Mr. Busy

Just spent a delightful week down the shore with my 1 and a half year old grandson, his parents and my brother. It's amazing to watch a toddler at this age. They are just busy all the time.

Alex loved the beach and sat quite contentedly playing in the sand, filling cups, pouring them out, filling the pail, pouring it out, rearranging cups, filling some with shells, deciding which ones went in the cupholder on the beach chair. We actually stayed on the beach till 6 o'clock because it was so relaxing and enjoyable.
 (Compare that to the day before: 10 minutes in the pool and then constantly following Alex around the pool, as he picked the flowers, examined the hose refilling the pool and stared at 2 chatty 4 year old twins who told us their life story!) I tried to demonstrate just smelling the pretty flowers instead of picking them, but got a big-eyed look in return where he was clearly wondering what was wrong with Grandma's nose.

Grandpa made a brief appearance Thursday night for the kiddie rides, and despite how serious they both look here, the rides were great fun. I think Alex liked the Carousel the best. He had been on one before--familiar territory and by then had grown accustomed to the lights, noise and crowds.

My favorite Alex-watching was at home. He would wake up happy, big grin on his face, ready to start the day. After breakfast his work began. We had jerry-rigged most of the kitchen cabinets shut with rubber bands, but left him one which contained big 1 liter bottles of seltzer water. Alex would peer in each morning, perhaps a little surprised that the bottles he had so patiently distributed around the house yesterday were now back in the cabinet. He gave me the old "time to make the donuts look" and started once again moving around his seltzer. (I have to say the first night I went to bed and found a bottle on my night stand, I thought, "What a thoughtful host--a bottle of seltzer in case I get thirsty during the night." Then I remembered it was my house!)

Time to mow the carpets!

Once the bottles were taken care of, he could move on to running his walker over every inch of carpet, as if it were a vacuum cleaner. Next, he'd pull out some of his toys.

Ahh, Grandma getting a drink of that well shaken seltzer while  Alex points out some local coupons!

 I sat on the lazy boy rocker and when he needed a rest we'd rock and read a book or two. Maybe sing a song like- "Rock, rock, rock, rock and roll high school" or "Rock-a-bye your baby with a Dixie melody." He had favorite pages in the books that he liked to go to immediately.  I don't know who conceived of this idea but one of his books takes the familiar nursery rhymes and substitutes construction words--Builder Goose. Alex loves it. After a few reads he remembers that just like the little pigs and dogs marching in to pick up bricks and lay them straight, he has more work to do.

I imagine him thinking:
"Oh, yeah, first I have to indulge Grandma with the Where's Alex game. I disappear behind the chair, then stick my head out the other side. She cracks up everytime.  I mean---everytime--- so of course, I do too. Well, she is getting on in years..."

When Alex gets very excited, he clenches his fists and arms and gives a big, shaking laugh that can turn into a pleasurable yell. As in: Yippee, Mom and Dad are back!

And guess what, after a few days, even Grandma got that reception!

She Loves Me

Our family ventured into the world of community theatre on Saturday night, supporting my talented brother Peter. Yes, he was only in the ensemble, but the review by OnStage critic Kathleen Mosel was effusive and even included this tip of the hat:
The ensemble, made up from Rachel Strazza, Ann Alford, Barbara Stolarik, Peter Haynes, Frank Gaffney and Stephen DiRocco, is one of the better collection of actors I’ve seen this season. Their “Twelve Days Till Christmas” is by itself, award worthy.

Not bad for a newby whose last role was as Joseph in the kindergarten nativity play in Schenectady, NY!

The ensemble adds depth and interest to a play, my brother explained to me, when he first started rehearsals. It's not as easy as it looks to do a walk-on stage right, exit stage left, fake conversation, sing, dance and provide crowd noise. Was it just me or could everyone pick out Peter's voice in the spirited 12 Days Till Christmas song and his exhortation to "Dance, Dance, Dance" in the madcap cafe scene? 

