One Year!

A Year.... a whole year....twelve .. count them twelve full months!!! I did it! I WON!!! I BEAT IT!!! I used drugs but I did IT!!!...I slayed the dragon....I beat the monster....I QUIT SMOKING!!!!... WOooooooOOOooOooOOO HoOOOoOoooooo!!!!
I used Chantix...and for those who wonder YES I read the entire pamphlet the teeny tiny writing blurring practically every letter into an unrecognizable blur of side effects and cautions...

I was really disappointed I didn't have any of the good side effects....like acid trip hallucinations....no sexual side effects (damn it)...NOTHING good....I did however have one side effect...I don't know that i would consider it a bad one....It's just one....a side effect.... First of all I have to tell you....I have always been a dreamer...I don't mean a faraway look in my eyes deep sigh kind of dreamer I mean a go to sleep and wake up flying naked over a Led Zepplin concert dreamer...or I have this one dream where my Aunt Paula and i are in a mafia type setting and Bugsy Segal is shooting at us...He keeps saying come back Tink come back....we keep running through a night club and there are all kinds of performers on stage...at one point a lion leaps off an elephants back toward us and as it's teeth sink into my shoulder we are on a sailboat in the bay in Bermuda....the snap of the sail making me focus on the moment as dolphins jump over our heads into the deep blue green waters where a mermaid swims up from the depths and turns into a dragon that sends its fiery breath hurling through the tropical air to be caught in a freezing stream of icy coolness as the bright windy coolness of winter envelopes us into frozen cubes to be discovered years later...... ~whooooo...said that all in one breath...~

anyways...the side effect.... you know how the colors in CSI Miami are especially vivid??....My dreams are now vivid like CSI: MIAMI ...and i LOVE it!! Except for the dream with Aunt Paula...that's always black and white....it has to be....it wouldn't be right to have that mob scene in color....But anyways back to my point....
One year ago today i put down my cigarettes and didn't pick them up again!!! I'm proud of me!!! I feel so much better....my clothes don't stink...my car doesn't stink...my car!!!!...I can always tell when someone has just put one out....sometimes it makes me crave one really bad...but I haven't gone back.....I am, however, the one who keeps Trident in business..... gum....i have to have it on me at all times... when i am out i have been known to bite the heads off chocolate rabbits...I swore i wouldn't be a hypocrite if I ever quit but I have to say I really like the smoke free me...it is alot better then the smelly cigarette me.....

The Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? I do.... I think everyone does whether they call it a Bucket list or something else....

Recent events have .... That's how i was going to start this blog but as soon as I typed the words I knew they were wrong....It isn't just recent events this has been a year of events.... In the beginning of the year my cousin died...she was from my mother's side of the family...she was the first of "the cousins" to die and it was very shocking to me.... yes shocking...

you spend your life learning the lessons...trough the loss of beloved toys.... pets.... friends... grandparents.... it's not that the people that you lose are any less important when your growing up they just more or less fit into the lessons your supposed to learn....sometimes the lessons are especially hard like losing a sibling or a parent when you are very young ... but these lessons are a necessary part of making us into the adults we become....

I realize now, even as i go on, that maybe it's just MY life lessons....any way...all my life growing up I had all my cousins....on my mother's side anyway.... It wasn't something we thought about...it's just the way it was....then my brother died and he was the first cousin to die for everyone else except for us Warren's sisters....we still had all of our cousins....

I was 44 when Jeannie died...The very unexpected death of her started my deep investigation into my own mortality.... It has not been an easy road either.... who really wants to think about dying?... I keep telling my son and my husband that when i die I want them to Burn Me .... Urn Me .... and take me with you...I don't want to be buried somewhere left behind when life takes the people who loved me away from where I am.... Take me with you!!!.. I must insert right here I really wanted them to take me to a taxidermist and have me stuffed so i could watch over them (ha ha ha) .... they know that even when I am gone I am going to haunt them they just don't want to dust me and change my clothes...so I wont be getting stuffed when i die.....

All kidding aside....sorry if that offended anyone but, who do you know that could sit around and talk about their deaths and not say something funny?...Everybody needs levity to ease the hardest and the darkest times... That's another thing I have always said "I couldn't make it through this life if i couldn't laugh" .... I truly think i wouldn't make it without laughter....

The last eight days have been hard....The first cousin on my father's side of the family of my generation died and she was younger then me....That puts a whole new spin on it....Younger then me and her life on this earth is over....she leaves behind children... parents... sister.... friends... cousins....pets... it's hard to understand why these things happen at times but...

