another fucking robbery

What is it with me and robberies? I stopped for gas on the way home tonight and some prick with a gun came in and robbed the place. Luckily everything is fine and all he did was take the money from the register and run, but damn.

About 10 years ago I was robbed at a restaurant where I worked and that was a far more involved ordeal. That incident included having a gun held to my head and then being locked in a cooler. I have to say that was the greatest feeling of relief when that cooler door shut with me and my co worker safely inside. She started crying and freaking out at that point and I told her I felt pretty damn great knowing that we were safe, not raped or beaten and most importantly alive!

For months after that experience I had problems sleeping. I would go to sleep fine and wake up screaming from the most horrible nightmares. I couldn't watch any scary or violent movies and I found myself re-reading books that I loved as a child. They were comforting and safe.

The worst part of going through an experience like that is that it takes your trust in your fellow man away. You start to look at everyone around you in a different light and it really makes you feel small and lonely.

Anyway, as time passed the memories and scared feelings faded and I became my trusting self again...and it felt good, normal. Then just when you least expect it, you are confronted with another gun. In that split second I was back at the last robbery, I had that same sick surreal feeling. There was someone in that room with a weapon and I had to wonder if this was it...is he going to go nuts and shoot everyone in the store or just go quickly into the night, luckily it was the latter.

Like I said before, this was nothing like the first time I was robbed but it opened up a bunch of feelings that I had successfully buried. Now I begin the long process of trying to trust again...and to think, all this happened because I had to go in for a fucking diet coke...damn!

I'm looking down Shrek!

What do you do if someone has told you something in confidence and you know they are making a bad decision? This is my dilemma.

My cousin told me that she has a 3 centimeter growth on her thyroid and she wants to wait until later in the summer to have it removed. She is going to Africa in July for three weeks and is afraid her recovery time will get in the way of her trip.

Is she fucking crazy? Is she just puting her fingers in her ears and saying "I don't hear you..la la la"?

She swore me to secrecy and will not hear any of my pleas..of course the main one being that if it is cancer GET IT THE FUCK OUT NOW!!! Don't give it time to let one single cell spread.

Do I "out her" with the family and get a posse behind me to hog-tie her and force her to get it done, or do I respect her wishes and sit by and hope for the best.

Damn.

a full range of emotions...

I am feeling so strange tonight. Everything started off okay. Had a really nice night at work, low stress. I even got out before midnight which is great in itself. I was all excited to get home and have a nice relaxing evening catching up on all my DVR'D episodes of Cheers...I love that show.

My first mistake was to immediately open my mail. All bills of course, but one just sent me over the edge. I received yet another gift from my bout with tendonitis...another hospital bill for my 20 minute surgery. I am not kidding, my doctor was in and out in 20 minutes. From the time that I checked in for out patient surgery till I was in the car home was about an hour and a half. You may ask why I am obsessing about the time factor. The reason is that including my latest bill, this 90 minutes of time has cost me $2200 bucks. I just can't believe that one measly cut and two shitty stitches can cost that much. They could have at least given me a manicure and a set of breast implants for that kind of money.

Oh well, movin' on. After I finished fuming about the state of our healthcare system I was ready to hunker down and fall into sitcoms. Instead I decided to watch a little Oprah because she was having a cast reunion from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was great to see all the old clips from the show and see the cast, especially Cloris Leachman...I love her and she still looks great.

All of a sudden it brought me back to the 70's and I became melancholy thinking about how the world has changed since then. I started thinking about how I felt about the world back then and how I feel about it now and I got really sad. I have become so cynical about life and our society. I know I was a kid back then and that most people become more cynical as they grow up but I do miss those simpler times.

I miss the days before pagers and cell phones and voicemail and email and having to be accountable at every second. As Ellen Degeneres once said "when being on the phone meant you were literally tied to your avocado colored wall phone by the cord".

I miss the days when trick or treating was the best night of the year. My parents weren't the most creative with costumes, so usually it was an old flannel shirt and soot from the fireplace. I was a bum many years and it was okay...still scored tons of candy. We would dress up, kiss our parents goodbye, grab our pillowcases and head out as soon as the sun went down. Then you would have to come home and unload at least twice. Nowadays so many kids have to trick or treat at the mall. It's just not the same as those innocent days when you could trust your neighbors.

I miss the dinner bell. I grew up in the Catskill mountains and lived on the top of a hill. Everyday after school we had that precious couple of hours to run and explore and play with all our friends on the hill. Video games were on the horizon but not there yet. Besides, there was nothing better than sledding from the top of our backyard all the way down to the bottom of the hill. I have no idea how none of us ever broke a bone with the speeds we would go. Then we would make the long walk to the top where along the way Mrs. P would always have hot cocoa waiting for us. Then you would hear the dinner bell and haul ass home because you knew it was time to eat.

