was a great place to raise my boys. They went to good schools and are excellent students. But I don't think any of us will ever call ourselves "Texans". Me? I'm still a Philly girl. But when I talk to people 'back home', I am starting to hear their accents. So I guess that means I've been gone long enough to notice.

Hooked on Genealogy

My dad's father was an only child. So was my dad. So I never knew anyone who had my last name. A newspaper clipping that my brother found when he was cleaning out my grandmother's house led me to start researching my grandfather's family.

My grandfather was only four months old when his dad was killed in the coalmines. I didn't even know his father's name until I saw that clipping. That led me on a search to learn more. I spent hours pouring over old census records on microfiche at the LDS Family History Center. It is a glimpse into another world. I found out that my great-grandfather was already working in the coal mines at 15 years of age. And he was dead at 25.

Now that there is so much online, I am finding more. Northumberland Mine Fatalities 1909.

Here is the entry of my great-grandfather's death:

13-Aug Millard, Lot- English, Miner, 25, M, Locust Gap. Killed by fall of slate at face of breast while trying to bar it down.

Both of my grandfathers were coal miners. And they both lost their fathers to the mines. Looking into the past certainly opens your eyes to a very hard life. If you read that document and see the circumstances to so many deaths, it is really shocking and heartbreaking.

Strong, Pennsylvania

My mother was from a little town in Pennsylvania called Strong. That was the official name. But it was always known as Green Ridge, or just "the Ridge". My grandfather was a coalminer, and this little town was originally built as company housing.

The town had 66 buildings. I know this because they started at "1" and ended at "66". All but two of these buildings were houses, mostly duplexes. There were only three streets which were parallel to each other: Front Street, Second Street, and Third Street. Front Street was actually Route 61 which sort of passed by this little town. My grandparents lived on Second Street, in the middle.



At the top of the town was the 'hosey'. For those of you unfamiliar with a 'hosey', it is the volunteer firehouse. Also known as the 'hosehouse', or 'hosey' for short. Every hosey in that area has a bar. At dinner time, the wives would send their kids up to retrieve daddy from the hosey. That's where he would be having a beer with all his buddies.

The hosey was a big brick building with one bay for their one firetruck. It had one of those big old-fashioned front porches with the half-wall that you could sit on and watch the traffic go by on a lazy summer day. There was also an upstairs that you could rent out for baby showers or weddings. It was the social center of a tiny town.

At the other end of town (about two blocks away) was the 'ending'. That's what it was always called: the ending. When I was a little girl, that was where we would play kickball or just climb up on the decaying concrete railroad trestle and smoke cigarettes that we bought from a machine at the Tastee Freeze across Rt. 61. The ending was just a dusty field - shale and coal dust. This is where the rail tracks were that used to carry the coal from the mines. In the summer, the wild blackberry bushes would be bursting with sweet fruit and we would devour it by the handfulls. To run from the ending to the hosey would only take a few minutes although it was mostly uphill. To go back the other way, downhill, it was probably much faster.

No one had driveways. The front of the houses butted right up to the roads. My grandmother's narrow front porch (only deep enough for a couple of folding chairs) was actually built over the road. We used to sit under there in the shade and play jacks. Obviously they were very quiet roads (except Front Street because that was the highway). Everyone shared yards, although a few had fences. My grandmother shared her yard with the Hollisters - two spinster sisters and a brother. They had a hanging swing under an arbor with a grapevine. I remember swinging there and eating the sweet grapes in the summer also.

It was such a tiny town, we didn't have a mailman. The post office was actually someone's house on 3rd Street. I don't remember the old woman's name who was the postmistress, but I would be sent to retrieve the mail. Through the front door to a tiny vestibule with a pot belly stove and a window. She would come out to the window when she would hear you and give you the mail. Across the street from the post office, was a store. Like the rest of the town, it was small. Run by a man named Albert Rossi, but he was called "Gabsy" for some reason. A friendly man with a booming voice that knew everyone by name (well, that isn't hard to do in such a small town). Gabsy made the best kielbasa. And he made something that was called "city chicken". It was actually pork, I think, on a wooden skewer. Oh, and he had a penny candy case. He would be so patient as we would try to decide what we wanted to spend our five cents on. He kept 'books'. My grandmother would send me to Gabsy to get what she needed and he would put it on her book. My mother told me that Gabsy kept many a family fed during the depression or when they were out of work. I remember him as a funny, friendly and kind man in a white apron.

Life was very simple in the Ridge. Life was slow. Everyone knew everyone else. The coal mines had closed up, the houses had been sold, but most everyone had some connection to the mines. I remember my grandfather had retired from the mines, but was working at Shamokin Hospital in maintenance until he retired.

