The early years

Hello friends.  Happy Wednesday! 

Or, if you're like me, Happy Tuesday and Happy Thursday!

My, um, calendar ran out on me yesterday and I'm completely lost without it.

So to celebrate Wednesday, and February, and the fact that it's waaaay too stinkin' warm for winter I'm going to post somethin'.

Lucky you!

I found a few pictures at my parents' house recently:

These two crazy kids fully embracing the styles of the late 70s are my parents.   Young, and in love, and fully unaware that within 10 years they will have three very loud, yet amazingly well-behaved children.

I love old pictures.

I love my parents.

I love my dad's face in the top right picture.

That's what he does.

He also mistakenly pronounces "exacerbate" in a very embarrassing way.

My parents worked at a boy's academy when I was young as house parents in a barracks full of seventh graders. 

Handsome couple.

Needless to say, I was the center of attention.

Oh the memories.

Eventually these two adorable yahoos came along.

I love old pictures.

...and reminiscing.

...and bowl cuts.

...and mama's old aprons.

...and my family.

New Developments

My family is wacky:

--My sister Kimberlie and I have a new way of communicating, we blink the Morse code (which neither of us actually knows) and then try to translate what the other is saying.

"Every Thursday you train your dolphin to fart cookies??"

What's worse: in a fit of blinks looking like you're pre-seizure or cackling in the middle of a ladies Christmas program at church?

--This same sister, in a serious conversation, said our grandmother's ashes are in a urinal.

She meant to say "urn."

--I sat down to talk to my dad in his office on Friday about some semi-serious stuff.  He interrupted me:

"Hold on, I need my thinking hat."

He then put on a fedora.

...

And Corey wonders why I am the way I am.

Weekend Update: Food and Fun

Thank goodness for sweet tasting glue strips on envelopes.  That's all I have to say.

But it's actually not.

You know me better than that.

It's Monday.  The day I tell you all the little details of Corey's and my weekend.

Like how we bought two tomato plants at the farmer's market.

But first, I start at the beginning.

Our hike.

It wasn't meant to be.

I said weeks ago that on Saturday Corey should choose for us to do one of two things: hike or golf.  He chose hike, picked the destination and scheduled us for a 7:45am departure time.  At 7:30am, as we were just waking up he suggested we get some breakfast instead.

Although I don't normally like to pass on an outdoor adventure, I had a hankerin' for home fries.  So we ditched our plans and went to Country Corner Cafe, just off the main street in Saratoga.

People, Cracker Barrel this place is not. Same country food, better country taste.  It's the kind of place out-of-towners flock to, which is why we were waiting along with parties of 9 and 12 to eat in a room the size of my bathroom.

Eventually we ate, we talked, we watched dogs walk by outside.  But before I move on to more interesting parts of the day I need to leave you with a mental picture of my breakfast, the Sunrise Benedict; two poached eggs over potato pancakes and roasted red peppers covered in hollandaise sauce.

Mmmmmm.....

After rolling ourselves down the stairs, across the street and into the car, Corey and I headed out to the farmer's market.

Where we bought two tomato plants.

For two people who don't eat tomatoes.

??

Yeah, we'll figure that part out later.  But right now we have two cute little green stalks with a couple 'a leaves sticking out and the promise of "jet star" sweet, less acidic tomatoes in 60-72 days.

We may or may not have spent several minutes, several times Saturday and Sunday just watching our little plant grow.  And I cannot guarantee we will not pick several teeny green pre-tomatoes out of excitement for having actually grown something edible.

We're city kids.

The rest of our afternoon (because it was afternoon by the time we were done running all around doing things you are not interested in) was less than exciting.  Corey browsed the latest in horse racing news.  I took a nap.

And then it was Father's Day...Yay!

Now, my sisters and I love our daddy, and we would have loved to take him to our favorite special occasion breakfast spot, but no amount of love was gettin' us in in under an hour and a half.  Everyone was there...eating our omelettes and apple cider donuts with their brothers, mothers, neighbors, aunties, friends, dogs, rabbits, owls, and office furniture.

