It's Genetic

December 27, 2009

Liz has DVDs like I have books. She has a Netflix account and I am on it. Every time I order something from Netflix she tells me, "I have that DVD." Iit is time to start watching Liz's DVDs.

They are actually in alphabetical order on the shelves. Here is how the weekend went...

ET Boxed set. Didn't watch it as I have seen it and didn't really want to see it again.

8 MILE. Didn't watch it. No interest in watching Eminem.

THE 10TH KINGDOM. Didn't watch it. Looks terribly boring.

12 ANGRY MEN. Saw the play. Skipped over this but am thinking I want to watch it now.

12 MONKEYS. Watched this (had to take it out of the wrapper). It really was not good at all but I am definitely not a fan of Bruce Willis, never have been.

40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. Watched it. (Had to take it out of the wrapper.) Actually pretty funny.

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING, ADVENTURES of BUCKEROO BONZOI, AIRHEADS, ALADDIN..jumped right over these.

Alfred Hitchcock. She has two DVDs. The first one had three episodes on it, each one 90 minutes long. Longest 90 minutes of my life. Turns out these were from when he was very young. 1930 silent black and white movie. Dreadful. The one I watched was called "The Manxman". Three to four minutes of people talking, laughing, crying, talking, talking, talking. Then the subtitle says something like, "But I want to." The other two went unwatched.

The second DVD was actually four episodes from TV--The Case of Mr. Pelham, The Banquo Chair, and Lamb to the Salughter. There was a fourth one that for some reason I didn't watch. Will do that in the next couple of days. "Lamb to the Slaughter". Wife hits her husband in the back of his head with a frozen leg of lamb. Puts it in the oven and feeds the police who are at the house investigating the murder, thus getting rid of the evidence. It was really pretty good. The others were OK.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND-skipped this one.

ALL ABOUT EVE-such a classic. Marilyn Monroe has a very small bit part. She looks about 18, amazing. It was good although predictable. I am not sure what all the fuss about Bette Davis is about although she is a good actress.

I also watched JULIE AND JULIA this weekend as well as SEVEN POUNDS. Both of them were really pretty good. I am definitely a fan of Meryl Streep and also saw IT'S COMPLICATED in a movie theater this weekend.

I feel pretty movie-ed out.

Siblings

December 24, 3009

I have saved this for a long time, always struck by the last paragraph. A lot of it is pretty dramatic but that last paragraph seemed to stick.

I am glad that Karen is feeling better. Now I can hit her.

Siblings-A Sense of Connection

Anna Quindlen

I don't understand how people learn to live in the world if they haven't had siblings. Everything I learned about negotiation, territoriality, coexistence, dislike, inbred differences and love despite knowledge I learned from my four younger siblings: Bob, Mike, Kevin and Theresa.

In some essential way, they were my universe, even more than my parents. For while we costume ourselves for our mothers and fathers, pretend to be what they want or strike a pose as that which they most abhor, we let down our guard for our siblings day after day, year after year, without thinking about it much. We share with them real life.

"They're all you'll have some day," my mother used to say when we would bicker, fight or strike one another, as we did with some frequency. I always thought there was something pathetic about the way she'd say that, as though our siblings would be the sad leftovers on the plate of life, scraps of fat, puddles of congealed gravy.

But as I say to my own three children now-and I do, I do, almost despite myself-I realize that she meant something quite different. And I remember what I felt deep in my bones when I was pregnant with my third child, that she was an extraordinarily lucky person, not because she would have my husband and me as parents but because we had had the foresight to provide her with these two brothers, who, in the natural order of things, would still be part of her life after we were gone.

How difficult it is to fathom, to describe, to deconstruct all this, the common place bonds of blood. There is a sense of connection as powerful as a rope-those chains around the ankles that convicts wear when they're shuttled to and from prison. Lifelong, irreversible, accidental connection is like that. They are me. I am them. I say that now, knowing that some of us have almost nothing to say to one another that doesn't start with the word "remember". I say that knowing that sometimes we have been estranged, angry, uncaring.