The house they lived in was always immaculate. No one was a better housekeeper than my grandmother. And that was no easy task living in a place where the coal dust still blew and left a black haze over everything. When I would come in from playing, my feet would be black and I would be sent up to the tub immediately. And what a tub it was! One of those big cast iron tubs with the claw feet. And like everything else in the house, it was sparkling clean and shiny.

I spent many a summer in the Ridge. We were living near Philadelphia, but we spent a lot of time there with my grandparents. It was only a three hour drive. We would go up in the winter for short visits too, on holidays.

As a little girl, I remember the coal bin in the basement. That was how they heated the house. There was a grate in the floor between the parlor and the dining room where the heat would come up from the coal furnace. That was the only heat. The bedrooms and bathroom upstairs were always very cold, and the attic was positively frosty!

Now, I say 'dining room' but it was really the tv room. My grandmother didn't have a dining room. We always ate in the kitchen. The dining room had a couch and two chairs, one of which was my grandfather's chair with his little table for his glass of beer. They had a big zenith console television with cable. Cable was only for places that couldn't get tv reception in those days. Very few channels, mostly from Scranton and Wilkes Barre. I can remember watching Lawrence Welk and Mitch Miller on that tv. My grandfather loved 'rassling'. There was no WWF back then. It was fake too, but it was very primitive. My grandmother and her sister-in-law, Aunt Cely (Cecilia), loved to watch roller derby. Two old ladies really getting into it. Funny stuff.

The parlor of course, was just for company. Nothing fancy, but it was off limits.

Sometime in the 70s, they converted to an oil furnace and hot air heat. The winter nights around the grate in the floor were no more.

Secane, Pennsylvania

Starting with the first home that I have memories of.... it was a post-WWII cape cod in Upper Darby township. The corner of Providence Road and Prospect Avenue. Just a small neighborhood. Every home the same. I believe conformity was the plan.

The neighborhood was a small one, and most everyone knew everyone else. My mother had a beauty shop in the basement of the house. Most of the women in the neighborhood came to her on a weekly basis. The result of which was that my mom pretty much knew everything that went on in the neighborhood. Forget about getting away with anything!

Across Providence Road, there was a shopping center. A strip mall, as was the norm in the 60s. Anchored by an A&P supermarket, it included a RiteAid drug store, Hoys 5&10, Mattson's Gift Shop, the Post Office (zip code 19018), the J. Lynn Deli and other stores which came and went over the years.

Directly across the street from my house and next to the post office was Secane Pizza. Both of my brothers worked there in their teens. My best memories, though, were the deli. My best friend, Maureen, and I would go there sometimes on a Saturday to have lunch. We felt very grown up. It was a small place, with booths. We would bring some quarters because it had those individual jukeboxes in each booth. We would give our waitress the order. I would always order the cheesburger meal, with french fries and a pickle. And a large coke. It was exactly $1.16. It's really strange how these details never go away..... I can still see the long narrow restaurant part of the deli. Booths on each side. I don't remember though if there were tables too. But I can remember the booths.

Hoys 5&10 was a favorite in the summer because they had a Rosati's water ice cart. For 25 cents you would get a paper cone full of a scoop of water ice. Vanilla and bubble gum were my favorites. That stuff was so good. I miss it. Can't buy it in Texas.

I went to Primos Elementary School and St. Eugene's Catholic School. I went to both at various times. Summers were spent at Primos-Secane Swim Club. Another detail that I never forget was our membership number, 139. We had plastic laminated membership cards and that number was printed on it. You handed it in at the gatehouse and they put it in the coordinating slot. You got to know your friends' numbers too and you could always tell if they were at the pool because their card would be in their slot. The cards were color-coded according to age. You had to be over 12 in order to be there without your parents. It was so great to finally hit that 12 year old mark!

One of the weird things is that I can still remember how the schools smelled. Primos always smelled like cleaning detergents, paint, modelling clay.... St. Eugene's always smelled like the incense burned at church. The church was actually attached to the school, so that made sense.

We lived there from 1964 until 1972. I was almost 13 when we moved. Here is my "where are they now?" list: Maureen Kennelly, Debbie Sweat, Sheila Babcock, Marydenise Collins.... I know Maureen is in Rhode Island. She and Marie Morris were my best friends. We had the best sleepover parties!! Marie and I still keep in touch through email. She is in Florida. I am in Texas. None of us are still in the same state! Weird, huh?