Oh, and as for the rest of the actors and the musical itself? She Loves Me is a 1964 musical, set in a Hungarian perfume shop. Boy meets girl and they hate each other, savoring instead their true love pen pals. You'd recognize the plot which was later adapted to the movies, The Shop around the Corner with James Stewart and You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Part of the cast

I was surprised at the professional  level of talent and the elaborate staging. Community theatre is very popular in Connecticut and there is obviously a pool of talent. The lead, Betsy Simpson, had a gorgeous soprano voice and good acting skills. The rest of the cast was equally talented and included the affable male lead (who reminded me of  David Schwimmer), the philanderer, the dutiful clerk, the rejected lover who ultimately finds love at the library, the ambitious young delivery boy who perilously rides his bike on the narrow stage, and the crotchety store owner. Multiple scene changes slowed the pace a bit, but it's a fun play.

Our excursion to Connecticut in two cars started off with a few bad omens. Good thing we aren't superstitious theatre people! Besides getting lost and needing 3 phone calls to actually find the restaurant, we had to skip dessert to arrive on time at the Wilton Playshop. (The profiteroles looked so yummy, too)

On the ride home, one of our party, who shall remain anonymous, said, "Check that off the bucket list." I reminded him that auditions for the next play are coming soon and a certain ensemble player may be contemplating a role with a line or two. And who knows what will happen in June when the OnStage awards are given, including one for Best Ensemble. I wonder if there's a red carpet?

His own head shot!

After the show

My brother the actor gives the thumbs up!

I showed them!

There will be no TV at the shore this summer. I wish I could say that this was done for high-minded reasons. Vacations should be a break from your normal routine. Summer is for relaxing and enjoying the beauty of the outside world. Read a good book. Sit on the porch, listen to the birds, sip your morning coffee. Enjoy a beautiful sunset. Remember back to the good ole days, when there was no televison at the bungalow and we never gave it a second thought.

These are all good things. But, alas, the decision to not have TV involves a more complicated tale. Comcast serves the Jersey shore and with all the news stories about the conglomerate merging of Comcast and Time Warner, I already had a chip on my shoulder when I called Comcast to restore my full time service after the winter hiatus. I also violated my rule of always calling back at least twice or even three times when dealing with customer service because it's always a different answer. 

Comcast or Verizon are the only choices for internet service at the shore. Suffice it to say I switched to Verizon very huffily before I made the second call to Comcast. Verizon only has the Dish for TV and who wants to be bothered with that? When I relayed the story to Gary in excruciating detail... then he said....and I replied...and he checked with the supervisor...and I did a slow burn...., he merely raised his eyebrows and refrained from comment. (We have been married a long time)  I ended with the conclusion that we would need more than the basic package anyways, which was ridiculously priced and I could see from the slight downturn at the corners of his mouth that he wanted to whisper, "What about ESPN?"  Memories of my mother's admonition echoed in my head: "Cut off your nose to spite your face." I prefer the more modern rationale from my son. "Mom, TV is obsolete--you can stream everything online."  Let's hope the DSL delivers the promised speeds!

Be sure to stop by and see me this summer.  Just be prepared for the simple life. Cards, anyone?

Crazy Dreams

I had crazy dreams last night. Could it be the jalapeno poppers I ate at Hermano Carlos's party? Or was it because I slept with the window open? Or am I just decompressing after a very long month of Pinktober?

In any event Gary and I were moving out West and met people with a big black, furry Pyrennes dog whom we fell in love with. (a subconscious wish?) They gave us the dog and the house they were living in, which did turn out to be a nightmare--water pumping out of the floor in the kitchen and living room which we furiously mopped up, like the Mickey Mouse character in Fantasia, only to have the water continue rising. A man with ulcerous, bleeding arms appeared at the door to help. We suddenly had some unspecified children who caused a fire by using a vacuum cleaner in the bedroom. These were, of course, not our real children, who wouldn't have been familiar with such a machine, at least while they lived at home.

No, I hadn't been watching Halloween horror movies and the 10 trick or treaters who appeared at my door were dressed like princesses, hobos and super heroes, not zombies.  But I did watch some of the Sandy one year anniversary news coverage. We are having the basement recarpeted, after the last minor seepage a few years ago precipitated a major overreaction on our part of ripping up carpet and exposing a decidedly ugly and stark cement floor, gray with splotches of red paint.

I am trying to "move on" in a sense, creating more balance between working for Metastatic Breast Cancer Network and living every day to the fullest. I started with a reappearance at the Y, where my ID was so old it didn't work anymore. One yoga class under my belt so far. I wonder why that didn't appear in my dream?