"Flesh of my flesh," they say sometimes in the marriage ceremony, but it's just not true. It is not even true of our children who are part us, part someone dear to us, loved by us but not made of what we are made of. But our brothers and sisters: Well, it is all the same clay. That is why we can hit them. That is why we can hate them. That is why we can never really lose them or we have lost our history, our past, a part of ourselves that we cannot do without.

Going to try to keep this going.....

Monday, December 21, 2009

Books! Books! Books! I have an addictive relationship with books. I think my "to read" pile (s) is down to about 59 now. It is a very provocative time of year with all of the "Top 10 of 2009" and "Top 100 of 2009" coming out. I am practicing great restraint at the moment, being quite responsible about the lists and simply saving them.

I made sort of a resolution about a month ago that I would only buy one book after I have read five from the pile. It is feeling pretty harsh at the moment. To be more precise, at the moment I am feeling that if I want to buy books, I don't know a really good reason not to. Except that I have 59 that I "had to have" and haven't read yet. But it isn't like I am going out and beating up old ladies or robbing convenience stores to get the money to buy books. Sticking to my resolution, I would have to read 125 books to buy the ones on the "Top" lists. Ha! I'm an amateur. I only have 59!

I have a sponsor in my Book Buyers Anonymous group, a group of two. Actually, she is my good friend and neighbor and she understands this addiction very well. In fact, she gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for Hanukkah and, double in fact, as I write this she is out shopping at the aforementioned Barnes & Noble. So I think I am flying solo at the moment. Actually, if all truth be told, she is shopping with the gift card that I happened to also get for her for Hanukkah.

Reading the weekly New York Times Book Review section is painful. But they don't even have to be new books. Yard sales are another temptation. Everyone is selling books at yard sales. I have a public library two blocks from my house that I never go to. Usually when I want a book, I don't want to go on a waiting list for it. And I definitely can't put it on my pile and expect to return it in two weeks. There is an aspect to all of this that I fortunately am not afflicted with. One of my friends' elderly aunt would only read new books as "you never know but someone might have been reading it in their bathroom." She's right. You just never know.

Oh, actually there is one missing in the pictures. Actually there are three missing from the pictures. I am breaking my usual resolve and reading two at a time.

That's right, Nick. Nick gave this to me about two years ago to read and I am just starting it. I am actually finding it interesting although, like I said, I am just starting it. It is basically about how the Pentagon was in no way prepared to deal with or look at a world after the Cold War. All of a sudden the Cold War was over and now what? It is about how our country had to learn a new way to deal with the rest of the word. As it was written in 2004 it is somewhat dated but still interesting....so far. As a reader of pretty much only fiction, it is impressive to me that it is holding my interest. On top of it all, I think I have a friend who is involved in just what this analyst is writing about.

I read Stieg Larsson's first book....."The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and really enjoyed it. Then when I read that he had written three books, this one being the second of the three, submitted them to his publisher and then, at the age of 32 commited suicide, I was intrigued enough to want to read the last two books. So this is the second book I am reading at the time.

"Under the Dome" is in Liz's room but it is stuck in my mind. My friend (sponsor) read it and couldn't put it down. I became disinterested in Stephen King a long time ago when it seemed he just got too weird but I am definitely interested in this. The dust jacket is intriguing in itself, no writing whatsoever on the back or the inside flaps. No synopsis of the story, nothing. Blank.

I don't understand people who don't read.

October/Yankees and the Magic Bean

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The end of September. The summer has passed so quickly as does all time any more. Is it the same for everyone.....a part of our culture now? Fast moving, rapidly changing? Or is it part of getting older and the sense you are on a speeding train? Whatever it is, it feels like October today. Time to take out the air conditioners, close up the windows, change to the winter bedding, reverse the ceiling fans, change out the summer clothes for winter clothes......and it won't be long before we put away baseball for another season. But hopefully we still have some exciting times ahead of us in Yankee Stadium. We will be at the last regular home game tonight and here's hoping that we will see most of the regulars playing. We're just waiting on the Tigers now so the Yankees can decide on the playoff schedule.