I miss my Dad. He was an amazing person and there is huge void in my life without him.

I miss my mother the way she was before the sadness of losing Dad. We get glimpses of her former self here and there but overall I think she is just going through the motions. The world holds little joy for her. We will keep working on her though, she still has a lotta life left and I see her being a great old grumpy broad. She justs needs more time.

I think I just miss the happy, relatively safe world I grew up in. The one before greed took over. The one before school shootings and violence everywhere. The one before reality tv and girls gone wild videos.

Thank you all for putting up with this verbal catharsis. Like I said, I am just feeling strange tonight. Next blog, I promise I will tell a joke.

they say it's my birthday da da da dada da da...

Well, I am officially 44 today. I remember when I was young...so long ago... when grown-ups would say how they came around quicker and quicker each year. They knew what of they spoke..damn.

Being another year older doesn't bother me at all. No, but what does bother me is the fact that this is about the 33rd birthday in a row that I have said these words "this is the last birthday I will be at fighting weight". Somehow another whole year has gone by and I have not lost a pound. Well, that is not exactly true, I have probably lost about 50 lbs here and there but have gained it all back pretty fast. One of my favorite quotes is when Carol Burnette said that she had gained and lost the same ten pounds so many times, that her cellulite has deja vu.

Okay, enough of the pity party. I joined Curves the other day and have a date with the WW's this weekend. Who knows? Maybe this could be the last year as the heavyweight champion. Maybe birthday 45 will finally bring a different goal to achieve.

I am going to focus all my energy on those positive thoughts and allow myself to enjoy this day for what it is....shopping, moms eggplant parm and a movie. Happy Birthday to me!

my question is this...

Why is there reality television, or should I say why is there soooo much realty tv? Seriously, are there that many people in the world that want to see other people eat buffalo scrotum? I have never understood the allure of seeing someone hurt themselves or others for profit or notoriety. I guess we can thank Survivor for getting the ball rolling, but then again "Candid Camera" was big in the 70's...very harmless however.

One night I was watching the tube with my friend the tapdancer. There was a show on with these two guys who challenged eachother to who could withstand the most pain and humiliation. Of course it was a set-up on the one guy and the other didn't actually do any of the stunts. We watched horrified till we finally turned it off. I could not believe there was actually a show about a guy who was going to shove a frozen foot long hot dog up his ass, but there is...and people watch it. I wonder what they served at that pitch meeting?

Oh well, every once and a while I have to get up on my soapbox and rant about what has happened to our society. Back in the day people got there 15 minutes of fame for doing good things, having something called talent. I miss those days!

a love letter to the goils..

As I said in my original post, I have been very lucky in this life to have the friends and family that I do. I met the tapdancer when I was 15 and Bea a few years later. They are lucky in that they live so close that they get to see each other every day but I am on a totally different schedule and live 35 minutes away. I see them as often as I can but find myself jealous of the Saturday drink-a-thons and Sunday breakfasts. It's my own fault because I chose this life of restaurants but I always wish I could spend more time with the crew.

Anyhoo...the love letter part of the post goes something like this...

About four years ago my father came down with his second case of Cancer. The first was in his kidney five years earlier. It was removed and after constant check ups he was given a clean bill of health. Then in January 2004 he complained of a pain in his back around his shoulder. It was then that they found a tumor the size of a lemon on top of his lung which was removed and we hoped for the best.

What followed was over a year of watching the dad I loved suffer with chemo and radiation treatments and most of all pain. The Cancer spread everywhere, especially to his hip so it was painful for him to even walk. I had moved home right before he was diagnosed to save money to buy a house. I know now I was meant to be there at that horrible time with my mother and I am so thankful I was. The only upside to a long illness is that you get to say everything you want to the person you love. I would get home from work at 2am and Dad would hear me and we would have great long chats and watch our favorite movies and I cherish those moments. He died the following April.

Now that you know the background let's get back to the girls. I don't know if I have ever officially thanked them for what they did for me during the darkest part of my life. I know I could not have survived it without them. When I was dealing with my family I always kept up this almost cheerleader attitude...everything is going to be fine, we are going to beat this etc. Inside I was so stressed that I found it hard to breath sometimes.

Then I would go to see the girls and they would "poke the bear" as we call it. I would say everything was okay, I just want to play, and they wouldn't let me. Ms. B would ask questions over and over..."How's it going" or "what's going on with the treatments" and keep poking me until I would burst out in tears and have a major catharsis, which of course was exactly what I needed. I remember her telling me that she felt totally helpless, that this was the only thing she could do was to be there for me while I was a basketcase. Both she and Bea let me cry on their shoulders so many times. They were the only two people I could say those terrible words to..."my Dad is dying".