So then we tried option two: our favorite every-other-day eatin' spot.  Packed to the gills. 

By the third try, your gramma's favorite diner because it's open when she wants it at 4am, we found a table in under 15 minutes.

I had the corned beef hash with eggs and potatoes...

Mmmmmm.....

We had ourselves a good little time, loved on our daddy, then it was on to the rest of the day.

In other words: laundry and a dog walk.

I also had to file my very first New York State sales tax form which was exciting and terrifying, but that's another story for another day...a day  in which I can find a way to make taxes less than the most boring subject ev-er.

And that's all the news that's fit to print.

Bye now.

But on a lighter note...

Yesterday I went out to lunch with my dad.

me: "The specials look good.  What are you gonna to have?"

dad: "I don't know.  That was a pretty sexy egg salad she was putting together over there..."

Big dreams in Israel

My dad is a dreamer.

He has big ideas:

"Next year we'll get the Entire Family to go on a cruise!!"

"Why don't we get all the area youth groups together to put on a show?!"

We all smile and nod, then hope and pray he isn't actually serious.

Do you know how sick I am capable of getting just by sitting on a wobbly chair?

And 50 teenagers working together on anything??  Excuse me while I grab my paper bag.

...

Last week he came out with this one:

"I'm going to Israel this year."

But with this I was a tad less overwhelmed.  It's doable.  Expensive, but not black market kidney expensive.  And after sitting through a long and thorough presentation of why the trip is worthwhile (my dad couldn't go so I went and collected information in his place) I'm pretty convinced not only that I need to go, but that I need to go...right now.

So, besides being in the exact place where Jesus walked, and taught, and did some awesome, awesome, awesome things (which alone gives me chills, folks), the country itself looks pretty spectacular.  You've got all kinds of major bodies of water, a variety of climate options, historic ruins, and a pretty vibrant culture.

Yes, I like that...and that too!....oh yes, definitely!!....you betcha!!!....ohmigosh, must go now!!!.....

I was sold on this trip early on.  You say "water" and "ruins" and I'm yours forever.  But not everyone was so eager.  There were a few safety concerns.  What about all this fighting you see on the news?

Actually, there are about 3.5 million visitors each year who come and go and live to tell about it.  The security there is top notch and it's not bad in all parts of the country.  However, there are still countries out there that hate the junk outta Israel:

"Israel is safer than the United States...but is there still a risk?  Yes.  Is there the threat of annihilation?  Yes."

Um, 'scuse me?

This statement may be what led me to have this dream last night:

I was getting ready to start my trip to Israel with a bunch of kids my age.  And my age being around 16.  (mother, don't make me take your commenting privileges away again.)  So here we all are waiting in this room full of maps with constellations and a flight attendant is telling us what we're getting ourselves into.

She basically said this ain't no trip to the Caribbean.  We were there on a mission.  I guess a mission to save Israel.  And then if we had time afterward we could go sightseeing.

This is when I said, "no thanks, I just peed myself," but was talked into it by my dad (also 16).  So off we go into the space shuttle.  The plan was to take this "plane" up into orbit so we could fool the Russians and then come back down and launch a full on attack in the air.  Then we would safely land and start our vacation.

It.  Was.  Terrifying.

Which is why I may be postponing my trip this year.

I Repeat: No. News.

"Hey Stace, do you want to grab some lunch in about half-an-hour?"

"Sorry, daddy.  I can't.  I actually just got to the office."

"Oh, why?"

"I had a doctor's appointment."

"....oh, really?"

"Yeah."

"Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"...no?"

"No nausea....?"

"Ugh, daddy!  It was just a check up!"

They Might Not Actually Be Giants

Sunday was football Sunday. 

A football Sunday with friends and family.

A football Sunday full of snacks.

A football Sunday I, for once, didn't grumble because, as I mentioned Monday, I was in the action, 20 rows from the field, cheering on my team with wild abandon.

