Is a Jolly Holiday Too Much to Ask For??

Well this is just getting ridiculous! A close friend has ended our friendship once again and all signs are pointing to it sticking this time. I have mixed feelings about this since it is by far the unhealthiest friendship I've ever had -- but there are extenuating circumstances and I suffer from the ability to always see its potential, not its reality.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that Voldemort broke up with me on February 2nd five years ago and I was so pissed at the time! Yes, I was upset by the breakup itself, but I was more upset that she had done it on February 2nd -- my maternal grandmother's birthday! I foresaw remembering my grandmother's birthday for the rest of my life (Groundhog Day is a nice little hint just in case) and now I would also remember it as the day the Dark Lord dumped me. Dang it! No chance of my fuzzy memory forgetting that one.

So I couldn't help but chuckle when I just realized that my friend was "dumping me" on the same damn day. Is nothing sacred? Can we stay away from holidays people??

Alas, this is a bit of a trend in my life.

My birthday is at the end of May and often falls on Memorial Day Weekend. So imagine my surprise when my Dad had 3 days of a holiday weekend from which to choose his moving day when he was leaving my mom and me -- and yet he chose my 15th birthday! I can laugh about it now, mainly because it strikes me as absurd, but for many years it hurt quite a bit. Being a guy, I'm sure he didn't think anything of it and wouldn't have done it if he had known it would hurt me, but there it is. So, the birthday suffered for a few years.

Next up was Christmas. The last time I saw my maternal grandfather was in the hospital on Christmas day when I was seventeen. He died 4 days later and I still think about it every year.

And then came Dad again! He died on February 12th and I remember saying to my best friend, Lauren, "Dammit, there goes another holiday!" thinking of Valentine's Day. Lauren responded, "I didn't realize you were so attached to Lincoln's Birthday..."

I feel like there are more, but that seems like enough for me anyhow. I think people should plan their fights and deaths more appropriately. There are only so many holidays in a year -- can't you avoid them??

Daddy's Shovel

Greetings from snowy South Hampton Roads, Virginia! Yes, the unthinkable actually occurred – we had a snow storm on Saturday. I use the term “storm” loosely as we in Norfolk only received about 5 inches of snow – although, thanks to Norfolk’s snow removal plan of, “Wait for it to melt,” I guess storm is the appropriate term after all.

Unfortunately, we also received some rain and have had freezing temps, so we have a couple inches of ice underneath the snow. My attempt to shovel my sidewalk today was mostly for naught. Thanks to my laziness regarding the sweeping and removal of fallen pine needles from the sidewalk leading to my house, that stretch is actually clear! The pine needles made an excellent barrier between the sidewalk and ice and clean up was a breeze! The public walk beyond my fence is a disaster however and I’ll be embracing Norfolk’s snow removal philosophy until ordered by someone to chop the ice away.

All of this brings me to Daddy’s shovel, for that’s what I used earlier today. I don’t often think of its significance, but did so just a few minutes ago. I may never get my father’s beloved music as I requested the day of his funeral, but at least I have his shovel. I’m sure he’d find it a little ridiculous if he knew. I’m not even sure how it became a “thing” for me, but it’s one of a handful of items that I intend to have with me until the day I die.

I’m not sure when Dad picked this thing up. I think I must have been around 10 or so – at least that’s my earliest memory of it. The thing was HUGE the first time I saw it and I could barely lift it. I believe it was taller than me or my height at the time of its arrival. It stands about 5 feet tall and the handle itself makes up 90% of the length. I’m pretty sure I remember crying the first time I had to use it. It has a simple wooden handle and a square blue shovel. The bottom edge of the shovel is curled up now from 3 decades of use and a decent amount of the blue coloring has worn off, but the thing is still functional.

I’m not sure why Daddy didn’t take the shovel with him when he left. I guess since my mother and I were staying in the house, he thought he should leave it behind. Then again, he left in May so maybe he hadn’t even given it a thought. Not much call for snow shovels in May – even in New Jersey. I’m fairly certain I probably cursed him and that shovel the first winter without him when I became the ‘man of the house.’ I do remember resenting that shovel for several winters.

I don’t know if I kidnapped it for sentimental reasons or pure function when I moved to Richmond a week after the blizzard of ’96. I seem to remember thinking shovels might be hard to come by in the South and since the roads were still treacherous I had gotten in the habit of keeping the shovel in my car in case I got stuck. Regardless of my reasons, bringing it to Richmond was a good call on my part since there were approximately 5 shovels in Richmond in January of 1996.