Tthree months ago Janet brought me her bean plant that needed some help, probably more light. The vines were all wound around a stick and needed more space to grow. There had been a few blossoms on it. I put it in full sun and unwound the vines as carefully as I could but lost most of them as they were so fragile. The few that were left were wrapped around a trellis behind the plant and the plant was well tended to for the rest of the summer but I watched it struggle and finally fade too far to come back. Finally I gave up and pulled it all out of the dirt only to find one bean....one very big bean....hidden in the vines. I left it on the porch to dry out and then opened the pod and there were five magic seeds. Let's see what next year brings.

Technology

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

This has been so very frustrating. I am trying my best to link this blog to my FaceBook page. I want to write the blog here, publish it and have it appear on my wall. Apparently it is appearing on the walls of the three people who are following me but it is not appearing on mine. I want it to just look like an entry when it is posted on FB.

It is that very frustrating feeling that you know that it is a matter of one little click, just one, a nanosecond, so close you can feel it but you simply can't find it. My computer savy niece and I spent an hour on the phone today trying to find that needle in the haystack with no luck.

A few days ago I was able to link FB to Twitter but now I have to remember to put my status in the Twitter box and send it.

How much information is too much information? How many places is too many to put our latest thoughts, ideas, rants? Does anyone really care? What is this all about anyway?

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Could it be?

I think I got it! I don't know if I can replicate it. I think I will give up if it doesn't work.

Another test

Yes, yet another test.

Suspicions

Monday, September 28, 2009

Where is the line between just interesting and suspicious? I walk my dog just ab0ut every morning across the City Island bridge. For at least a year in 2001 every morning there was a man in the small park just before the bridge. He was either sitting on a park bench or leaning against his car. I knew it was his car because he sat in it if the weather was bad. He had a cup of coffee and often was smoking a cigarette. A nice looking guy, in his early 50s, dressed nicely. Every morning he was there watching the skyline of Manhattan. I don't think he ever missed a day. I don't remember if he was there on September 11 but he was gone on September 12 and has not been there since. I wonder every morning what he was doing there and why he never came back.

It was a different time. I never thought much of it, just a guy having a morning cup of coffee, looking out over the water.

For three mornings now, I have seen what looks like a hired car drop off two guys with backpacks. They are getting out of the car on the other side of the City Island bridge where there is nothing but woods, nothing. They have the option to walk back to City Island but why not have the driver take them to CI? Going the other direction, Orchard Beach is about one mile away and there is not another thing for another four or five miles any direction.

Like I said, it is a different time.

Trying Again

Sunday, September 27, 2009

They did it. Division championship. Home field advantage. 100 wins. Once in a while I stop and wonder what it is about the Yankees that I love, that I find so exciting, that I am willing to spend sooo much money to see. This season it has definitely been about watching the team work, every one of them having moments of brilliance as well as moments of "Oh, please. What are you thinking?" Derek Jeter has exemplified what it all means, the good guy who plays smart baseball year after year, no big splash. He is so smart about the game. His personal life seems to be above reproach. I like to think of the Yankees for the most part as being professional. People love to hate George Steinbrenner and a lot of it is merited when it falls in the arena of how to treat a team, especially if it is not winning. But he always knew how to handle the business end of it. He continued to build a dynasty. He didn't tolerate sloppiness--even if it was about facial hair or long hair. He spent big money when it wasn't popular. But the bottom line is that if you want to bring in the fans, you give them something to see and that costs a lot of money any more.

I always hesitate to be critical of other teams as I know how quickly the whole thing can change. Slumps, injuries, etc. certainly can make or break a game, a season. Booing, being obnoxious,etc. will always kick you in the butt at some point.

All of that being said, "Go, Yankees!"

Trying Again

We'll get it. Patience is a virtue.

Testing

Here I go annoying everyone again. Just a test.

Look's who has something to say

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Have not been here is soooo long. I guess I just haven't had anything to say. Impossible. Seems like life is so full of things to do any more and so little time. Am going to find a way to link this to FB. Thanks for the idea, Margaret. Will get back up to speed over the next couple of days.

Can't see the forest for the trees.......

Friday, August 7, 2009

I have been whiny about how the yard is summer ho-hum, not much new, just hanging in there. Yesterday I was weeding and my neighbor told me that some people had been taking a lot of pictures of the yard because it just looks so beautiful. So I stepped back and, sure enough, it really did look nice. The phlox are spreading everywhere and some of them are almost as tall as I am. And the dinner plate dahlia is exquisite.

