A Charmed Life

Wistful Wednesday

I just realized that it's Wednesday night and I never posted my Weird Question of the Week.  Sorry, I guess when your whole life is getting stranger by the minute, it's hard to single just one thing out.  I'm sure things will be back to abnormal soon ;)

OK, here's weird for you, I was so tired this evening that when I poured myself a small bowl of Rice Krispies, I actually bent my head down and listened to them talking to me.  (They were the ones who told me I forgot to post, so I'm glad they at least made themselves useful.)  It got me thinking about the first time I ever had Rice Krispies.  I remember I was too nervous to eat...

Picture it:  a chilly spring morning in northern New Jersey.  My brother and I were at the breakfast table at our Aunt Julie and Uncle Rocky's house.  Yes, I had an uncle Rocky.  I'm Italian and from New Jersey, it's practically a requirement.  I don't remember if we'd stayed there overnight, because all I can picture clearly is the breakfast table.  I remember the box of Rice Krispies on the table and thinking how cool it was that we could have something other than the corn flakes we ate every. single. day.  I never finished my bowlful, though, because I was anxious and waiting for the phone to ring- for Dad to call and tell us about our new baby brother.

I was only four and a half, but I was a smart cookie even back then, because I never wanted a little sister to compete with, I wanted another little brother to boss around instead. I also wanted to name him "Sammy", after Sammy the Snake. The one from Sesame Street, not like a Wise Guy or anything!  Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and my parents named him after Robert Frost, or Robert Kennedy, depending on which one of them you were asking.  I still think that in a place like Jersey, he would have gone farther with a name like "Sammy the Snake".

We never spent much time with Uncle Rocky and Aunt Julie, or any of my mom's relatives for that matter.  Old family feud- more bad blood than the Ebola virus.  But it's weird how much you can recall, when the memories are special to you. I still think about their cat, Jingles, and about the lion Uncle Rocky swore lived in their basement (he was simply trying to keep us from breaking our little necks tumbling down his basement stairs).  I can still picture the exact blonde bouffant coif Aunt Julie always kept her hair in, and how Uncle Rocky had green eyes like my grandfather and was the only lefty in the entire family except me...and my new baby brother.

It's been over a dozen years since I've even seen them, and that would have been at my great-grandma's funeral. (As in, the one that took place thirteen years to the day before my mother's.  See, I knew I could sneak some more weird in here.)  I don't even know for sure that they're both still around.  Maybe I need to pour myself another bowl, and ask.

The Journey Of A Thousand Miles...

...begins with a whole lot of bubble wrap.  I'll get to that in a minute.

If anyone had ever told me I'd blow my diet by eating half a pan of freshly-made Rice Krispy treats in one evening...I'd say, "Yeah, that sounds like something I would do".

If anyone had ever told me that I would have an earring fall out of my ear and into my cleavage while I was dipping my hand into the font of holy water at church...I'd think, "Yeah, that sounds like something that would happen to me". (I should add...I don't wear revealing clothes to church.  Heck, I don't even wear makeup to church.  But anything that doesn't come all the way up to my neck is a potential fallout shelter for  small objects such as earrings, pendants and the odd Rice Krispy.  DNA strikes again.)

If anyone had ever told me that one day I'd have a lovely conversation with my father's ex-wife and thank her profusely for calling...I'd have thought, "Well, that's something only I would ever be lucky enough to pull off".

But if anyone had ever told me that I was in church to pray for help because I was freaking out from dealing with my very fragile father who is moving overseas, worrying about the expensive plane tickets I bought to drag my toddler there so I could pack up the house he is no longer sure he wishes to sell, feeling awful about the cat it turns out he thought I was planning on adopting, and only finding out about it from the woman my mother stole him from in the first place, all while secretly hoping that the answer God was giving me to my PMS-fueled, frantic prayers was to prepare and consume a flat of Krispy treats before tackling the next round of packing...I'd have thought, "Girl, are you f*cking crazy?  Oh yeah, you are.  As you were, then".