I am sorry for the very long depressing post, but I just had to let the girls know that their collective shoulders were the greatest gift I have ever been given and just how much I love and adore them.

okay..the bunny stops here

Let me start with a warning about narcotics...they make you an idiot! I would also like to share a special thought about my best friend the tapdancer..."you can't keep a secret for shit"!! That being said, here comes a VERY Vicodin induced story.

I am definately in a different time zone than my friends. I get out of work between 1 to 3am so I don't usually hit the bed until about 4am. Late night is my tv time and I am looking into a 12 step program to get off home shopping channel.

Anyway, one night a few months ago, pre-narcotics for the tendonitis, I was doing my usual channel surfing. As I was flipping from one station to the next I stumbled upon a shopping channel that was selling adult toys. I was sober at this point and being raised Catholic I was shocked at what I saw and immediately changed the channel and hoped I would not go straight to Hell for the few seconds of what I did see.

Some weeks later, I had been out with the girls drinking some adult beverages and still had a bit of a buzz when I got home and turned on the television and that damn show was on again. That slight little buzz I had was enough to keep my Catholic guilt at bay long enough to watch the show. I was curious to see how these two women who were selling these things could talk about them with such a straight face. They were holding each item up and going over all the features like they were talking about cuisinarts.

Next time I went over to hang out with Corudja and Bea, I told them all about the show and how freaked out I was that they could show that kind of stuff on regular tv..granted it is at 3am. We had a big laugh about the fact that they did have it in a home shopping format and that is probably the only way I could ever be lured by that sort of thing..my middle name is 3 easy payments.

Now we cut to the present. I had to take the weekend off from work because the pain in my wrist had become unbearable without the help of some drugs. So here I am at home, in a serious vicodin haze, flipping through channels when the show of shows comes on again. As I said before, with a slight buzz I was able to watch the show...with the shit that I was on that night I found myself on the phone with a nice woman saying things like "Yes Theresa, tell me about the 8" vibrating dong" and "is that the jackrabbit that was on Sex and the City"? My Catholic guilt was nowhere to be found at this point. It did come back in the morning when I woke up and thought "WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO"?

I have always operated with a strict no sex toy rule because I am convinced as soon as I have one in my house I will die and my mother will find it!!

So TAPDANCER FROM HELL, there is your story and when it does get delivered, if I should die, it will be in the bottom right hand dresser drawer wrapped in my Betty Boop jammies...you know what to do!!!

The jewels call me

I work nights in my full time career as a restaurant manager. I have been in the same line of work basically since I was 17. It's in my blood and I have had a great time doing it but I am getting older and standing 10 hours a day can take a toll on the joints. The best part of my job is that it is always changing with new staff and customers and there are always new challenges to tackle with each shift.

All that aside, once I turned 40 I started to realize that as much as I love what I do, I don't think I want to be standing 10 hours a day when I am in my 60's. I think that by the time I hit my next decade I would like to be in a different chapter workwise..which brings me to jewelry.

A few years back one of my best friends in the world, Bea, took a jewelry class. She was having such a great time doing it that it became infectious and my other best buddy..I shall call her Carudja, Queen of the Pig Gypsies just for old times sake got hooked as well. So now it was my turn to drink the KoolAid and try beading. I fell in love and have not stopped. It is just the creative outlet I needed. I can't thank Bea enough for taking that class and introducing me to something that has given me such joy!!

Unfortunately I have had tendonitis in my right hand for two months now, but no worries because I go under the knife for a simple procedure tomorrow and will hopefully be good as new and healed up in about 10 days. Once that happens, there will be no stopping me and hopefully jewelry making will be a part of my future for a long time to come.

and so it begins...

I have two very well spoken and creative friends who have been blogging for a while. They always tell me that I should get in on the game but something always stops me..insert rationalization of choice here. But sitting here tonight in a Valium haze, I figured "Why not"? I also wondered why I saw the Care Bears walking by but that is another story.

I am soon to be 44 and have yet again not acheived the same goals that I set for myself every year. You know the ones that start with..by my next birthday I will lose weight, get out of debt, get laid, etc. Anyway, they never seem to happen because of one thing or another.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining ( well maybe a little). I am a very lucky person. I come from a very close, very functional family. I have great friends who I have known since Jesus was in second grade, and fabulous nieces and nephews who adore me because I encourage fart jokes and ask them to worship Mel Brooks as a god.

I sit reading my friends blogs and realize that it really is a great way to connect with other people and talk about all types of stuff, both funny and sometimes painful. I think that is the reason why I finally decided to start my own page, because maybe if I talk about goals, I might actually achieve some.

By the way, if I do say something that you feel would qualify as a rationalization, feel free to throw the Bullshit flag!!!