Growing up, we loved the Monkees, Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Dark Shadows, HR PufnStuf... Back then, there was a cycle to the television seasons. At the end of summer, we would be looking forward to the new fall shows. Especially the Saturday morning cartoons! There was no 24/7 cartoon channels. Saturday morning belonged to the kids and cartoons. No VCRs, no DVDs.... The Wizard of Oz was on television once a year. And it was always a much anticipated event! There were three channels on tv. ABC, CBS, NBC. Oh and PBS. Nothing on PBS for us. This was before Sesame Street and the idea of educational children's programming. And then there were the UHF channels. It was like AM/FM radio. Different tuner and antenna. They had the old movies and some cartoons. And crazy movie hosts like Dr. Schock. And the corniest commercials! Krass Brothers in Philadelphia comes to mind... And television was not 24 hours a day! If you fell asleep with the tv on, it would wake you up around 4 AM with a waving flag and the Star Spangled Banner being played. Then it would sign off for the night. How quaint is that?

Ah well, more memories later.....

Low

The past couple of weeks have been really hard. I really don't know why. Well, that's not altogether true. I'm just a little depressed about things.

I really try to be positive and I hate talking about things that are wrong. When I was diagnosed with MS, I didn't want anyone to know. Well, except for my husband and my family that is. But I just didn't want to have to talk about it. I didn't want to have to say those words out loud "I have MS". Most of all, I did not want anyone to feel sorry for me. It took a couple of months before I could talk to anyone about it, to say it out loud. And then I was okay.

Whenever anyone would ask me, I would just tell them that everything was great. It was no big deal. It wasn't stopping me from doing anything. And then I would change the subject. I am a person with MS. It does not define me and I don't want to dwell on it.

And luckily, it has been very benign. But I do feel the fatigue. Especially in the summer heat. I can't seem to get through the afternoon without needing a nap. And that just ain't right! I am NOT 80 years old for cryin' out loud! But if that's the worse that I have to deal with, then I can't complain.

But it's my eyesight. And it has nothing to do with MS. Other than the fact that my right eye is affected by optic neuritis (a symptom of MS). But that is sometimes bad, and sometimes okay. It's never completely normal. My big problem right now is that I have had one surgery to fix the muscles of that eye because my eyes aren't on level. I've had it all my life, but a prism in that lens was enough to correct it. As I've gotten older though, the muscles have weakened and I have constant double vision. So I had one operation in July. That didn't fix it so I'm having another one next week. Damn, I just want to be able to see clearly again! I can't read for very long because my eyes just get so tired....

This morning I woke up and my other eye, the good one, was sore and swollen and red. And I can't help thinking that this sucks. I don't know if it's an infection or what.... but I hate it. I'm tired of it. I just want all of this stuff to go away.

So I am feeling sorry for myself. And I hate feeling sorry for myself! This is NOT SO BAD. And I usually suck it up and move on.... but I just can't seem to shrug things off as easily as before.

Well, that's enough for now. Except GO LONGHORNS! It's gonna be a good game tonight. So I will have a good time. I promise. We're going to have friends over to watch it. I'll drink some wine and laugh a lot. I prefer wine to whine any day!

Family Visits

My brother and his family (wife and two daughters) were here for a week. I haven't seen them in over 10 years. It was a really nice visit.

I left the northeast in 1994. We lived in Florida for two years, and then moved here to Texas. Even though I spent the first 35 years of my life in the northeast, I never missed it once I left. I did, however, miss Florida like crazy when we moved to Texas. I still want to go back to Florida. But not central Florida. Gawd no... our house in Boca was 12 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, it got hot. Yes, we had humidity. But it wasn't oppressive. I loved it. The climate fed my soul. I loved it! I have, however, been to Orlando in July and would NEVER recommend that! Now THAT is oppressive. You have to live near the coast to appreciate Florida.

When we first came to Texas, I hated it. I felt like I had been ripped out of paradise and deposited in the desert. The summers are hotter and the winters are colder. It's a lose/lose situation. But after 9 years, it's home. The summer is still hot. The winters aren't as bad as the northeast. And it's home now. And if I must live in Texas, the Austin area is the BEST.

My brother and his family had never been to Texas. They loved it. They went to the Alamo. We took a Sunday drive all through Austin and stopped in to see the Capitol and toured the UT campus by car. They really thought it was a great city. And I guess it really is. It's interesting to see your 'home' through a visitor's eyes. And I can appreciate how funky and different the city of Austin is. To me, Austin is a big town/little city. I am not intimidated navigating it's streets. Drop me into the middle or Dallas or Houston and you will see panic! I hope Austin never gets like that (although it's growing more crowded every year.)

The thing that they kept saying was how 'clean' it is here. Is it really? No.... it's just younger. I remember when we first moved to Florida. I had that same impression. Everything is clean and bright. I think it is just that in comparison to the northeast, it seems that way. The northeast is the oldest part of our country. It was once very industrial. The infrastructure is aged. The winters take their toll on things. It's just older. And I do believe the air isn't as clean either. So there are many factors. It's a comparison between apples and oranges.

