Sorry about that....

Miami, Rochester NY, Denver (I totally cheated on that one), Cleveland and San Francisco.

I know I made it hard. Sorry.

But you see...I had to win the argument with Spouse right?

*********************************************************

As to what took so long to get back to it....I am working through some stuff.

When I work through stuff I tend to curl up in a mental fetal position. That's just me.

Right now I am not funny, or moving, or emotional.

I am just terrified. I felt so good for so long.

But now I am looking at the inevitable.


And I am frozen in place.

Game Day

Yesterday while Spouse and I drove to Boston for a consultation with a bad arse Lumpy surgeon we had a heated discussion conversation about cites and skylines and my naive views of the world unwavering loyalty to New York City and how, in my opinion, it is the only city that is actually...well....a CITY.

The others of course just being a hodge-podge of many neighborhoods and some really tall buildings.

I made mention that NYC is probably one of the only truly recognizable sky lines. He of course thinks I'm an idiot disagrees.

So we decided to leave it up to you few readers internets. Give me your best guesses.

A)

B)

C)

D)



E)

**As my little disclaimer...I have either lived or visited all of these places A LOT...therefore I feel that I am in a position to make ridiculous generalizations comparisons.

I could be sleeping...

...but I'm not.

I am here, blogging to pay homage to Amber.

To tell her thanks for the advice that I am now officially hers in a best friend capacity.

(see what I did right there? She told me how and I am going to do it so much you will stop reading my blog will never be the same!)

Truly, Rafting the Universe is a gem. As my JMIL would say...

Oui!!! Such a gem dahlin you would neva believe!

Really.

Amber, just let me know if you need any besty friend type stuff done! Shopping, cooking advice, an ear to lean on! I am here! Just ask my actual real life BF. She knows, I am tons useful...well except that whole cooking thing. But I am a kick arse shopper!

Oh and also...I totally conceded to The New Girl and the CRAZAY MOFO NEIGHBOR cage match. Because, well, because I was so out matched it was absurd to continue! Also, I was laughing so hard yesterday at this that I was unable to type for the majority of the day.

She wins these:

Well...not this actual box. Because you know, I ate all of these.

But I would get another one. And send it to her. Or to Amber. Because after all, I'm her new best friend.

Snap! I've been sucker punched! Part II

umm Hi. I'm here.

Look down...

Yeah that's me on the floor writhing from pain.

I just got my virtual butt handed to me by The New Girl in the CRAZAY MOFO NEIGHBOR Cage Match.

Two hits. She hit me; I hit the floor.

See for yourself...me...her....and it's not just the almighty power of strike out font that sets us apart.

(really anyone out there who knows how to strike the font in blogger I will be your best friend for the info!)

While my neighbor was crazy...hers was CRAZAY-CRAZAY.

State hospital CRAZAY.

But much in the American Idol way (...you know how they let the looser sing their final song for the fans who voted for them) I will provide you, my loyal readers... (Hi! all 4 of you!) the second part of my story.

The dogs. Those EFFING DOGS!

Sassy, Coco and Rascal.

Rascal was a son of a bitch - A fury of aggression, barking and dog fights.

While Sassy and Coco had low guttural barks, Rascal's was a head ache inducing nightmare. They barked constantly.

Due to the fact that they would you know, attack any friendly neighborhood drug trafficker- they were outside all the time. They lived on a 8X4 foot portion of blocked in driveway that was directly outside our living room window, below our master bedroom and next to our porch....they were never let out...they were never walked...they were never allowed in the yard.

While their barking was our soundtrack; their smell saturated our lives in every aspect. The poop was left to pile up for months on end. They lived in their own filth, and we had the pleasure of being right there with them. We could never actually open our windows because their smell would fill our home like it was a freaking Yankee Candle.

Rascal was eventually put down for attacking someone. The only shocking thing about this was that it took so long for it to happen.

The Yard. How to begin to describe the yard?