So they were in North Korea illegally? Really? So we spent all that time and money to bring them back after they actually were where they weren't supposed to be? Really? Isn't that special now? Is a thanks enough? Really?

Yesterday it was off to the laundromat for about the third time in my entire life. I remember when we were looking for apartments or a house to live in my only requirement was that I could have a washer and dryer. Yesterday I took two very full baskets of clean but wet (and very heavy) clothes to the laundromat and actually used the wash-dry-fold service. You can't pick and choose what part of that service you want, have to pay for all three no matter what you have them do. When I went back to pick up the clothes I was so so impressed with how neatly they were folded. Felt like I was looking at clothes on the shelves in a nice clothes store. I couldn't bring myself to take them out of the basket. So I separated mine from Liz's this morning but they are all still folded so nicely. Do I really want to hang them up now? Now if I could find someone to take them to the laundromat and pick them up, that is a total luxury.

I was at Yankee Stadium for the first time in over a month last night and it felt good. Mostly it felt good to be with the kids but it didn't hurt that the boys did me real proud.

"Stuff"

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I just entered my 189th book on my "life List" since I have retired. That is very close to one book/week. Retirement is sweet.

I have been very, very involved in putting together a dog walk with the shelter. We are waiting for our website to go live in the next couple of days and then we will feel like we are officially launched. It has been a complex project to get this going which I naively volunteered to do a couple of months ago. So I just took a breath and plunged in one step at a time. Very complex. The most difficult part was all of the "suggestions" by the people who just did not know what they were talking about or how the process goes. But, then, that is always the case. So so stressful.

Tonight is my first Yankees' game in over a month. The dreaded Red Sox are in town. My boys haven't beaten them once this season so it is way past time. They are on a roll and Boston is kind of floundering so we'll see.

The yard is sort of on its summer hiatus, really only requiring weeding, actually more weeding than I want to do. The dahlias are the only new and fresh blooms on a regular basis. The few annuals are now pretty boring. Tomatoes did not do well again this year and I don't have a lot of hope that they will catch up if the rain lets up a little.

On my way to the laundromat to pick up my dried, folded clothes. Laundromat? Tomorrow the serviceman comes to see if he can fix my million year old clothes dryer. Still wants to tumble and do all that it should but has no heat.

Theory is wrong

Hmmm. So much for that theory. I decided to give it one more try and voila! it worked.

Sunday, August 2, 2009.

I have so much trouble trying to blog and I think I have finlly figured out that it is because I have to run Internet Explorer with no add-ons so I can't add any pictures. That, in turn, makes blogging pretty boring to me. That, in turn, makes me not care if I blog. All sounds very negative although I don't mean to be. Just the way it is for now.

I can report that I am making progress on eating bananas with black spots. Doing much better. I was somewhat put to shame when Isaac told me that he likes bananas best when they only have a few yellow spots on them.

I think I just lost a pretty good friend of about 20 years because I asked her to not send me any of her political email any more. I think I was so basically disappointed in her that it ended up being disturbing. The last thing I got was a carciature of Obama in native African garb with a bone through his nose. I have been simply deleting her email for a long time but for some reason looked at this one. It was upsetting enough to me that I asked her to take me off of her mass email list which she responded to by telling me that she never sends me any political email that is not true. Can someone really get to my age and believe that?

On the Road

July 15, 2009

Am at the Holiday Inn in Tonawanda, NY, right by Niagara Falls. This is actually the town where Al's mother was born 89 years ago. Left City Island at about 7:30A this morning and was here about 4PM. It really was a nice drive, not a lot of traffic until I got very close to here and the weather was beautiful.

A Holiday Inn is a Holiday Inn but all I am doing is sleeping and will be on my way in the morning.

Wireless internet access is great but I just can never figure out how to send email out. I can get it but I cannot send it out. I am sure it has something to do with some setting buried somewhere.

I also can't get images/pictures into this blog. Can download them and all but then it just shuts down.