Uhh...yeah.  Packing.  There's no easy way to say this, so if you know me IRL and you haven't heard the rumors...we're moving.  We haven't gotten around to telling more than one or two of our friends yet, because we were waiting for final confirmation from Dave's work (actually, the final FINAL confirmation isn't in yet, technically), but in the meantime we've been packing and storing and fixing and dumping and flipping out per a realtor's advice.  Well, everything but the freaking, that is.  She won't tell us to do that until she actually sees the house after next weekend.  After one look at the huge to-do list and the very non-Aztec white walls, she'll probably join me in a nice Xanax smoothie.  If I'm still willing to share at that point, and if I haven't packed the blender, yet.

We love our friends here, and we love our home.  After all, it's where we met, and where we brought our daughter home from the hospital.  It's just time for a different life for us, minus the smog and horrendous traffic, plus the family members we'll actually get to live near, if this house manages to sell before that vein in the middle of my forehead explodes.  Our thousand-mile journey will actually be 1061.87 miles, give or take a few feet, if I can have my dream of buying a house close enough to my SIL's so that we can tunnel in between our respective walk-in closets and share clothes.  I'm so looking forward to being with my nieces all the time, instead of just on special occasions.  And Seph will get to see her beloved "Unca Stee", Dave's only brother.  My own middle brother will settle nearby eventually.  It's a big change...I spent almost my entire life growing up in New Jersey, and my whole adult life in San Diego...but I want my girl to grow up with the family I never had.  And after all, home is where you hang your hat, right?  I just never thought it would be a cowboy hat...

Oh yes, I almost forgot...home-to-be is the Front Range of Colorado, near Boulder.  I don't ski, because I have a healthy fear of trees.  But, I do breathe on a fairly regular basis, and my poor little bronchitis-prone lungs always feel wonderful in the fresh mountain air.  I've never in my life lived inland, far from any beach, and I'll miss it terribly...but I'm hoping that the drastic drop in our expenses will make for some pretty awesome beach-type vacations. 

I'm not torn about the move in the least.  I moved so many times growing up that packing is second-nature to me.  But this is the longest I've stayed anywhere, and I'm dreading saying goodbye to the friends that have become my family.  So much, that I've put it on this blog, first, so that anyone who gets ticked off at me can clearly see how much I love and miss them already.  I'm always afraid that my friends will forget all about me.  I have friends that I've known for many years, but I've usually been the one to get back in touch.  Not that I mind, but I sometimes wonder what would happen if I didn't send that first email or make that phone call.  Now, my family?  They're stuck with me.  (Sorry, L., I already know where you live, and where in your closet you keep that awesome purple suit I want to borrow.)

Wow, this is getting long.  I'll close by saying, I've been wonderfully blessed in this life with a great (if crazy) family and loyal, devoted friends.  I wish we could all be closer.  But I know I can't have my Rice Krispy treats and eat them, too. So let me just say that, if you're my friend and reading this, whether you're far away or about to be, you couldn't be closer to me than you already are.  You're right next to me in my heart, and I'll always be as close as my calling plan or frequent flier miles will take me. 

That being said...who wants to lend me their pickup truck?

Crying Uncle

OK, I really need to create a category called, "Even *I* couldn't make this sh*t up".  Except that pretty much would cover everything I'll be writing for the next several months. "Weird Wednesday" will just have to suffice.

So, my elderly, hard-of-hearing, widowed, Alzheimer's-suffering, English-as-a-fourth-language but mostly just terminally strange father is moving back to his native Sicily in a few weeks.  At least, he is if he gets on the plane.  And if he remembers he's moving.  He told someone today he's going for six months, but we're not sure if that's just because he didn't want her knowing his business, or if his original plan to stay there until he dies is somehow going to follow a six-month timeline.  If he does manage to get on the plane, he'll be staying with his very cool but nutty, can-talk-endlessly-because-she-apparently breathes-through-her-ears, younger sister, who lives outside Rome.  Zia S. is also my godmother, the most generous person I know, and also my only family member bustier and a better cook than I am.  (Ok, my middle brother is a pretty darn cook, too, but I'd said he barely fills out an A-cup.)  Together, their Weird Factor is staggering.  But wait, there's more.  They're both also in regular contact with a lady named J., who I was originally told was a friend of theirs, but who turns out to be my dad's second ex-wife.  Aha, the mystery of the $600 phone bill, solved!