I haven’t had to use it down here very often at all. In fact, I’ve been in this house for almost 5 years and this is the first snowfall of any significance we’ve had since I’ve been here. The last storm was in December 2004 and I was still living with the Dark Lord – and used Daddy’s shovel to clear our sidewalks and driveway at the time. There was a storm in the early Aughts when I was living in Norfolk and I remember another doozy of one while in Richmond in 2000, but outside of that, the shovel’s been pretty idle. And yet, I can’t imagine my life without it now. I know it’s silly, but it’s a part of my past. It reminds me of a time so long ago that I sometimes think I dreamt it. It reminds me of my father – the love, anger, frustration, and humor. I can hear him when I use it. I’m so thankful for that. And so, I’ll keep carting this thing along for years to come. Even if I wind up somewhere without snow, I’ll still have Daddy’s shovel – and I know that would make him weirdly proud and make him laugh – two things I miss deeply.

Fudgie the Whale, It Ain't

My printer/scanner came back to life unexpectedly -- and briefly -- the other day and I was able to scan in some pics, or "blog seeds," as I thought of them.

For the record, THIS is a picture of a Carvel ice cream cake:

And THIS is a picture of the "ice cream cake" I received from a "friend" for my 32nd birthday:

You'll note that yes, it is technically an ice cream cake. It contains cake and ice cream. Outside of that, it bears absolutely no resemblance to a Carvel ice cream cake! Where are the chocolate crunchies, for crying out loud??

Ah, good times. My good friends Anne and Ruth were all set to satisfy my only birthday request -- for a Carvel ice cream cake. Anne and I were rooming together at the time and had invited a bunch of our friends from Richmond down for Memorial Day Weekend and my best friend and her now-hubby were coming down as well. We had a house full of friends on an incredibly rainy weekend and had a great time. About the only thing worse than the weather was that damn cake! A friend of ours at the time who considered herself something of a chef decided it was perfectly silly for Anne and Ruth to purchase a cake and that she would make one instead. They insisted on Carvel, she insisted on a Kissel Original. And that's what I got. We had to clear the entire freezer out to store the thing and then we couldn't actually cut it. I'm pretty sure we just hid it in the freezer until the chef left.

The only saving grace is that my bff brought her grandmother's famous Dip. That's the green stuff in the bowl to the left. It's the world's bestest onion/garlic dip and I lived on it for the entire weekend. And no, we don't know why she insisted on making it green. But we've tried it without the food coloring and as crazy as it sounds, it doesn't taste the same! I used to bring Dip to work potlucks and had to make batches of it for several coworkers to bring to parties. This stuff is awesome! It's also somewhat toxic -- if you have any, you have to insist the people around you eat it as well. Consider it the first line of defense.

And now I know what I'll be making this weekend! :)

The Opera Singer

I was just walking across the parking lot towards our building when I was greeted with a pleasant, silly surprise. Seems the construction workers were having some sort of pickup truck stereo battle and the current winner was blasting opera. He was soon drowned out by R&B, but for a minute I was taken back to my bedroom in my childhood home and welcomed a memory I had all but forgotten.

Our house was on the corner of a somewhat major thoroughfare in our itty bitty town and there was a bus stop on the corner. I used to awaken to a man singing opera (beautifully, I might add) while he waited for the bus. I don't think I ever thought much of it -- that it was strange or that most of the world wasn't awakened in the same manner.

Years later, while in college, I worked for a mail order fabric company in town. I discovered one of my coworkers was the mother of a girl I went to high school with and she and her family lived two blocks up the street from my old house. Carlene and I got to talking one day and I found out her husband sang for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. It was her husband who used to sing at the bus stop as he waited for his bus into the city!

We only lived in that house for the first ten years of my life. We then moved across the street and up five houses (putting our house along the walking route of the opera singer) and while I'd occasionally hear him sing a little as he walked by, I never got the full concerts I'd had while he waited for the bus...

I'm sure he and the opera house received plenty of adulation over the years. But I wonder how many of us in the neighborhood loved hearing him as well -- and how many of us were exposed to opera for the first time because of his free concerts down our street. I'm attending a sushi/opera night next month. I've been meaning to attend an opera forever but this will be my first. I hope I hear something that I learned as a child without even realizing it. Thank you, Ron Naldi, for bringing a little culture to Grandview Avenue!

Maybe It's the Vitamin D...

I don't often take my mother's advice (nor ask for it, truth be told), especially when it comes to things of a romantic nature. Don't know if it's because I'm gay and we had some...uh...struggles with that when I was younger that are burned indelibly on my psyche or if it's just my nature in general. I do absolutely appreciate knowing she's there if I do need to turn to her and I think she in turn knows I'm pretty bad off when I call needing to speak with her. She can usually tell by the fact that I'm sobbing before she answers the phone. :)

Anyway, what I'm trying to get to is that while I don't often take my mother's advice on some matters, I don't question her on vitamins or supplements. She cured my badly wrenched ankle (and subsequently some of my friends') by convincing me to take glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM and while it may just be a placebo effect, it worked, so who cares?

Mom's new supplement is Vitamin D. I don't remember who told her but he/she stressed that we don't get enough of it and Mom and her friends are popping them like M&Ms and supposedly everyone has a lot more pep in their step.