I've always wanted to describe my actions in this way.  And Lord know I act "with wild abandon" often enough....but that's neither here nor there.

After a mild (lightly put) Corey situation in the morning, I was on my way to Giants' Stadium with Kimberlie, my dad, our friend Wayne, a urinary tract infection, several pounds of deli meats, and cookies.  The essentials.  We only needed one pit stop on our two-and-a-half hour drive to New Jersey for potty break and corn dogs (this is not code...we really did need corn dogs) before arriving in a nearly full parking lot outside the stadium.

"Um, excuse me, could you pull your truck up?  You're taking up two spots."

"No can do.  See, we hafta put this in there and boobity-doo-doo and other such ramblings so we actually need both spots."

Wayne, shouting across three of us, through the window "You're being ruuuuuuude!"

Finally, after driving up and down aisle after aisle we found a spot taken by only a frat-party pole game.  This time Wayne decides to do the askin':

"Hey.  You need to...."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll just move this."

"Uh, thanks."

And there we had our parking space.  Along a fence giving us about five feet beyond the car to spread out with a set of port-a-potties well within range.

"This is great!  Now let's unpack our deli meats!"

"And let's be sure to position ourselves close enough to the guys grilling 2lb burgers so that we can trick our taste buds into thinking our turkey subs with mayo are actually hamburgers."

I think I mentioned the ridicule in my tailgate meal selection on Monday.  It was brutal.

"Thank goodness we have these organic chips!!"

The one thing I didn't screw up:  the cookies.  We snuck them into the stadium under my sister's jacket.  They helped to nurse our wounds as we watched our team's constant defensive failures.

But would ya just look at that stadium...

It is breathtaking.  And awesome.  It feels like you are surrounded with walls made of people, which is a little weird, but cool.  There are four big-as-my-house TV screens that alternate between the game, replays and abrupt motivational sayings: "Get Up, Get Loud."  That's about as to the point as one can be.

My sister loved it...

My dad reeeeally loved it....

And then this happened...

The lights went out.  All of 'em.  And this is what we saw.

This is what we heard:

"OOOOOoooooYEEEeeeeaaaaaWOOOooooooAHHHhhhhh!!!" times eighty-thousand.

Then we saw this:

These are cell phones.  The dummies were trying to take pictures of the pitch black.  Puh-leez.

(I couldn't get mine out in time)

Do you believe me when I saw all the lights went out?  Because it sounds ridiculous, but fo real.  Eventually the emergency lights came on and we were told to stay in our seats and wait for evacuation instructions.  So we waited.  Then more lights came on.  We waited some more.  The refs decided there was enough light to play so they started the game back up.  Then we heard an announcement to stay in our seats and wait for evacuation instructions. 

"Uh, does he not know the lights and the game are back on??"

We eventually did evacuate, though.  A whole lot of us just got up and left when we realized our team stunk.  My group walked back to our car and drove off into the night.

But this time we skipped the corn dogs.

Garage Sale Day: Debrief

Saturday was the most wonderful day of the year.  Besides Christmas.  And Thanksgiving.  And each day I get to buy new shoes.

It was GARAGE SALE DAY!!!

Again, this was the World's.  Largest.  Garage.  Sale.

As in, it don't get much bigger than this.

As in, you'll find all the junk your heart desires.

As in, bring your walking shoes, wallet, granny cart and patience.

...

Friday night I stayed at my parents' house; we planned to leave for the sale early the next morning.  Kimberlie and I blew up the air mattress, settled in with our favorite sleepy-time movie, The Mummy, and fell asleep.

But not before her darling puppy peed all over the kitchen floor sending Kimberlie downstairs to the laundry room for "dog towels" (which are just crappy towels they no longer use) to find the basement flooding.  So while she cleaned and disinfected the kitchen, my mom and I rotated from the wet ground to the washing machine's spin cycle the rest of the dog towels until we cleaned everything up.

I then went to sleep and woke up at 6am.