But wait, it gets better.  As the eldest child and the only one without a "day job" (didn't you know, staying at home with a toddler requires only the time and ability to fill a sippy cup with milk and turn on "Sesame Street"?), I get to pack up his house and put it on the market.  Refer to paragraph # 2, "if he remembers he's moving".  Twenty-two hundred square feet of home, containing enough sentimental knickknacks to make me want to commit seppuku with a mortar and pestle, except that we always used the traditional wooden kind instead of marble, so I'd only have a few bumps on my noggin for my efforts.  ("How many lumps?  Ohh, three or four..") 

What's my lovely parting gift, for trekking cross-country with my toddler in tow?  I've always joked that when my wonderful but not very forward-thinking parents passed away, my share would be the phone bill.  Actually, my inheritance is almost as strange (and unique, LOL) as I am...a Greek amphora, salvaged from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, and smuggled into this country by my 21 year-old mother in a towel-padded Army duffel bag.  (This is why I can't complain too much about traveling back to Florida with Seph, because my mother, God rest her soul, managed the transAtlantic trip with a three year-old yours truly and my fifteen month-old brother, all while dragging that enormous duffel bag.)  If I can figure out how the heck to get it home, I will at least have a very cool resting place for my poor dog's ashes.  I'm sure that old duffel bag is still in the house somewhere, but after accidentally breaking the vase from Pompeii in seventh grade, I'm not taking any chances.

I'm stressed out and jittery and not sleeping well, and I could cry "uncle", except that as per usual I am counting my blessings on not actually having the strangest sibling in my father's family for a parent.  That honor has to go to one of my dad's oldest sibling, Uncle A. (or Zio N., as we called him). (I apologize if I am repeating myself with this story, as I am too sleepy and lazy to go through my archives, plus this one is a classic!)  Zio N. was a Roman Catholic priest in his younger days, and a chaplain during World War II.  Like all the rest of his siblings that fought in the war, he was captured with Rommel's troops in northern Africa.  What can I say, we Italians are lovers, not fighters.  He was released from his vows by the Pope and then moved from the west coast of Sicily, where he grew up, to St. Louis, Missouri, where he got married.  He later divorced his wife and moved back to his Sicilian hometown, where he subsequently met and married the Queen of the Froot Loops, otherwise known as Zia M., who had previously been a Roman Catholic nun.  To my knowledge, she had not been a prisoner of war, but we did always joke that she'd married our uncle because she'd never seen a man before. 

That really had to be the reason, because although Zio N. was a smart man and a good one, most men who wear coated electrical wire as a belt don't land any women, much less a virgin.  Oh my gawd, the truth of that and the accompanying mental image just hit me now, after all these years.  'Scuse me while I hurl.  Thenkyew.  He also drove a car that you could hear attempting to climb the hill to our house from half an hour away.  My brothers and I always said it ran on Coca-Cola. Zio N. himself ran on what he called "decotto", a decotion of the carob bean pods that he collected from the tree that grew near our family's houses.  We called it "disgusting", but it must have worked, because he lived to be 86 and was still an avid bicyclist till he died one day of a massive heart attack.  Oh, and at the time, he was attempting to divorce wife #2, but since he died before accomplishing that feat, she got everything.  She may have been a fruitcake, but either the wimple had kept her brain warm, or all the praying she did in the convent before meeting him did some good.

So, who's your strangest family member?  First person to come up with one stranger than mine wins...a vintage Army duffel bag.

Now I Ain't Sayin' She A Gold Digger...