I like to think from what I know of Sharon that she knew something I didn't ... i mean about her own mortality.... from the conversations I have had with people and my own experiences with her... I know Sharon had a great sense of humor... she had to have one to be in OUR family....I know she was a fabulous mom...that is just something you can't fake...The emotions I have felt this week have run the whole gamut for her family....her sister has to know that if she needs me to talk to...to listen...for whatever I am here....her parents.... i remember how my parents were when my brother died... it's not a kind of hurt i would wish on my worst enemy.... the last communication i had with Sharon was a public post she made on Facebook... she said and i quote "Life is good. God is great" ...and then she said to someone who commented words to the effect of "If you believe in the second part the first part follows..."

how ironic to me that she made that post 2 days before she died.... did she know a secret? ...it makes me wonder...There has not been a day gone by that I haven't thought of her since I heard of her passing...before she passed away I in a way thought of her every day... In this last year as I have become more aware of my mortality I find myself praying more and always included family in a blanket type cover of "those i love and care for" in my prayers...

Am I afraid to die? No I really don't think I am...do I want to die?...someday.. yeah i know it's inevitable...but I want to live long enough to be that sassy old lady the Facebook quiz said I was going to be....or to be like my Grandmother who, at 80 something damn near fell out of the window of my mother's car as she tried to grab herself some construction guy muscle as we drove through road construction on our way to Kingston one day yelling all the while "Come on BOYS give Granny some sugar!!!" I don't have to tell you it was one of the funniest things I EVER saw in my life....the look on those guys faces to see this old lady leaning out the window trying to grab herself some of them was so funny i didn't even have time to be embarrassed....

now back to subject....Bucketlists....I have a few of them...

Son:

1. See him have children...I want to be a grandmother....
2. See him love someone with his whole heart and to have that love returned
3. Have him just once take the garbage out without being told...lol...just kidding...not really!

Couple:

1. Go to Greece
2. Travel
3. Start a business
4. Go on our honeymoon..(One night in Merrits does not constitute honeymoon)

Personal
1. Go in a hot air balloon
2. skydiving
3. live on the beach for at least a year.
4. Go to the west coast
5. Have the truck move off my lawn...(it's been there a long time...10+ years)

there are other things that I want to do...I need a lot more years....I don't plan for my Bucket List to ever be done....I hope every year I can add more to it....

to all the people in my life now and to those i hope to meet one day THANKS...Thanks for making me the person I am and for who I am going to be...

November the Oneth

It's that time of year again....It's getting cooler out....sunset comes much earlier.....thank goodness i say! ....now i don't have to be up half the night to take sunset pictures....In my humble opinion it is the only GOOD reason to have winter...

I'm sure that no one has ever heard me say how much i hate to be cold....(insert dramatic smirk here)...how much i hate winter....if my sisters were to think of it they would remember i spent way less time outside in winter then they did...I was more likely to be found sitting on the fireplace blistering the skin on my back with the heat of the fire or playing Scrabble, Yahtzee or Canasta with mom & grandma in the kitchen...(stopping my typing for a few moments and remembering....)

or I would be up sitting next to grandma on her bed doing a circle the word book.....i cannot begin to tell you how many hours i spent doing circle word books with my grandmother...i loved the time I spent with grandma...and if ever Grandma was upset with me she would not allow me to come up when i asked...I can remember a few times that grandma wouldn't let me come up and i can remember sitting on the bottom step leading up to her room and crying because she said no....i thought my heart had broken into a million pieces for sure....You can bet that when grandma finally allowed me back upstairs to sit next to her i tried my damnedest to never ever have her be upset with me again...there were very few times she ever said no to me...

Another 'thing' about grandma that always made me smile as it did with all of her grandchildren is that she loved Tigger....yup Tigger from Winnie the pooh...we would ask her every day "Grandma, where's tigger today"....she would give us his location every day... some days he would be walking in the woods...others he would be in china or Hawaii ....she would tell us that he was doing a Chinese dragon dance or dancing with hula hula girls....to this day if i see a hula girl on someones dashboard i think of tigger doing the hula with the beautiful Hawaiian women...Other days she would say to us didn't you see him today?? He was in school with you today....

This time of year always brings back many memories to me even though I always hated the fact that this meant winter snow and freezing cold were soon to follow. But before the time of year that i really dislike comes it's THE HOLIDAYS!!!! To us the holidays started the weekend before opening day of hunting season...That's when Aunt Ruth and Uncle Frank came up from Long Island! For as long as i can remember they came up for hunting season. Aunt Ruth was my grandmother's sister so she was actually my Great Aunt....All four of us kids loved them soooooo much...we knew Warren was Uncle Frank's favorite but they were always so wonderful to us we really didn't care....