But not before I had to leave the air mattress because I am now too old to sleep a mere 5 inches from the cold hard ground to sleep on the couch, waking Kimberlie's dog every 15 minutes to stop her from snoring.

It was a great start.

But nothing was going to stand in my way of junk shopping my little heart out.  Not lack of sleep, not cold, harsh winds, not even Mother Nature's poorly timed surprise.

And with that resolve, we headed out.

However, some of us were a little less resolved than others.  Some of us are also not morning....creatures.

This is the gang before commencing, minus my dad who is taking the picture.  Kimberlie is on the right and my mom is in the middle.  Notice: the dog is wearing a pink hoodie.  And, yes.  She is matching my sister.

See my granny cart?  You'll see in a second just how useful the sucker was.  What you won't see are the hundreds of other granny carts, carted by non-grannies.  I can't properly express the feeling I had pulling it behind me, a feeling of camaraderie between me and my fellow Warrensburg Garage Salers as we braced ourselves for a full day of wading through treasures, watching novices, counseling them in the ways of weight distribution.  It was evident, by that cart, I knew what I was doing. 

And then I knocked over four people on my way to get dried Chinese lanterns.

We start so early in the morning because by noon the town looks like this.  Tens of thousands of people, literally, pack into what is really a small stretch of Warrensburg.  It gets annoying.  Especially when one of those ten thousand buys the glass pitcher and bowl I knew would look so perfect on my antique dresser. 

The food is a great part of this who shebang.  It's the same fried crap you get at county fairs and at a time of the year when you and your lower GI are just starting to miss it.  We got chicken quesadillas here.  At 10am.  Donuts came next.  Then sausage and peppers.

Eventually, we did need rest breaks. 

And we took them wherever there was enough space to park our tooshes.  See my cart?  It's full of goodies, jackets, water bottles, an empty tin can, hopes, and dreams.  See the lady petting the dog?  This happened all. stinkin'. day.

Hehe.  I am in so much trouble for posting this.  I consider it payback for her little monster keeping me up all night and literally trying to eat my hair.  But because I am afraid of my youngest sister, I am not going to tell her I "featured" her here.  Let's just keep this between you and me.

There is an equally hilarious picture of me floating around out there, but I conveniently can't find it.

...

So after 7.5 hours of walking up and down the main street in the small town of Warrensburg, stopping at almost every stand, completely filling up my cart, this is what I ended up with:

An old tobacco tin, a horse hankie, five green buttons, one antique button and a gold flowery thing. 

You probably had the same reaction as I did:

That's it?!

...

See you next year best garage sale ever.

Warm Slice of Humble Pie

What could this bendy-loop-di-loop on a bed of last year's Christmas tree droppings possibly be?

...

A muffler.

From this prized, 1995 GMC Rust Mobile.

She now purrs like a 'Vette.

And shakes like me on Starbucks.

Just ask her proud owner.

My poor dad.

This van has taken my family across the country more than half a dozen times.  We have a lot of great memories from those trips.  But now that the seats are ripped, the cup holders are crusted over with coffee and melted candy, the windows don't roll up or down, you can stick a few fingers through the rust-eaten hole in the gas tank door (not to mention the rust that is consuming the entire van from the bottom up) and the muffler is sitting in the back seat, it might be time to trade the sucker in.

But I'm not holding my breath.

There's my grandpa's mint condition 1987 Cadillac sitting in the driveway just waiting to be put back on the road.  So what if the heat doesn't work and this part of New York sees temps in the negatives for most of February.  It's a classic, people.  And it's my dad's back up car when his van gets a little finicky.

Warning: Spell Check Does Not Know What You Were Trying To Say

I love my dad, but sometimes I do wonder...

I received this email yesterday:

"OMG...... I need to be sure I check my spell check suggestions before I send out an email"

That he uses "OMG" is material for another post.

No more Jersey Shore for that man.

He apparently sent out an email to his co-workers that makes a very accidental, yet forward suggestion:

"I'll give Tom a genital nudge to direct him to me for all contract matters..."