The back:
A dilapidated roofless shed bursting with countless rotting items, a family of feral cats and one serious bee infestation.
A large plastic rubber maid shed directly in the middle of their yard. This only had half a roof because Elaine never finished building it.
A large blown over party tent with a picnic table trapped beneath it and broken and piled up lawn furniture.
Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, wheel barrows, hedge clippers, shovels, ladders, screens and broken pots were everywhere in various stages of disrepair.
A bakers rack, a shredded patriotic bunting.
A pile of old doormats and buckets.
A broken mop with no sponge leaned against the chicken wire fence that separated our property. Broken windows, bookcases and gates.
Tires.
Old clothing blown off the line.
A child's faded sand table.
Cracked birdbaths and water fountains.

I could go on.

The front:
Cinder blocks filled with fake flowers. This was my personal favorite.
A broken garden bench.
Bird houses. Stacks and stacks of newspapers decomposing on the driveway.
Old chairs. Both folding and of the stuffed armchair variety.
Bricks. Just a large pile of bricks in the middle of the lawn.
Years worth of holiday lights that were added to every season and never taken down. Santa's Sleigh with again, fake flowers in it.

The day I came home and saw Elaine stringing Halloween pumpkin lights on the broken and falling over white aluminum Christmas tree in their front yard I stormed up to Spouse and announced we were moving.

We were gone in 6 months. Our reaction to living next to them for so long was to buy a house in the middle of the woods-in the middle of no where.

Now for the most part I do have to admit that Nick was a pretty swell guy and Elaine had her moments. Her hacking smokers cough mixed with the barking day and night really humanized the whole thing. Plus she was awfully generous with the odds and ends that she would steal from any one of the 40 jobs she had while we were living there. Almost every time she saw me on the porch she would grab a random item from her car and hand it to me saying she "bought it" for me. Windchimes, Yo-Yos...a stapler.
Sticky sticky fingers.

Mary and her boys are another story.

But do I tell that story? Do I go on when I am so clearly out matched?

putting my mom back in mother's day

My mother used to tell me I was a brilliant baby (what happened you ask? Years following the Grateful Dead...nuff said).

She told me I spoke in sentences before words. I knew how things worked. I knew where things belonged.

My brother's play mobile garage was my favorite toy. In the car I would take off my shoes and throw them at him.

She gave me stale bagels to teethe on.

She would make my clothes.

She was an artist.

She drew cartoons on my lunch bags and every year for my school fair would run the "tattoo" booth. She would paint the most fantastic creatures on my schoolmates faces and arms. For a day I was the most popular kid in my class.

When my parakeet died she painted his likeness on a wooden box. We buried him in the garden.

My mother could sing. She sang out loud while she cooked, while she cleaned. While we drove.

She smiled while she sung and I can remember the movement of her lips, the perfection of her teeth. My mother had great teeth.

She was a wonderful cook and an even better baker. She made teddy bear cakes; train cakes. She made my Aunts wedding cake.

She would tell me that she loved me like rainbows and missed me like spring.

My mother was an amazing friend to both hers and mine.

She had a Bronx accent, which I only recognized after she was gone.

Her laughter rang.

I know exactly what it felt like to curl up against her and have her scratch my back.

I remember her scent.

The Lily of the Valley was her favorite flower and I plant them for her. I also still grow the very same Irises from her garden; they are 25 years old.

She told me that love was supposed to make you happy, not make you sob and fight.

My mother was vibrant, she was kind and she took pleasure from life...she made everything beautiful.

That's me on the counter.

This sits on my night stand.

*****************************************

Who is to understand

The winning or the loosing

God needed angels

And that for me explains the choosing

~My Bubbie

five

I am not laid back. ummm not even close.
You are so remarkably laid back that sometimes I question if you could possibly be mine.

Have baby will travel. This is our motto. You are happy to go anywhere and do just about anything. You shine when you meet new faces and always, always...take it all in.

But don't listen to me. I am your Mother. It is my job to consider you perfect beyond all explanation. Listen to our family, our friends, or the random people out in the world. You ride on me or in your stroller with an awesome sense of wonder. Forever smiling, forever eager to see what is around the next corner.

I fill with pride to know that, by some miracle I don't yet understand, you are mine.

You look just like my father.