The first day of hunting season was known as "Deer Day..." yup, that's what school called it...they stopped fighting all the bus drivers and just closed school on opening day...if school didn't close on that day all the bus drivers would call in sick..school would end up delayed or closed anyways.... These days i do believe they call it Superintendents Conference day...

One of their traditions of coming up was to bring Entenmann's crumb cakes with them...you would have thought that they brought solid gold with them...we all loved them....back then it was more like the ultimate crumb of today....I do believe that in the late 60s and 70s it was not as easy to find Entenmann's cakes upstate.

Somewhere on one of the discs of scanned pictures i have here are pictures of mom, Aunt Ruth & grandma Rene playing cards in the kitchen and "playing their instruments" ((the tinfoil, paper towel card board, spatula guitar)) and singing silly songs...One of the ones i remember them dissolving into laughter that left them gasping for air is I'll call it 'Roll me over' I don't know if i ever knew the real name it goes something like this:

Roll me over in the clover
RRRRRRRoooooollllllll me over..
lay me down do it again

This is number oneand we're going to have some fun
Roll me over in the clover
Rrrrrrroooollllll me over..
lay me downdo it again

This is number two
I forgot to tie my shoe
Roll me over in the clover
Rrroooooooollllll me over..
lay me downdo it again

This is number threeI got to take a pee
Roll me over in the clover
Rrrrrrooooolllllll me over..
lay me down do it again

and the song would go on... over and over different words most times but always filled with with tons of laughter....my son has said to me a zillion times "Where do you get this stuff from?" I laugh and most of the time he knows the answer "Nana"... But it isn't just Nana it's part of my life....it's who i am....

So now as the holidays are upon us I just want to remind everyone to hold those you love for that extra second....cherish everyone..... soak up the memories...the traditions... the laughter....

May I Have This Dance

Today is 24 years ago....Twenty four years....

I have officially lived more then half my life without my brother....remembering what he looked like is easy....i have pictures...but sometimes, more often then not, remembering his voice is becoming harder and harder and it hurts me to think of it...to not remember his voice....anyways....

Back in August 1985 I was working at Kass Inn on route 30 in Margaretville as a dishwasher...back then it was a very busy place and I almost always worked very late on Friday and Saturday night...more often then not I would not be done with my work when my younger brother, Warren, would come to pick me up..I didn't drive back then so I always had to have someone come pick me up.... I do not remember one time that he came to get me and he didn't help me finish up..I would finish washing the pots and pans and he would do the mopping for me...That was a huge frigging' floor and ohhh how I hated mopping it every night...He would come in and just do it for me...he didn't complain he just did it....

The two other women I worked with on the weekends did not believe that he was my brother because he was so nice to them and to me...They teased me all the time no matter what I said they never believed me that he was my brother....

On this particular night we were going out after he picked me up...Back in 85 the drinking age was only 19 and we were both legal.....for some reason the girl he was seeing wasn't with him... when I had changed we went to a bar called 'The Emory Brook” .This bar was long and skinny with windows all the way across the front...the band played on a stage all the way down... away from the door....lots of people from Kass' were there and tons of others...a live band always drew a crowd....especially in the summer........even the two women I worked with were there.....the music was loud....the beer was cold and we were having a good time....one song ended and the next began.....a slow song....i rolled my eyes and smiled at my brother I was looking around to see if anyone else was not dancing … to me it seemed like the whole world was there and had a partner to dance with except me and my brother.....in the haze of my thoughts I saw a hand appear before my face and a voice said “May I have this dance” I looked up and it was Warren, my brother, asking me, his sister, to dance....He left his hand there before me waiting for me to take it...i put my hand in his and stood up and we started to dance....we talked and danced through the whole song...after the song ended my brother wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight..he looked down at me and said “ I love you, Jeanette don't ever forget it....” it was the single most memorable moment in my life with my brother...i felt loved, happy and special...

The people i worked with heard what he said to me....i never was able to convince then that he was my baby brother and not my boyfriend...

There was one other time in my life that my brother said those words to me....it was November 5th just a few months later....I had moved in with my sister Tracy and we lived in Hamden...We were in Grand Union in Delhi shopping and ran into my brother, mother and I believe grandma was there too in the store....Once again, right there in the middle of the store my brother wrapped his arms around me and said 'I love you, Jeanette don't ever forget it' …

The very next night my brother was gone...he died in a car accident...not even a mile from home...Mom found him...he died in my mother's arms...His first word was mom and so was his last....