Oh daddy.  How'd that nudge work out for ya?

Always a Bridesmaid...

My friend Liz got married on Saturday in Albany.  My sister, Kimberlie, and I were bridesmaids.

That's my dad in the middle.  He didn't marry them, he just preached a little message.

It's practice for when he becomes a pastor.

Did I mention he's going to pastor school soon?

But I digress.

We had a good time until a certain bride who shall remain nameless put her Miss Snippy pants on.

But then we continued to have a good time because the above mentioned bride is the nicest person I know and just happens to get stressed out when a certain groom who shall also remain nameless plays jokes and takes his time getting ready on one of the more important days of their lives.

Isn't my daddy handsome?

Moving on.

There we are.  Kimberlie was the Maid of Honor, Julia (groom's daughter) was a junior bridesmaid, Hilary came all the way from Alaska, and then there's me and my long neck.

Yes.  That is what this post is going to be about.

Freakish, right?

Maybe I should stop wearing my neck rings at night, eh?

This has gotten out of hand.  Back to the wedding.

No, Liz's wedding.

There we go.

Ah, yes.  The dancing.

Oh boy was the dancing fun.  So much rhythm in the room, so little rhythm in my feet.  But after four toasts I was just like Beyonce out there.

However, after four toasts Corey was still Corey.

"I can't go out there...I'll look like an IDIOT!"

He was a good sport, though.  He tucked his bottom lip under his top teeth and rocked the best of the 80's dance moves.  All while making sure those within earshot knew:

"I'm an Irish-American!"

I'm not sure what that means.  Potato farmers can't get jiggy wit it?

Do people still say that?

This guy put us all to shame.  When a dood's Vans match his outfit you know he's got something up his sleeve. 

"Some people are just born with it.  Look at that kid.  He's doing actual MOVES!"

Later on he made friends with another little boy sporting a sweaty white undershirt and Alfalfa cowlick.  A dance-off ensued.  It was a-dor-a-ble.  And I would be lying if I said I wasn't a tad jealous of their skeelz.

The party ended when we were all kicked out.

My ears rang for two days.

And my voice was cracking even yesterday.

Good times.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Correction:  I might have implied yesterday that my parents were neglectful of my brain development by not reading to me.  Ever.  Apparently, being the first child and not having other brats to attend to, they read to me.  A lot.  While I sat on the potty waiting for my pee pees.

After posting yesterday, I received this email:

"What do you mean you don’t remember being read too???? We were always reading to you…how do you think you got potty trained...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm???????????? Don’t you remember Are you my Mother????? And all the other Dr. Seuss books? You better get your little self right back on that blog and tell those 4 other followers just how often we read to you missy!!!

Love mom.

See, she exaggerates too.  Notice the excessive punctuation.  And maybe she underestimates the popularity of my quaint little blog.  But probably not.  At least she still loves me. 
 
Then my dad:
 
"She is in trouble!!!! She was read to all the time that I can remember......"


I told them I would post a correction today.  He said:
 
"Lets leave out the potty training thing tho."
 
Sorry daddy, I thought it was cute.  I guess I'm back to being a bad daughter again!

My idea

I ran a 5k.  All 5k of it.  So did my dad, and so did my sister.

It is important to note here that we are not runners.  We're just a couple-a lunatics who said, "hey, let's do more running than we've done ever/in a long, long time next month in the freezing cold."

Actually that was what one lunatic said (me).  Then the other two lunatics said, "Yeah!  Free t-shirts!!"

Wait, that was me too.  But they were just as enthusiastic about the idea.*

Notice I said idea.  Because when the day finally came I swear I've never seen my dad so grumpy.   And Katie was so nervous she practically peed her pants.  Three times.

But there was no turning back.  We were assigned numbers.  And t-shirts.  If we wimped out they would write our names in a book of pansies...in ink.  That is a permanent designation, my friends.

Are you laughing yet?