Seph is a pretty fastidious person, as children go.  She especially hates it when her hands get dirty.  After  petting her beloved Burmese kitty, she'll immediately come over to me, whimpering for Mama to get the brown cat hair off her palms.  She routinely picks small crumbs off the carpet and helpfully hands them to me to dispose of, so when she held out to me something that looked like a green sesame seed, I automatically accepted it.

I think I've reached some sort of Mommy milestone.  It wasn't a seed. It was a booger.

Oh, you think that's funny, do you?  It's snot.

It's A Thin Line...

It has been a long, rough week here at Casa Charmed.  Seph saved the day with her joy at turning two, and is cracking me up with her charming requests to take all of her meals in her beloved Red Radio Flyer Wagon.  It took some of the sting out of putting our dog to sleep and spending hours on the phone dealing with my somewhat senile but mostly just stubborn Sicilian father.  But I still feel like griping and blowing off some steam, which is why the meme I saw over at Julianna's looked so appealing.  But, it is Friday, and I'd like to pay forward a little happiness for the coming weekend.  So, instead of just Ten Things I Hate, I'm going to include Ten Things I Love.  Think of it as a karmic Tums.

Deb's Top and Bottom Ten:

Food: I can't stand liver.  I keep trying, because it smells good when it's cooking (all those yummy onions), but it still tastes like a bloody nose.

I love...chocolate.  Dark, dark chocolate.  And pastries.  Mmm, cannoli.  But only back home, they suck out here.  Oh and creme brulee.  But only if the top crackles nicely and the custard is cold and silky.

Fruit:  How can anyone hate fruit?  Although, I did once, and only once, eat a persimmon with the skin on.  If anyone is about to bite into one now while reading this, STOP.  It will cause hair to grow from your teeth to the inside of your cheeks.

I love pretty much every fruit I've ever tasted.  But I'll cast my "favorite" vote for pineapple eaten on Maui.  Those crafty Hawaiians keep the good stuff for themselves.  I don't begrudge it to them because they have to eat poi, too.

(I can't say I hate poi because I'm too smart to have ever let anyone serve it to me.  It looks like someone stuck a squid in a blender with a whole bunch of wallpaper paste, and from what I've heard, doesn't taste that much better.)

Household Chores:  Ironing gives me a backache.  Which would cost me more in chiropractor bills than a big spray bottle of Downy Wrinkle release, plus then I don't burn myself.

I love to cook, though.  And anyone who's ever sampled my cooking has never thought to criticize my wrinkled clothing ;)

Celebrity or People: I hate Brendan Fraser for never ringing my doorbell and begging me to make sweet, sweet love to him.   But I guess there's no accounting for taste.

I love...Brendan Fraser, for never ringing my doorbell and asking to make sweet, sweet love to my husband, thereby completely wrecking my rich fantasy life.

Event, Situation or Incident:  I once had a dentist (filling in for my regular one, no pun intended) bungle a root canal and then stick the Novocaine needle directly into the dying infected nerve he'd missed the first time around.  I think I screamed loudly  enough to knock everyone else's fillings loose.

My favorite event was of course the birth of my daughter.  Not only did I finally get to meet my beautiful little love, but I felt like a complete badass for having made it through natural childbirth ;)  Which hurt way less than that bungled root canal.

TV Shows or Movies:  The absolute worst movie of all time?  "Very Bad Things".  Don't even rent it as a gag.  It should have been called, "Very Bad Movie".

Love, love, love...Looney Tunes cartoons.  I do a great "Marvin Martian" impression, too ;)

Music: That's a tough one.  I listen to just about everything.  Wait, I've got it, I hate the music from educational baby toys.  They make perfect earworms.  Oh, you hate that, too?  What a small world...

I love...XM radio.  I probably change the station almost as often as I blink, just because I can.

About Shopping:  Stoopid mall closes at 9PM here!  Back in NJ when I actually had to work retail, it closed at 9:30 PM.  My child goes to bed at 9pm...when am I supposed to shop?  (The last time I was in a dressing room with a toddler, my SIL and I were taping together a broken diaper with Nordstrom stickers.  It made for a wonderful laugh but not very good retail therapy!)  Also, sales tax on clothing bites.