There are times when I miss the history of the northeast. But those times are few. I do miss the mountains of New York in the fall. We had a wonderful view from our living room window that was like a picture postcard on autumn days, and in the winter after a snowfall. But I really have no desire to move back there. I do need to go for a visit one of these days though.

The difference between my mom and me

My mom has been living with me for 12 years now. Gawd.... that's more than half as long as I lived with her before I grew up and moved out. Well, it hasn't always been terrible, but lately I have very little tolerance with her. And I feel kind of bad about that.

I have two teenage sons, 14 and 17. They are great kids. They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they are both great students. They get mostly A's and some B's on their report cards. They and their friends spend lots of time at my house. I like to make them welcome here because I want them to spend lots of time here. Sure it means that Jim and I usually end up watching tv in the bedroom so the kids can have the family room, but that's okay.

You know how people tell you that you'll understand your parents once you have your own kids? Well, I understand all right. I understand that my mother and I look at things very differently. My mom was a control freak when I was young. She is the type of person who always thinks the worse of people. I am not like that. My boys understand that I trust them, and I will trust them until they break that trust. So far, they haven't done anything that would even remotely cause me to be suspicious of them. That doesn't mean that I don't check up on them. It doesn't mean that they can do whatever they want whenever they want. But overall, they have given me no reason to doubt that they are good kids and that their friends are good kids.

But my kids have two 'moms'. My mother pushes her authority a little too far sometimes. She second-guesses ME which drives me up a fucking wall. She is always saying stuff like "He reminds me of your brother." My brother barely made it through school, he was a terrible student. He started drinking when he was about 12. He was always off wandering somewhere. And the more my mother tried to control him, the worse he got. My kids are NOTHING like that..... They are usually here, their friends are usually here, and when they are not, I know where they are and who they are with. They know my rules, and I don't feel the need to 'control' their lives. I accept that they will try to sidestep some rules, but they have not yet broken my trust. As a matter of fact, my oldest was at a New Year's Eve party two years ago and the friend that drove him there had a drink or two. He called me at midnight to ask us to pick him up. He knows that I never want him to get in a car with anyone who's been drinking. No questions. No lectures. We'll talk about it later. We did. And we're okay. No big deal. My mother, on the other hand, has to get all hysterical about stuff and it's a big fucking deal..... That's why I don't tell her most things that go on with my children.

I am amazed that as my kids go through their teenage years, I am finding that the resentment I felt toward her when I was a teenager is still there. I could never be honest with her. To this day I can't be honest with her (and I'm 46 years old!). So I guess it didn't happen with me. I never came to that understanding about why she was such an obsessive-compulsive, distrustful person when I was younger. And why she's still that way. I just wish that she would let me parent my own children without interference.

Okay, rant over......

Banks

Last summer, my son got his first real job. He was 16 1/2. I took him out to open up a savings account in a local bank so that he could take the responsibility of depositing his own paycheck. He already has a savings account at my husband's credit union, where we have banked for 25 years. But the branch is in Austin, it's not local and convenient. I wanted my son to go through the process of opening up his own account and taking care of his money. The account I've had for him since he was a baby is something I've always handled. Plus, I don't really want him to have access to that account yet.

So we go up the street to the Bank of America. I could not believe it when we sat down and they would NOT open up an account for him unless I had an account there with a minimum balance! That's ridiculous. Believe me, I understand that banks are all about money and my son doesn't and won't have much in this little account. But I could not believe they refused to let him open an account. I guess I'm out of the loop, but it just didn't make sense to me.

When I was a little girl, probably 9 or 10, I remember opening up my first savings account at the bank across the street from our house. They gave me a little plastic transistor radio for opening an account with probably about ten bucks! I would save quarters for crying out loud! I guess things have really changed.

I then took my son to Wells Fargo, which was just down the road. What a difference! A really sweet woman sat down with us and opened up an account for him, explained to him all the details, he doesn't have to pay a monthly fee, he gets a visa check card, and he has online access to his account! When I told her what happened at Bank of America, she was very surprised. She said that in her opinion giving my son an account is an investment in the future. One day he will need a car loan, or a mortgage, or investment counseling, and that hopefully he will stay with Wells Fargo. EXACTLY!

He has his paycheck deposited directly and he keeps track of his account online. It has been great for him. And I would like to thank Wells Fargo for being teen-friendly! As a matter of fact, two of his friends also opened accounts there on his recommendation because they were also turned down by other banks!

Okay, that's just something I wanted to get out there today.