A strange thing happened....when my parents finally went through his room they found his journal....in his journal in the second or third week of August he had written an entry called 'I cheated death'...he talked of sitting under our mammoth weeping willow tree in the back yard and cheating death....i think personally that it was the day after he had told me in the Emory Brook that he loved me....that God decided to give us a few months more with him before he took him to be with him....

I often wonder...what would my life be like if he was here....what would he be like?... I know that when I die I will see him and all the others I have loved who have moved on from this life...It's going to be a long time before I get there I have a lot of living to do....

I love you Warren and I Miss YOU!

The Midnight Marauder

As I have said many times before my mother had a very unique warpedness to her...She took special steps to make sure that she shared it with her children.....

She had these friends, Alan and Kathy, when I was teenager...Alan and his wife were very good friends of both my parents.... I can remember many nights of Alan & Kathy coming to our house and just hanging out...somehow someway my mother and Alan got into a practical joke contest....

The joke started out with silly things like the bug in the ice cube....or she would be eating cake or something and make this terrible face and say to Alan "Did you smell that?" and when he went to smell it she'd smoosh it in his face and he'd have frosting all over his face and hair....yes his hair too...my mother always told me if your going to do something do it right or not at all....so none of this love tap smooshing....when the person fell for the lame old trick you had to make sure they had cake so far up their noses they had snacks for a week.....

On a side note here: there are a couple people in this world that fell for the "Did you smell that" gag with me and to this day still think they 'owe me one' because they were stupid enough to fall for it more then once....ha ha ha suuuuuuuccccckkkkkeeers!!!!! One I 'cringe' when i think of how he is finally going to get me...the other i laugh at because i hardly see him any more....But then again maybe I shouldn't discount anyone who thinks they owe me for a gag....

The first time mom got him really good....Alan drove this green truck that he had built the sides up so he could carry large loads of wood or whatever....well Alan had brought the truck to our house....my mother was out back by it and noticed a p0air of tighty whities that had been living in the mud and yard for God knows how long...they were realllllllly nasty....she took my dad's staple gun and stapled them to the side of Alan's truck....she fully expected to get a phone call a couple hours later....well that afternoon went by.....the next day went by and the one after that it wasn't until THREE days later that alan fiunally noticed them....In the mean time he had driven all over the place with these filthy, muddy disgusting tighty whities stapled to the side of his truck for DAYS!!!! We laughed every day for months over that one... Mom and i had even taken rides into town to check and see if he had found them and was just ignoring it...every time we checked they were still there.... Ohhhh MAN was he pissed when he finally found them...I dont remember what he did in retaliation fo it but it had to be something really good because the next few things mom decided to do she would leave a note that was signed

The Midnight Marauder

Finally mom had to start getting really creative and striking under the cover of darkness...One day mom and I filled I think five green garbage bags with the little small balloons (They were only filled with air) But think about it....five garbage bags filled with wiffle ball sized balloons...

we parked the car under the pavillion behind the A&P in town.... we snuck the bags 0f balloons across the field to Alan's truck...he used to park his truck behind his house....which ended up beinging a baseball sized field away from the pavillion... we filled the cab of his truck with the balloons and left our note taped to the steering wheel....just as we were emptying the last bag of balloons into the cab we hear the fire whistle go off in Arkville....yup you guessed it Alan was a volunteer for Arkville....so here's me and mom running across the field behind the A & P half a bag of balloons emptying behind us as we tried to get to the pavilion where the car was hidden without being caught...if mom got caught pranking Alan there was a consequence i believe...we barely made it under when Alan came running out of the house to his truck.....mom and i were sprawled across the hood of the car trying to catch our breath laughing so hard we were crying.....When Alan opened the door... the balloons started falling out...we heard them popping as he pushed into the cab and took off heading for route 28 so he could get to the firehall....mom and i got in the car and followed.....all over the place down Route 28 you saw balloons....it was soooo funny...when we got to Arkville mom beeped and waved at Alan and he gave us the finger!!!...

Alan told me years later... that had to be one of the funniest things the Midnight Marauder ever did...

