KJ's Mini, Replaying Risky Business, KJ goes to Tennesse Chopping wood

How many of you people under, I guess thirty years old remember an actor named Tom Cruise? No not the guy who ruined The Mission Impossible series, the guy who stared as a football player, or even better the guy who was Joel Goodson, the richt kid in Chicago who one day just said "fuck it" and went on an adventure. The one scene I'm thinking about, and all the people of my age remember it. The song that is over laid on the screen is a Bob Secagar song, don't remember which one. I think the scene is an archway in the house, Tom slides into without his pants, can you air sing? I know air guitar, and air drumming... well let's just say there is.Ole Tom slides into the scene in white socks, and his tightey whities. Obviously this is before the ultra cool Tom Cruise, you know when he was a better actor, and seemed like more of a regular guy. Well KJ decided to reenact the scene sans (is that Latin again, no I think it French) his tightey whites(diaper). A little background is required first, I guess. He has started potty training. So on this occasion he peed in his diaper. He undresses in the front living room(does that make us sound rich? I could have said parlor, now that would have made us sound like the rich landed gentry, wannabe, I’ve always strived for).and walks into the family room. Teri sees him and being Italian, she asks in American Italian where his clothes are. In other words she yells, “Why are you naked, where are your clothes?!!” He says, “I peed”. She is now confronted with the possible dilemma , where did he pee, and is this something she will have to clean up. She asks him and he points toward the front living room, oh hell, I want to call it the parlor. Teri can deal with a lot from her favorite people in the world, dogs.Cleaning up human issues is another story. She walks into the parlor, and asks him where he peed. Thank God, he points to his diaper atop his pile of clothes. After he points out where he peed, he seems to pose ala Joel Goodson in Risky Business sans diaper. Translated into English he stands like Joel Goodson from Risky Business in the archway of our home without any clothes on. I like the first version best. I’m sent a text by Teri with pictures. I tell her I’m going to include this in the blog with pictures. She reminds me that is a very bad idea. When it dawns on me why I erase the pictures. Years ago it would have been a funny picture, now it’s child porn.

KJ left for Tennessee with his mom a few days ago. Teri is devastated because she is losing her best friend. She has always said, “As much as he is a pain in the ass, I just love him”. I tried to cheer her up and sent her a video this morning of him looking for her a year ago calling her name. She texted back, I smiled, now I’m sad. I hope the move will be temporary, and Amanda and him will be back before the summer is over. Amanda wants to make a new life with the father of her baby down there.

If KJ stayed in New York this blog might be just about him eventually. About two weeks ago Teri found someone. Or maybe it was Nancy who had an electric Mini Cooper toy car they were getting rid of. All it needed was a new battery. Teri ordered one and KJ got several times to drive it in the back yard. It’s supposed to go with him eventually.

Back in the Nyack house I got a fireplace built. It was small, sometimes smoky, but always warm, and welcoming. I was younger than I am now, and I could swing an ax with the best suburbanite around. I wind the ax up over my head and slam it into a choice piece of prospective firewood, splitting it with one chop. Only on the big pieces did I bury the ax in the wood, and not split it in two. That was then. We moved to Congers over twenty years ago, and I’ve wanted to rehabilitate the fireplace in the front living room, you know the parlor. I’ve dreamed of sitting on a couch, or a comfy wing chair, my legs stretched out, my toes warmed by a crackling fire. It’ll happen one day. I even saved some wood from some trees on the north side of the house that swayed ominously in strong winds. One day I went out to split it all up, in what I thought was going to be a job of a couple of hours. I'm older, slower, and I tire easier now, but I had no doubt I’d be splitting some wood. After twenty minutes, quite a few stuck axes in small pieces of wood, and only a handful split,

I gave up, and invited Nastia, and Sean over to do it. I know you're thinking Nastia on a humid day, after she’s eaten, and is constipated might weigh a hundred and five pounds. You can’t secretly invite one person over to split wood, and not bring comic relief. They come over, I think, and after an attempt or two Sean succeeds. Nastia wants to do it. She unfortunately can only get the ax stuck in the wood. I call a halt, and put a severed bit of wood back onto its whole and tell Nastia to take a whack at it. She obliges and swings the ax knocking the piece of wood away from where I placed it. Nastia jumps up and down like she thinks she finally split a piece of wood off. I’m taking a video thinking she is in on the joke, she wasn’t. She thought she’d split it. I stopped the video before I realized she didn’t know, and missed her great expression.