Travel

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Leaving for Michigan tomorrow. Staying in Niagara Falls one night and then off to my sister's for one night. Up to Paradise, MI for two nights, Mackinaw City for one night. Back to my sister's to stay at her friends and take care of their dog for four nights and then back to my sister's for two nights, off to Syracuse for one night and back home. Who dreamt up this crazy trip? I called my brother-in-law today to try to figure out in my head about clothes. What was I thinking? I was asking someone who wears shorts outside in January to feed the deer?

One of these times when I go through Niagara Falls I may actually stop and look at the falls. I think the last time I saw them was when I got married in 1968 and we were driving through from Saginaw to Syracuse NY. Actually I may have been there once since then.

July 7, 2009

So many conflicting emotions about this man. Yet I sit here riveted to the TV watching the memorial service. Right now I would be happier if there was more music and fewer long winded speakers. This story is sooo far from over and we are only going to hear sadder and sadder things about all of it. Financial issues, court cases, his children, his family. I think we will see a lot of his final rehearsals for his comeback tour. So many pictures of him. Has anyone ever been so photographed as he has? Has anyone else ever had so very many different looks?

When I was a kid my family spent the week of the Fourth of July on Crooked Lake in Michigan where my grandparents had a summer home. Every year since then I find myself spending so much time thinking about those days. It was an idyllic time. We swam, ate outside, boated, watched fireworks. I don't remember a single bad thing about any of it except that I was afraid to go into the woods behind the house on the other side of the road. Sometimes I would be a big girl and walk about three feet into the scary woods.

Such a good, good book. Three more chapters. Just learned yesterday that this was Stieg Larsson's first book and that there are two more books written by him, may or may not be the same main characters, etc. This young man commited suicide after the third book was finished.

July 4, 2009

What a beautiful day! The weather was perfect and there were so many reminders of what a wonderful thing it is to be an American. Tonight there was a knock on my door and one of the neighbors invited me over for a barbecue. Another one of our neighbors joined us and we ate skirt steaks, broccoli and potato salad. Drank a lot of wine and had cake for desert. It was one of those evenings that just happened. Then about 9PM we started seeing fireworks going off all around us in the sky. It was amazing. I have never seen that many serious fireworks going off right here in the neighborhood.

Still a good book but I am only about half way through it. Have too many other things going on to read much.

I have wanted to knit or crochet a shawl for quite a while and I finally found a very pretty pattern and someone to make it for. I am thrilled so I bought yarn yesterday and started it today. It is going to be sooo pretty.

Two months and more....

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

One gets easily caught up in Twitter, Facebook, etc. and two people have asked me in the last few days what has happened to my blogging? Almost everyday I have had it on my list of "things to do today" and then it has been moved to the next day. That is what has happened to it, exactly.

It seems like there is a lot going on.

We had a visit from Uncle Nick. He was on his way to his summer "home" up on Cape Cod, passing through NY. It was good to have him here for five days and we managed to do quite a bit with him. Will see him again in October when he is on his way back to Florida.

Liz was in Utah for a week at the Best Friends Sanctuary volunteering to take care of the cats and dogs there. I admire her a lot for giving up her vacation time to do something like this. So many animals there and so very many with sad, sad stories. But now they are living in a wonderful place and it almost seems being adopted is a step back. Well, not really.

My yard is in good shape this summer. The hydrangeas

are particularly impressive right now. I was worried they were not going to make it, that I had perhaps pruned them too much but they are looking better than ever.

Let's see. Yankees vs. the Mariners tonight at the Stadium. Weather forecast calling for thunderstorms, hail, high winds. Hail? Hale? Why doesn't that seem right?

A good book. Started reading it and it was going slowly the first couple of chapters. Was going to quit--life's too short. But it definitely picked up after that and now I am enjoying it.

Have been spending hours and hours and hours writing a newsletter for the Shelter and a lot of people got a really bad email this time around so I am getting pretty beaten up for it. So little of it was my fault. Hey! What part of V-O-L-U-N-T-E-E-R don't you get?

Nick's friends

Sunday, April 19,2009
























OMG! Going for another world title? Most runs scored against in the history of MLB? the world? Same old story. They don't get paid enough.

Time to put away the Easter finery....



and get some yard work done....

Ooops!