I have to assure the other Moms at play group that you do in fact cry; you have your moments.

Just so they won't resent us.

But you know it, I know it...your Daddy knows it.

I'm lying to them.


My little love. You are such a good baby.


Oh...one more thing.

You actually make me laugh out loud. Which is amazing, since you know...you're a baby.

I dream of Hollywood...

...not of being a celebrity or anything...I actually dream of Hollywood.

~Trying not to wake up Angelica Houston as I search for my shoes.

In dreams, I am often searching for my shoes.

My Birkenstocks from 1990.

~Jean Phillipe from Hell's Kitchen dying.

~Donald Trump pissed off that Stevie Wonder gave me a Grammy and not him.

~Dee Synder behind the deli counter telling me that they had no Monteray Pepper Jack.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

I don't really watch that much TV so what is my brain trying to tell me?

***********************************

I have had some bizarre celebrity crushes. Beyond your expected Brad Pitt and Josh Holloway.

...which for the record...yum

I'm not that crazy...

Harry Anderson.

I couldn't get enough of him when I was young...I would tape Nightcourt religously and I named a cat after him.

David Spade.

Yeah I don't get it either.

And the newest one?

This guy...

Spouse actually stops the DVR when fast forwarding so I can watch the commercials over and over again.

*Sigh* Unrequited love....

bring it on NG; Part I

Oh it's on.

So ON.

The New Girl has thrown down the gauntlet. The CRAZAY MOFO NEIGHBOR CAGE MATCH!

The players....

Prior to moving to this Quiet Corner of Connecticut, Spouse and I resided in Hamilton NJ. Please understand that the name "Hamilton" is simply a nice way to say "Trenton". For anyone who is not familiar with the Garden State let me just say...Trenton, while being the capital, is at best a reemerging city.

(If I actually had the power of strike out font I would have so used it right there, right before reemerging would have been "depressed, questionable and sketchy".)

We lived next to those people.

There was Nick and Elaine; Elaine's son, his girlfriend and their daughter; The handicapped Uncle (who after 3 years of living there I never saw, and I had been in the house.); Elaine's friend Mary; Mary's two sons and one of the sons girlfriends; 12 rabbits, 4 guinea pigs and who knows how many gerbils all living in cages in the kitchen; 3 dogs; 2 parrots; and one cat.

Thirty one souls living in a 1500 square foot house. A house which wreaked of urine, feces and mold.

They had a one car driveway, in which either Elaine's truck or Nick's large passenger van were always parked. In the street were the following:

• Nick's first van sat disintegrating in front of their house. It was so bad that standing next to it you could actually see through the body and across the street.

• The pink Ford Taurus which was in front of their other neighbors house. In 3 years this car never moved.

• The white car in front of our neighbor's house on the right. This appeared from no where one day and in a year only moved when it actually went up on cinder blocks over night.

• The blue car. It's really only descriptive point was that it had 1/2 a steering wheel. When I asked Mary's son #2, who I believed to be the owner, why he did it; he simply told me he thought it would look "bitchin".

• Mary's van which was not registered or legally licensed but heck, it ran!

• I don't know which of the girlfriend's Volkswagen which ALWAYS parked in front of our house. It. Drove.Me.Mad.

• Elaine's brother's car. This car played a cameo roll. Appearing for weeks at a time but never moving.

• Elaine's old green pickup truck was replaced by a Volvo station wagon which was then replaced by a Saturn which she bought without Nick's permission (or you know, credit) and he made her return the next day, which was replaced by a new pick-up truck, which was totalled and then replaced by her current truck. ...this all happened in the matter of a week.

• Our neighbors across the street old pickup truck which was bought with the express purpose of preventing any of Nick and Elaine's family of cars from parking in front of their house.

While Spouse and I were lucky enough to have a driveway ~only one of us could park in it at a time. That left the other (me) fighting for room with the above list of cars and the inevitable onslaught of visitors (again if I had the strike out font that would have read "scummy drug dealers and buyers") that came to and from Nick and Elaine's house at all hours of the night and day.

Next: the dogs, the yard and everything in between.