Love?  That I get to shop for size 8's now.  And cute baby girl clothes for Seph and my nieces.

About the World: I hate...that we're slowing destroying it with our greed and ignorance.  I love...that so many of us are trying to turn that around.

About Myself:  I hate...my big Roman nose.  Roamin' all over my face, is what it is.  However, I love the fact that I could probably smell a gas leak...in Alaska.

I hate...an empty email-box.  I love...comments on my posts!  I tag...everyone lucky enough to have the time to do a meme!  If you don't...pick one of the above, and tell me about it, and yourself =)

In closing, a very funny quote from the comedian Drew Carey:  "Oh, you hate your job?  Why didn't you say so?  There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar". 

Relax, it's still Friday.  Have a great weekend!

Eat, Eat, Have A Little Ganache

I always thought the whole "they grow up so fast!" was something experienced parents made up to tell new parents in order to get them to think that this whole parenting this was a piece of, well, cake.  I just gave birth the other day, how can my baby be two?  But she is, and here's the last of the ganache-covered cupcakes, shaking in its little muffin paper, to prove it.  (Don't eat the cupcake...pack it in Dave's lunch...but dark chocolate has antioxidants...)

I think the birthday girl had a pretty good day.  Her beloved Auntie J. came over and brought her a balloon, which she was so overjoyed to receive that said beloved auntie did not even get a hug "hello".  Auntie J. also brought her a Leapfrog Phonics Bus, which she insisted on bringing to lunch with us.  We went to a little Middle Eastern place and Seph had a great time "dupdupdup''ing (dipping) the pita bread in my hummus and feeding it to the three little leapfrogs. 

Auntie C. and Uncle A. came over for pizza and homemade cupcakes this evening.  Auntie C. is an amazing photographer and took over a hundred photos of the little party girl.  After the pizza, I brought out the (amazing) toy wagon my friends from NJ sent to her, festooned with more balloons (her favorite thing besides Filbert and dupdupdupping her food in anything semiliquid), and filled with her presents.  She went absolutely apesh*t when she saw the wagon, and when I put up the seat back to show her how she could sit in it, she immediately signed, "Please??" and hopped in.  She didn't leave that wagon for the rest of the evening and was tickled pink when I told her she could eat her cupcake in there instead of her highchair. 

I think she looks pretty blase' about the whole thing...birthdays are just such plebeian holidays, aren't they?

It's hard to keep a stoically bored expression when eating ganache, however:
And nobody can ever keep a straight face around my girl.  Happy birthday, my sweetest one.  You make me so proud and honored to be your mommy.

So, who wants to split that last cupcake with me?

Life's a B*tch and Then Your Dog Dies

I'm going to have to pass on Weird Wednesday this week while my sense of humor is on hiatus.  We had to put our nine year-old Corgi, Marty, to sleep last night, unexpectedly.  I will spare all of you the awful details and just tell you that he was an awesome dog and we miss him terribly.

Oh, and not to be overly dramatic, but yesterday was also Sephie's 2nd birthday.  We'll be celebrating tonight instead.  Had she been old enough to have known it was her birthday I would have sucked it up and put on a happy face but as it stands we were at the vet's office until half an hour before her bedtime.  So, happy pictures to come later in the week.

Hope everyone is having a better day than mine.

Mad Martigan "Marty" S.

You were a good boy.  I'll never stop missing you.

Now You Perseid, Now You Don't

::yawn:: We just got back from an amazing view of the Perseid meteor show in Anza Borrego State Park.  The stars are incredibly bright so far from the city, and it was so quiet that when I detected a mysterious loud noise of unknown origin, it turned out to be the carbonation from my open can of soda.

Seph woke up about five minutes after I put my feet up in my brand-new lounge chair, Dave was viciously attacked by a very territorial cactus, and some lucky coyote will be munching on a spilled pile  of sour cream-and-cheddar potato chips for breakfast.  I hear they're  a great accompaniment to roadrunner.