So I've added a double dose of Vitamin D (because the average concentration isn't enough according to her source) to my now daily routine of: multivitamin, fish oil, gingko, and Flexamin (the aforementioned glucosamine/chondroitin/MSM). I'm not sure if it's doing anything or not, but my house is clean, I stacked 3/4 of a cord of firewood last night, I've gotten motivated at work, and I've run during lunch over the last three days.

Now some of this may just be coincidental. I've got some things I'm trying to actively work on and in doing so I'm trying to tackle chores as they come up and take care of myself instead of putting things off. I'm also officially in training for a marathon in March, so I'm running daily as a survival mechanism. It just so happens that I feel pretty darn good about myself as a side effect.

Alas, since my life is one big golf game in which only two of the three components are ever working well at the same time (drives are good, short game is good, putting's in the sh*tter), one of my friendships is suffering again.

Things are the way they are.
Things are the way they are.
Things are the way they are.

I hope beyond hope that I will not rail against this in my next life. I can't begin to explain how frustrated I get when the general population at large -- and the people who are important to me specifically -- don't see that we are here for a BLIP in time!! Oh, it drives me out of my mind!! I know everyone is doing the best they can. I know everyone is on his or her own timetable...but we waste so much time!!!

And I'm yelling at myself in there too, so don't think it's just you. :)

I'm not living up to my full potential, are you? Some of it I have control over -- my career, my hobbies, my raison d'etre. But some of it is out of my control -- some of it involves other people and they're roadblocks to my realizing my full potential. So what to do? Do I wait for them to catch up? Do I ACCEPT that things (people) are the way they are and just ACCEPT what they have to offer when they offer it?

So many questions, so little time.......

tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
tick

Get to livin' or get to dyin'. Good luck to all of us! :)

Welcome to the Teens!

Man alive! Apparently, I'm worthless without some sort of monthly blog posting challenge!! I was thisclose to signing up for January's, but decided I would just write every day in January and not sign up for the challenge formally.

Whoops.

Four days in and this is my first post. And I'm really just doing this to say hello ("Hello!") and let you know my intentions...

I still have some left over stories from November's challenge and some updates from the last month AND -- I know you'll all find this very exciting!! -- a primer on road races that I shared with our dear friend Bert.

So let's all stay tuned, shall we?

I'll see if I can't get on the stick with the writing (go ahead Bert, I know what you're thinking...) and in exchange, I ask that you all pray for my continued heat until I can get a new heating/cooling unit installed. Thanks!

I hope you're all doing well so far in 2010 and look forward to our continued correspondence. Speaking of, I may not have posted a lot of blogs lately, but you folks are not leaving many comments when I do. Oh, you know who you are. :)

Rock-a-Bye Sweet Baby Jesus

Dang! I was all set to come on here and share a couple nuggets from the homefront, but then I discovered that my profile pic (Michaelangelo's David, slightly more discreet) had been hijacked by Photobucket! Instead of the pic, there was a lovely note saying I hadn't signed on to Photobucket in 90 days and they had removed my image. Granted, I hadn't actually been on Photobucket in more than 730 days, but still...

Well, I signed on, ignored some ads, and my pic has reappeared. Guess I'll be doing that every 90 days or so. Hmph.

So, where was I?

Traveled home to NJ on Tuesday to spend the holidays with my mother and great aunt. Coming 'home' here is a little strange since it's not where I actually grew up. I had hoped to see some high school friends while I was up here, but it became too much of a production to pull that off. I'm seeing another aunt and cousins for the first time in ages and also my bff who I missed last Christmas, so that's good...

My elderly Irish Catholic great aunt lives with my mother and while she has gotten much more subdued in her old age, she's still mighty entertaining at times. Yesterday she provided us with two new Christmas traditions...

Seems she wrapped her hearing aids up in some facial tissue and placed them on the bathroom vanity before taking her shower -- and then apparently tossed the tissues into the bathroom trash when she was done. Then she emptied the bathroom trash into the kitchen trash bag -- which unfortunately had just become the dumping ground for the turkey packaging and the 10 paper towels my mother used to sop up the turkey juice that had fallen on the floor.

My aunt went through each and every piece of trash in that bag twice yesterday looking for her hearing aids. Yes, I offered help, but she declined. Mom finally got in there on the second pass. My favorite part was overhearing this exchange from the other room:

Aunt Jean: "I found one!"
Mom: "Are you sure that's a hearing aid and not a giblet??"

Aunt Jean did in fact find one in the trash (and popped that bad boy right back in her ear) and then strangely discovered the other one in her bedroom, near the cat toys. I didn't have the heart to ask how that had happened....

Not too long after, I was in the living room and the nativity caught my eye. I remembered that we had lost baby Jesus quite some time ago and wondered if a substitute had been obtained. Sure enough, something was wrapped up in swaddling facial tissue -- a Werther's Original!

Yes, my aunt substituted a butterscotch candy for the Son of God. My friend Colleen remarked on Facebook, "Oh sweet, sweet delicious baby Jesus."

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas (if you're so inclined)!