April 18, 2009

About four or five years ago, my beautiful lilac tree had a serious mold/mildw problem-whichever it is that they get. So I pruned the hell out of it to let in more air and more light, etc, etc, etc. It totally took care of that problem. What I did notice was that since then it produce in inordinate amount of suckers. I religiously cut away the suckers, preferring to save the growing energy for the blooms, etc. and filling the bottom of the trees with lots more bushes. So this morning I was cutting away the suckers and it seemed that there were more than ever. So many more. I just kept cutting and cutting and cutting them away. I was about 2/3 done and I thought-gee.....where are the lilies of the valley? I guess I won't be seeing them this year.

Spring

April 17,2009

The windows are open a little. The sun is bright. The lilac leaves are about half way out. But most of all ---the birds are tweetering in the lilac tree at the window.

Ah, spring.

Yeah!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

What a gorgeous day in the Bronx. Perfect for Opening Day. This is the first game in "our" seats. Haven't had the experience before of having the same seats for every day. This is going to be great fun. It will be even more fun if the Yankees win.

Sometimes I sit back and really just think about all of the wonderful opportunities I have had in my life, many of them just being in the right place at the right time. I have been very blessed.

Block Watch

April 15, 2009

Our block has changed significantly in the past few years, dramatically in the last few months. After my kids grew up there were not any little kids on the block for a very long time, a very quiet block for sure. Then Jeff and Reiko brought us Umi and a young family moved in down the block. It still wasn't really a very lively "kid" block.

The Paradisos moved out and Cathy's father moved into their house. Both of the Bellochios passed away and their young granddaughter and her boyfriend moved into the house. The mom, who grew up in this house, now lives down the block. One of the women across the street has developed dementia. Alice Payne passed away at the age of 94. Her daughter now lives in her house. Vinnie has a boarder. The Peraglias moved in. The 50 year old nurse was let go of her job because she has early onset dementia. Mrs. Lake passed away and they are redoing her house to sell it. Cathy Duffy permanently moved into her mother's house. Mrs. Scotto was hospitalized and is not back home but her daughter has moved into the house permanently to care for her. Bill Mitchell lives most of the time with his friend. This has all pretty much happened in the last couple of years.

What I think about most is the older women on the block.

#1 lives all alone in her house with a picture of her husband in the living room. She is constantly asking her daughter who that man in the picture is. A couple of days ago I noticed that she had Christmas decorations in her yard. On Easter her daughter pulled up and got out of the car, "Ma! It's Easter, not Christmas!" I think about her cooking. She still walks to the market to grocery shop. I found her wandering one day and when I asked her if she wanted to walk home with me she got very upset and said that she didn't know me, why would she go with me?

#2 is probably only in her 70s and has just moved in permanently into her mother's home. Neighbors who knew her years ago describe her as "eccentric". I suspect there is an alcohol problem and a couple of near misses with cars on the block have pretty much confirmed it. That's fine if she stays in the house but please stop driving those two cars you have.

#3 lives next door but I don't have to worry about her so much any more as her daughter has moved in.

#4 I met one the avenue a couple days ago, crying. I walked home with her. She is 52 years old, also lives alone and was recently worked up for early onset dementia. She was let go from her job. Her brother and sister stop by frequently to see if she is OK.

Very sad to watch all of this going on although I know it is very natural, just the way life is.

Things are looking up--

Saturday April 11, 2009

Justice served.

It is raining, raining, raining today. A great day to "catch up" on all the busy stuff that has piled up over the last few weeks that I have been gone, etc.

Finally got to do my taxes. Finally got to do some work in the yard. Finally watched a lot of TV shows in the DVR. Finally read some of the back newspapers.

The knitting....or not....ladies met Thursday night. What a good time we had. We all think it is not often enough so we are going to figure out something else to add to our month.

Have read some good books lately....

Thought this was really good. It is about a 50 year old woman who is a professor of linguistics at Harvard. She develops early onset Alzheimer's. Although fiction, it is so well written.

I have just started the Esme book and am finding it quite interesting. A government-run psych hospital is closing in Scotland and there is a woman who has been in it for 61 years and now is deemed able to go back into society. They contact her great niece who doesn't even know she exists.