Middle Child Day

I read in the Bergen Record that today is officially Middle Child Day. How appropriate, I thought, as my own middle child, Eric, began yet another long car trip with his younger brother Scott. This time Eric is heading to Indiana University to begin a doctoral program in parks, recreation and tourism. Scott generously volunteered to help with the move. No room in the car for Mom this time, but I am reminiscing about our original cross country trip in 2010, the Summer of Eric, which became the impetus for this blog.

I've been calling this summer the Summer of Eric Part 2, also known as SOE2, since Eric arrived mid-June. Not every mother gets the quality (and quantity) time with an adult child, so I appreciate the gift this summer was to me. We did a lot of things, like fishing, going to the beach, visiting NYC and the Great Falls of Paterson, running with Cory Booker.

On the Norma-K

Hanging with Cory

Running with Cory

No keepers on the Norma K. Next year we're taking the Cock Robin day cruise.

The 12 fish in 30 minutes day!

But, just as memorable were the small things, our daily routine. We started breakfast on the deck or the porch at Brick with a selection of fruit--this from a picky eater who only ate a strawberry for the first time last year.

We each buried are noses in the newspaper--mine usually the old school actual paper version; his on the Kindle. Yes, I was told I eat too loudly-slurping my cereal and knocking the spoon against the bowl. Is someone a bit grumpy in the morning? We often had our respective work to do -my MBCN emails, webpage updates and September conference tasks; his review of potential IU courses and revision of his presentation for a November conference.


Lunch might involve catching up on a tv show-Dexter or reruns of Breaking Bad with no commentary allowed during the show. Theories on future episodes were discouraged-- "You're ruining it for me."

We even managed to get some things done off my to-do list---impossible tasks like throwing out old basement furniture and mysterious black bags. My hero! I still maintain, however, that I never threw out a paper grocery bag with plastic cups from various ball parks around the country. Even I would realize that this was a priceless collection. Maybe it will turn up by Thanksgiving?

Best of all, we had wonderful gatherings with family and friends--- 4th of July fireworks cruise, barbeques and a Yankee baseball game (although I didn't get to boo A-Rod.)

Good Luck Eric cake from Molloys

fireworks cruise on Norma-K

Father and son

The Fans

With the first born

At Jenk's Gate 5 Beach

I was up at 6 AM today to bid the boys farewell, so it's almost nap time here.

Thank you, Eric, for SOE2. Good luck in your foray into those flyover states. Promise you won't change from Green to Tea Party and......

  Happy Middle Child Day!

PS. Your Cory Booker bumper sticker is in the mail.:)

What happens in Vegas....

The year of Chuck is coming to an end. We concluded the celebration of his jubilee in Vegas last week with  Elton John's Million Dollar Piano concert, the Kenny Chesney No Shoes Nation show, a stay at the Bellagio, some great dinners and a visit to the Mob Museum. I wish I could say there was a really big gambling winner, but I avoided the casinos and didn't hear too much bragging from those who tried their luck (skills?)

Here's the photographic evidence of what happened in Vegas...

 

3 floppy hats at the pool- Note the No Shoes Nation tee shirt from the Kenney Chesney concert

The whole gang at Bellagio Pool

My favorite: the dancing fountains at Bellagio

Not as good as my Texas La Quinta Inn waffle, but pretty, pretty good!

Dinner at Trevi Restaurant at Casear's

Our view of the elaborate Elton John show

 

The Jubilarian at The Mob Museum

The lineup: wanted for card counting and various other casino tricks

The U of M represented at the Mob Museum for the 50's basketball point shaving scheme

Al and Chuck

At the Neon Museum at 3 pm on a blisteringly hot day

Our tour guide at the Neon Museum

That's all folks!

Well, not quite.

I'll end with a little quiz:
1. Who got upgraded at the Elton John concert to a 6th row orchestra seat?
2. Who traveled on every monorail and visited every major casino?
3. Who played golf at 7 am two days in a row?
4. Whose room faced the parking garage?
5. Whose room had a spectacular view of the strip and the Bellagio fountains?
6. Who rated the guide at The Neon Museum as a C performance? Who gave him a B-?  Who grades tour guides and why?!
7. Who had lunch at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill aka The Red Solo Cup Place?
8. Who spent the most time at the pool?
9. Who continued on to Scottsdale after this trip to Sibling Adventure Part Two--golfing with the K's?
10. Who paid for all this? :)

Easter

Had to force the forsythia to bloom this year because of an early Easter

I always loved Easter. When I was growing up, we would drive down from Upstate New York to my grandmother's house in North Bergen and later in Jersey City. The forsythia were already blooming in New Jersey--showy yellow bushes, even along busy Route 17, which was a shopping mecca even then. We passed signs for towns with exotic names--Ho-ho-kus, Moonachie--on our way across the Meadowlands on Paterson Plank Road, originally a toll road in colonial times with broad wooden planks over the marshy stretches. It was one of my father's favorite routes and allowed him to tell the story of how Secaucus was once dotted with pig farms.