If you didn't get to see the meteor shower, fear not, I made plenty of wishes for everyone.  What, you don't believe in wishing on "falling stars"?  It worked for the coyote, didn't it?

I hope everyone had a blessed Sunday.

Smoothie Operator

I can't sleep. I've been cleaning out our (humongous) kitchen for the last three hours and packing donations up for Amvets.  I figure I should work while I have the energy and lack of little arms wrapped around my knees (adorable as that is, it's really hard to maneuver with a toddler surgically attached to one's legs), but it's currently 1:37 a.m.  I should be doing something really constructive, like dreaming that I'm in high school again taking an exam, and suddenly realizing I'm not wearing any clothes.

This is all my aunt's fault.  She's my dad's younger sister, and has convinced him that he should pick up and move to Italy and stay with her-permanently.  No, wait, this is the cops' fault, who didn't understand my dad when he tried to register a complaint with the police department, because Dad is mostly deaf, has Alzheimer's disease, and speaks English as a fourth language- so they Baker act-ed him and started the process of taking his driver's license away. (He drives just fine, honestly- his primary problem is his language skills.)  No, wait, I've got it- this is cancer's fault, because if my mom was still around, there wouldn't be this huge sticky situation where Dad is going to fail his driver's test on my daughter's birthday, which would confine him to his house so we're sending him to Italy instead of putting him in a home and I'll probably never see him alive again. Oh, but I have to fly out and pack up the house and sell it and try not to let my sentimental self go bananas in the process.  With a toddler wrapped around my knees the entire time, no doubt!

Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not asking for a solution, or help, or even sympathy.  I just want to know, for those of you with experience and a good blender, what kind of fruit would work best in a Xanax smoothie so I won't taste the meds? 

'Night, all!

Blessed From The Past

You know that feeling you get when you stick your hand into the pocket of a coat or purse that you haven't worn in awhile, and pull out an unexpected 20 bucks?  That sensation of surprise and happiness that just seems to come on a day when you're really needing something nice to happen?  That happened to me yesterday, except even better.

I've been doing a bunch of spring cleaning at my house (I'm a procrastinator, so sue me), and while recycling a bunch of old magazines I came across a small, leather-bound book with a church embossed on its cover.  I recognized it immediately as a blank journal that D., my best friend from college, had given to me before returning to her home in eastern Europe.  She'd given me a few over the years (I have sort of a fetish for nifty journals, and usually have a blank notebook next to me that I scribble my thoughts is), so I hadn't written in this one at all.  The only writing in it was her note to me on the front cover: "To Debbie- my best sister and a wonderful friend.  No matter how far apart we are, you will always be a sister and a best friend to me.  Smile, -D."

Reading those lines again after thirteen years would have been cool enough, even though D. and I are still in touch- in fact, I called her on her birthday just over a week ago.  She attended both of my weddings (although I was too embarrassed to ask her to be in the second one!), and we've both flown cross-country and overseas to visit each other.  She would have flown out to see me when I had my daughter, except that she was unexpectedly pregnant with her son at the same time.  So our friendship isn't just in the past, something I consider myself extremely lucky for.  Still, I worry sometimes about us staying close while being so far away. 

Something I hear quite often from my close friends is that I worry too much.  They're probably right, which is why this particular "blast from the past" was so perfect.  The journal flipped open to a page several leaves up from the back cover, and I saw a note I'd never read before: "Hello, Debbie!  Just wanted to surprise you.  Did I?  By the time you will find this, I [will] be in Lithuania missing you.  Hopefully, this note will cheer you up and make you smile. Remember, whenever you need me, I'll be there in thoughts and prayers.  Love Yah."

Whenever I've come across "found money", I've bought a present with it or taken a friend to lunch.  I've always believed that good fortune should be shared.  So, to my friends far and near, I want to say: "By the time you read this, I will be thinking of and missing you.  Hopefully, this note will cheer you up and make you smile. And if you ever need me, I'm always here. Love ya! -D."

Need to work up some good karma for your upcoming weekend?  Pay it forward, and have a great one.