Blonde is the story of Marilyn Monroe. What a very sad, very ,very pathetic woman. John Kennedy and his family would have never made it to the pedestal in today's age of "transparency".

Well, most of them have been good. This is downright creepy. Probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you have read every book you ever wanted to read in your life already.

Jury Duty

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Back to the Court House tomorrow-hopefully for the last day. I need to do my taxes. I need to get the yard cleaned up. I need to......I need to.....I need to.

Snow Day

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Option #1: Monday--go home now (12 noon). Tuesday--

day off. Wednesday--serve on a one day case. Jury selection,

hear case, decide case all in one day. 18 people to be

empanelled for questioning for a seven person jury. The

other 11 go back into the jury pool for the rest of the day,

from about 11A to 3:30PM, and take your chances of being

called for another case. This is a holiday week and the

case load is very light.

Option #2: Don't go on this panel, go back in the jury pool for the rest of Monday, all day Tuesday, and all day Wednesday. Take your chances of getting put on a case.

The choice seemed simple to me so today feels like a snow day. What am I going to do with it? Spend the day with Turbo Tax.

I feel badly. Such a poor start. I know. I know.

It was only the first game. I feel even worse for
MSU. What little I saw was so painful to watch.

Another Sunday

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Tomorrow I have the privilege of serving justice, the American way. I have been called for jury duty probably four times now and although I have been questioned for many cases, I have never actually served on a jury. So with a lot of reading material and some food I am off to the Bronx Court House tomorrow. This is the first time I have actually hoped that I don't get selected for a case. Opening Day is April 16.

This afternoon was spent at

the New York Botanical Gardens

Orchid Show. Breathtaking!

Back Again

April 4, 2009

Back from Michigan and ready to get my life, my finances, my house, my yard, my everything all cleaned out and organized. While I was gone Nick wiped my computer clean and reinstalled the OS. Now I am going to go through every file and picture and delete, clean up, do whatever has to be done. It is way past time.

We had a great, great night last night. We were fortunate enough to get great seats and be at the first baseball game played in the new Yankee Stadium. We remember leaving the old stadium last fall, all sad, nothing could replace it, so sad. Last night? What old stadium? What a beautiful place. It was so spacious going in it felt like walking through an airport. The interesting part was that the field is so very much like the old one that you feel the same watching the game. Well, except for the nice padded seats with significantly more room all around you. Well, I guess the prices also remind you of where you are. But there is such a big food selection. Fresh fruit stands! Sushi! EEEEEW! There is also a pretty fine dining restaurant that you see as you walk along the concourse. We really haven't explored it much yet.

We took time to go over and look at our seats for the season. Sweet. Never in the sun. Never ever in the rain. Very sweet. Nice and padded also. Field level, have to show your ticket to get into the section. No vendors hawking food. You place an order from the menu and the runner is there in about five minutes with your food. But the sweetest part is that we can just get out of our seats and walk right behind our section and get our own food also.

Now we just have to figure out what tickets we are going to sell and what games we want to see.

As always, the very best part of the experience was being there with Nick and Liz.

Just for you, Nick

There it is. I thought maybe I had taken a picture of it already. This is from March 10th. It is right below the kitchen window right by the concrete. The garlic in the front yard is over towards Mrs. Scotto's driveway.

And.........I knew you would love this picture......

Spring!

March 15, 2009

Spring is ready to burst open! The left is the hydrangea bush and the right is the lilac tree. I am on my way to Michigan for two weeks and when I get back these will all be green leaves. I hate to miss it but I will get to see buds coming out in Michigan, hopefully, as I think they are a little behind.

At last

March 10, 2009

I don't hate winter. Arguably, I don't live in a place where we have terrible winters. I am retired so the pressure of getting to work, mandating nurses to stay at work for 24 hours, trying to figure out what to do after that, is all gone. I have found Vinnie, the snow man, who will shovel all that I need shoveled for a reasonable cost. And I really don't have to go anywhere that I can't change to another time. So what is to hate about winter? Sometimes the brown, gray, drabby landscape gets depressing. That's about it.

But today--today I was very excited to get out in the yard and get a jump start to yard work.

Daffodils, garlic, chrysanthemums and hyacinths have all broken through!