We always arrived on Good Friday evening in time for a dinner of canned Franco American Spaghetti and fish sticks or tuna salad on hard rolls. Saturday we ventured into New York City--my father and brothers and me--while my mother stayed with Grandma and my aunt and went visiting. My father loved the city and had his favorite haunts--the old Barnes and Noble and Scribner's bookstores on lower Fifth avenue, the odd lot stores on Vesey Street, years before the area became the World Trade Center. He always had a must-see exhibit on banking, stamps, coins or equally boring subjects to a young girl.

I was fortunate when my brother reached the age when he could shepherd me around the city on his own. He was probably 16 and I was 10. We went to the Museum of Natural History and I weighed myself on the different scales representing each planet. We didn't have a pen or pencil on us, so my brother had an elaborate system of bent pages in a sightseeing booklet to keep track. When we got back to Jersey City it was a little confusing. Was I 13 pounds on the moon and 189 on Jupiter or vice versa?  We always met my father afterwards and ate at a "nice" restaurant -- one even had fingerbowls which I managed to use correctly without embarrassing my siblings. I was dressed in my Easter finery, a yellow spring coat with cape sleeves and looked lovely until you noticed my black sneakers peering from below. My mother's motto had always been "be comfortable."

Easter Sunday we attended Sacred Heart Church in Jersey City, a beautiful, dark, mystical church with huge columns and small overhanging chandeliers. My uncle sat by himself (why?), while my aunt and grandmother and the rest of us squeezed into 'their' pew.  Dinner was the traditional canned ham with creamed corn and other staples of the 50's and early 60's. I had eaten candy all day long, so the menu was unimportant to me.

As time passed, the Jersey City neighborhood deteriorated and the park around the corner where we had played became off limits. A trip to the local store to get milk became less carefree, as we plotted our course to avoid the people hanging on the street corners, particularly near the corner bar.

Easter Monday was a glorious day. We would pile in the car to go to the shore to visit two sets of cousins--but never together. The early day was spent at one house, after an agonizing wait in the car, while my aunt did the shopping for the party--hotdogs, sauerkraut, cheetos, ice cream. As the sky darkened, we headed to our second cousin's house, a few miles away. As a kid, you don't really question things, but it was odd. My two aunts had a long standing feud which went back to some rivalry over their first borns. Eddie's new shoes or Patty's new dress had not been sufficiently praised. Years passed and life went on around the dispute.

We returned back to Grandma's late Monday night, exhausted and happy. The next day it was back up the Thruway and home, feeling happy and a little lighter knowing that our next trip would be to go "down the shore" for a long, leisurely summer.

Match Puppy: FB seeking companionship and love

During my wonderful week with Kona, my daughter and son-in-law's FB (French Bulldog) , I found my texts to the nervous, vacationing parents had begun to sound like a personal ad on a dog dating site. Yes, believe it or not, there are a number of sites, including MatchPuppy, DateMyPet and PetsDating.

Here's Kona's description:
Svelte, fun loving French Bull Dog may look sad, but she's happy go lucky.

Princess Kona on her sheet covered couch

Enjoys long walks around the neighborhood, especially if there are lots of cars and kids;

eating twigs but not earthworms;

snuggling on the couch;

watching TV especially Golf channel and ESPN (or maybe that's just on a lot in our house);

playing incessantly with a green squeaky ball;

eating peanut butter and treats (venison/sweetpotato);

is afraid of stereo speakers, white safety gates and her reflection in the sliding glass door (that other bad FB);

dislikes going in her crate (I'm in jail!), and mornings when she realizes her parents have abandoned her.

Where is that ball?

Sleeping in the sun

Seeks another FB or similar small dog for chasing down leaves, barking at strange sounds in the night and romping through the neighborhood.