Is it because you know that 5k is really just 3.2 miles?  And that 3.2 miles really isn't that far?

I would have laughed at this too if my heart wasn't beating in my throat.

So off we went, reluctantly, to the race site.  We watched how others pinned their numbers to their Under Armour running jackets, then pinned ours to our Hanes sweatshirts.

We watched them attach the time tracking chip to their performance enhancing Nikes while we put ours on our Reebok cross trainers.

They warmed up and stretched.  We wondered when we could have a slice of pizza.

"That lady over there is going to beat us."

"Why?"

"She's wearing Spandex."

"But she's 70 years old..."


"I think we can beat that couple over there."

"The guy with his gut pokin' out from under his sweatshirt?  Definitely."

And so the conversations went until we lined up at the starting line.

"5 minute mile-ers up front!"

"Maybe we should go to the very back."

And then the race began.

It.  Was.  Awesome.

Crowds of people lined the streets cheering, blowing whistles and ringing cow bells. 

We ran up hills, we ran down hills, we even ran by people in their spandex pants and expensive runner's gear.

I won't say we made magic on that night, but we did beat our goal (45 minutes) by 7 minutes.  My dad made even better time.

How's that?

He ditched us.

"I got caught up in the crowd!" he says.

"I looked for you, but there were too many people!" he claims.

Right, daddy.  Right.


*It was recently brought to my attention that my dad, in fact, was not looking forward to this race at any time.  I was also informed of his inability to say "no."  Something I wish I had known earlier...

Something you should know

Here's my dad:

People say we look alike.  And that's cool, he's pretty handsome. 

I say "pretty" because he's my dad, and anything more than moderate is gross.

But then there's these days:

When I do not claim his as mine.

That was Halloween.  Pret-ty convincing.

Don't worry Ma, you'll have your day on the blog very soon.

Mensa membership down by three

I surround myself with intelligent people.  Why?  Because us smarties gotsta stick together. 

I have a sister who constantly surprises me with her insight:

"I'm left-handed in the mirror, too!"

"I didn't know you could put wet clothes in the washer..."

and

"Pigeons can fly here (NYC)! I thought they all adapted to be like humans and walked around on the ground."

Brilliant.  But wrong.

Then there's my dad.  The same dad who says "arrears" and prays for naked people....not in that way.  He also provides me with gems like:

"Does that sign say Krispy Kreme?!....Oh, no. Western Wear."

And finally, Corey.  The man I did not marry for his mechanical abilities or knowledge of human anatomy.

Me: "Boy did I have to pee!"

Corey: "So you emptied your uterus?"

See?  Smart.

The First Man in my Life

My daddy.  And that's what I call him, daddy. 

We had our favorite songs, breakfast dates, and inside jokes.  He fixed owies and boo-boos and held me in his arms while I cried.  We had the kind of bond only a father and daughter can enjoy.

And yet he managed to just give me away like a sack of moldy potatoes.

Not one single tear.

In-credible.

In fact, I think I noticed a dreamy, far away gaze as we walked down the aisle.  Picking out the new wall color for my old room, daddy?  Mentally planning your man cave?

Really...so soon?

Ok, so I was kind of a drain on your resources for the past 27 years, but you know what, hot shot?  You ain't so perfect either:

You are bald.  You have no hair on your head.

And your car is old.

You say things like "the rears" instead of "arrears," and "disingenuous" when I really don't think you know what it means.  Let's not forget your prayer to "feed the naked."

When you played Barbies with us you used your regular voice and not your Ken voice.

You made math homework harder than it already was.

You let us think you liked getting ties and socks three times a year.  Every year.

Maggie.  Need I say more?  (Yes, I do.  Maggie is the loud, conniving, crabby bassett hound my dad convinced us would be perfect for our family)

Give me a day to load a certain video onto Youtube and the world (aka my four loyal followers) can witness your singing abilities.

You think you gave me away?  I was already gone...the Ken voice was the deal breaker.

PS. Are we still on for racquetball next Wednesday?