I miss doing those silly things...i miss my mom...so friends...neighbors etc...the Midnight Marauder may return...she is like Zorro....if there is a need he appears.....it will be the same with the Midnight Marauder!! Maybe for old times sake one night i will go and wrap Alan's car in saran wrap again and leave a note that says:

In Memory of the Midnight Marauder

Downhill Ice Skating

Recently i was told i am severely twisted...I can now proudly say I am NOT the only severely twisted person in the world...

My husband ( i know... i know poor sucker) (but believe me he was demented long before i met him) (he's part of the reason why i am severely twisted) was just now walking out of the living room carrying a laundry basket yelling "BOCK BOCK BOCK CHICKEN WINGS" only to reflect what we were watching on TV... but, none the less, there he was in his big dog sleep pants, his dyke's lumber t-shirt and his now very short hair sticking up like he is the joker from batman flapping his arms and yelling "BOCK BOCK BOCK CHICKEN WINGS!!" It's a nut house i live in I swear it!

Anyways....a few weeks ago we had a conversation about new events for the Olympics... today he comes to me with his 'best' idea ever...Downhill Ice skating... yes think about it...let it roll around your brain for a few minutes....downhill Ice skating...Imagine how scary that would be...only someone who's cheese was rapidly sliding off their crackers would think of something as twisted and demented as downhill ice skating...

I thought about events like scaring...you set up this plan to scare someone and then execute it...imagine how inventive it would be....when my friend Michele and i are walking on the reservoir taking pictures and talking all of a sudden a GIANT KING KONG sized gorilla head shows up in the middle of the reservoir and starts moving towards us......or...or....ahead of us across the guardrails a gigantic octopus arm flops down across the road flattening everyone in front of us and sucking them up and pulling into the depths of the reservoir all the while we'd both be screaming like suicidal bombers in WWII......contestants would be graded on how fearful the victims appeared, intensity of screaming (hmmmm maybe a scream chart is needed)and creativity....

It's an idea i don't know if it will ever happen but could you imagine?? LOL

Mary is having a baby!

My friend called me last night said she had to tell me something before i heard it in the A & P ...When you live in a small town everybody knows everybody's business...I swear to God there is nothing you can do in a small town without someone gossiping about it...There was this one time:



Starting in say 7th or 8th grade, i think, you were allowed to aquire a permission slip signed by a parent to go uptown during lunch time. I was headed uptown..... smoking a cigarette.... before i got past theVictory store on main street which has since then been a Great American Supermarket, and now i believe it's a church....isnt it weird people are praying where once as a child i threw up... It's very unsettling to me.....anyways....i was walking up main street and before i got to the Victory my mother received a phone call letting her know i was walking up main street smoking. My mother told the person who called her to mind her own business i had permission to smoke.....

Anyways any time Barb and I have something to tell each other we don't want someone else tell first we'll say, "I have to tell you something before you hear it in the A & P"....so I knew it was something serious...I mentally braced myself... "Ok...what's up"... there was a short pause... "Mary's having a baby" ....Those words just bounced there for a minute....."Our Mary is having a baby"... Barb knew exactly what was going on...she told me then to call her back when it sunk in...that was about 6ish last night...I called her 7ish tonight....It still hadn't sunk in but after Barb and I hung up it sunk in....Tears rolled down my cheeks and i thought back through the years to the very first time i saw her....

I have known Mary since before the night she went to bed with dad and woke up with mom....(reread and think about it...ha ha ha) I have watched her grow and everyday of her life become this amazing young woman....When Mary was a baby & Ben, my son, was just over a year old I spent alot of time with Barb and Alan...Alan, Mary's dad, i have known all my life....i cannot remember a time when I didnt know Alan...(That's small town life for you,....) Barb, Mary's mom, i met while pregnant for Ben. That makes twenty two years....so many thing running through my mind....



The day I met Mary I went to the house they brought her home to on 28....when that baby was given to me to hold from the moment i looked into her beautiful blue eyes i fell head over heels in love with her...she filled a spot in my heart that was waiting for her....All of her life i have known her....at times spending little time with her but always revisiting.... spending time...and getting reaquainted...

Now I sit here thinking it over.... I'm in shock....The tears have rolled down my cheeks more then once...I can't believe it....this amazing girl that i have known all her life is going to be a mom....In a sense even though not by blood I'm going to be a grandma....YEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

P.S.
Special note to Mary:

I am very excited and happy for you... I KNOW you are going to be a fabulous mom...with your parents you can't miss... If your baby learns to be half the person you are ...it can't miss at being a great person....I love you Mary and i look forward to being a part of your life as you move in to parenthood... ANYTIME you need a sitter call me!

PS.PS.
I hope it's twins....One of each!