Are we having fun yet?

Kona and Gary

Where is your spouse?

Hate to joke about a serious crime story like the fall of Olympic star Oscar Pistorius and the death of his beautiful girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. Pistorius' bizarre description of the events that evening made no sense--how dark does a room have to be before you realize someone is not in the bed? Wouldn't you check with your loved one, if you heard a noise from an intruder? Wouldn't you ask who was in the bathroom before pumping three shots through the door? Absurd.

Then, last week we had a similar experience (without the gun).

Gary got home around 4:00 one afternoon, just as I was going out for my walk. He decided to take a "chair nap" in the family room, since he had an evening dinner meeting to attend. I was out for over an hour, relishing my new-found energy and raising the bar considerably from my daily walk to the mailbox. I puttered around the yard, picking up detritus, previously hidden by the snow, and then ambled down the street, crossed the little bridge over the creek and entered the park and municipal ball fields.

By the time I returned an hour later, it was getting dark. I tiptoed through the darkened family room, surprised that Gary still slumbered. I went to the living room to check my emails on my computer; then into the kitchen to round up some food. I thought I'd better wake up Gary for his meeting. I flipped on the lights.

No Gary on the couch.
I yelled upstairs to the bedroom.
No Gary upstairs.
I checked the garage for his car.
No car.

I can imagine what a police officer would say if Gary were suddenly a missing person:
So you came back from your walk and how did you get into the house?
I walked through the open garage door.

And which garage door did you walk through?
Well...the one for my car...I think.

And was your husband's car still in the garage?
Well....I thought so.

And when you walked through the family room, you saw him on the couch?
Well....I thought so

It was dusk, not midnight. Your husband is not a small man. Did you see him or not?
Well...I thought so.

I understand your husband is a noisy sleeper. Did you hear him snoring, breathing loudly or making annoying guttural sounds?
Well...I passed through quickly.

And at what time did you go into the kitchen?
Well...maybe 5:30.

I see. We checked your computer and you sent an email at 5:14. Where do you think your husband was between 5:14 and 5:30? 
Well....maybe he went upstairs to change and then left the house without me noticing.

And isn't the living room right next to the stairway to the second floor?
Well...yes.

So how could you have not heard him?
Well...he may have just awoken and gone directly to the car, realizing he was late.

But you heard no noise.
Well....not that I recall. On second thought, maybe he said his meeting was at 5:00. Then he would have already been gone.

But your statement says you saw him in the family room sleeping?
Well...maybe that was a different day after all.

You can't remember what happens from one day to the next?
Well....

Luckily for me, Gary was not a missing persons case and I was not under suspicion for any felony charges--maybe just the crime of not noticing a spouse, a practice I'm betting is fairly common. He comes, he goes. I have to start noticing!

Our Newest National Park

Wouldn't this be a great place to work?

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Paterson Mayor Jeffery Jones signed an agreement two weeks ago dedicating Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park as the 397th national park. Hopefully there will be some money to make this come true. The planning phase is slotted to last three years.

Sunday was such a beautiful day that Gary and I decided to revisit the falls, which we hadn't done since the summer of 1989, when Nana and Grandpa were here from Florida. I always had a busy agenda of sightseeing planned when they came. One time when we were trekking across the Bronx Zoo in 95 degree humidity, Nana commented, "You know we're happy just to sit on your deck and watch the kids play." But it was a nice day back then in '89 and everyone enjoyed the falls. Notice how leafy green everything was that summer.  One other thing stands out as being different. See if you can pick it out:

Summer 1989

Fall 2011

Did you spot the difference? No fencing back in 1989. You could go right up to the stone wall. The spiked fencing was added later.

Who's the skinny guy with the triathlon shirt? Some things have changed and some haven't!

Apparently he wouldn't have any clothes if he didn't run races.

Notable: Eric sticking out his tongue and me with a curly perm.

Me with straight hair and a rainbow

The other big difference between 1989 and 2011? In the pre-digital world, we took 5 pictures. Sunday Gary took 25. Here are a few more:

Alexander Hamilton, who saw the falls as a source of power to build an industrial city where anyone could work and achieve the American Dream.

The power plant has been operating since 1914. Hamilton had created the initial corporation - SUM- Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures.

Scaffolding on power plant to the left

View from the top of the falls

View of Paterson from downriver