A visit from Seth, and his mom.

Elena has always been a cat person. She has two cat tattoos, and she has been known to be a bit mean to the dogs in the house. When she was younger, she liked Cody. One day, she came up behind Cody, and surprised her. Cody thought she was being attacked, and cut Elena on the face. I told my boss at the time, he said he would have put the dog down for that. I thought he was a heartless fool. Cody didn’t mean it. There was not a mean bone in her chunky brown body. And I still miss her. I think Elena’s dislike of dogs hit its peak with Misha. Misha was a wonderful, charming, sweet dog that was a bully, and a coward. She was afraid of Bandi, a dog of about 10lbs, wanted to kill another 10lb dog,Nancy’s dog Nevel. She once almost did. She had fights with Athena. These fights were more like slap fights most of the time. Misha bit her tongue once, and there was blood everywhere. Another time we put a shock collar on Misha, and she got into a fight with Athena. We shocked her to stop the fight. It just made her nip Athena even worse. Maybe all of this turned Elena against dogs. Right now she has a love-hate relationship with Cassie. If Elena is in a bad mood, she is not nice to Cassie. When Elena comes down Cassie begins to bark, unsure if she will be given a pat on the head, and a scratch, or if she will be told to get away from her in a nasty tone.

Back earlier in summer on a planned whim of Teri’s we went to Westchester SPCA and with Elena, Nastia, and Sean we, with Teri’s guidance, and desire picked out a puppy. A little white mixed breed dog. A mix of great pyrenees and maybe shepard.Elena took an interest in picking out the dog, she even went as far as getting the dog signed up for classes. In a very moody comment from Elena one day, it turned out she signed Teri, and I up for the classes because she felt we have no idea how to raise a dog. Admittedly Teri’s idea of raising a dog is different from most peoples, she raises them like they are her next born, and a member of the family. Me? I gave up fighting her idea of raising a dog so long ago I only vaguely remember how I raised a dog, and I like how a dog acts when raised by Teri. It’s a member of the family. Elena even takes the time to work with the dog. She still doesn’t like when the dogs bark, but that’s just the way it goes. Elena went to the beach with Seth a few weeks ago, then she went out to have sushi with him. Every morning I try to get up a little early to hug her, and wish her a good day at work. Today I told her to be nice to Seth. She goes, ewwww, no, I quickly correct her saying whatever you want. She thought I was talking about them dating. I just wanted her to be nice to him. Her walls are too high right now I think for anything official to happen. I’ve heard there are four guys who have asked her out lately, but she is not in a place to let that happen. Maybe that will change. She’s let Seth get closer than anyone in a while. One day last month, and Teri tells me Elena has quit her job. I think she is kidding, at first. As she dives into the details I understand it is not a joke, but more of a major mistake. She was unhappy at work. As always with her, I knew nothing. Granted I could have seen signs, but still not picked up on them. The story about her quitting is she went into work, and told them she’d gotten another position, and this was her last day. She was not pleased at how the lazy people were left to do whatever, and hard workers are taken advantage of. There was this one employee who didn’t have to go for a drug test until Elena had to. That got a raised eyebrow from me. I’d never known she had to get one. Later I would learn she faked the pee test by using someone else’s, again another raised eyebrow. I find it hard to get angry at her for these subterfuges. Weed (pot to all of us older, no I’m sorry, it's a more experienced generation) It’s legal, as long as they don’t come into work high, everything should be fine. Now about three weeks into her job search, she might have found something. The first opportunity was GoodYear, night shift work maintaining Amazon trucks. This job I’d fear for her safety. If she angered the wrong person, or persons, or even if someone got teh wrong impression about her she could get raped. Males, or more broadly that spoiled generation where everyone wins seem to expect sex is a given, if they want it. If I’m wrong, and I’d like to be, and she is safe working there, I’d express my mia culpa (hey look we're using more Latin, how cool are we!) Hopefully it will never come to that.Night work sucks. I did it for two weeks to teach a driver a new route when I was a salesman. You get home early in the morning thinking, “Hey, I’ve done my work, and everyone else is just starting. How great is that?” Not long after that you fall asleep, and don’t wake up until late afternoon. You’ve missed a wonderful sunny day. This time of year you may never see the sun. They’ll pay her 21.50 an hour. Not a bad salary. Nissan on Rt17 hopefully is coming to the rescue, and she will work days there. They are offering only $17.50, or maybe $18.50 an hour. It’s about $100.00 a week less than GoodYear. Last weekend Seth, and his mother came over to visit. It was a bit odd, and unfortunately neither Teri nor I purchased the Entenmann’s cake to serve. (Here’s a hint on this joke. A comedian jokes about serving Entenmann's cake when company comes over. His name is Sebastian Maniscalco)*Seth, and his mom keep kosher. Their lives revolve around their religion. I never realized how much their lives could revolve around being jewish. I had to stop myself from trying to correct her about kosher dairy products. I dealt with kosher for twenty plus years in the dairy business, and I thought I was pretty knowledgeable. She lives it, so I think I’d have lost. Coming over to talk with Teri, and I like she did took guts, I would have not had. Seth, and Elena went upstairs ta boot**. They played games on Elena’s x-box, or whatever she has these days. Seth’s mom was alone. She is the type of person who could hold a conversation in an empty room. There were times I wanted to interject something, and by the time I inhaled, the time had passed. One time I got a comment in, I was so surprised, I didn’t know where to go with the story, and it was about adopting Elena, and Nastia. Being a person who doesn’t like to talk for long periods of time to people I don’t know real well I’d step away for a few moments to go to the bathroom, or get more water, stop in to see what Seth, and Elena were playing, hoping to spur someone to say it’s time to go home. That is all on me, nothing against them. The visit minus the Entenmann’s cake lasted a little over two+ hours. Seth’s mom for all the joke is a nice person who came to visit. Was open, friendly, and a blast from what the secular world has left in the past, Hence no Entenmanns. *The Joke Details The Routine: In his bit about how doorbells and hosting used to work 20 years ago, Maniscalco describes how mothers would strictly keep an Entenmann's crumble cake or Sara Lee coffee cake tucked away for unexpected "company". [1, 2] The Rules: He jokes that mothers would announce the cake was off-limits to the family—saved only for visitors—and serve it proudly in the middle of the table alongside instant Sanka coffee. **ta boot The idiom "to boot" means "in addition," "as well," "besides," or "on top of that." It is placed at the end of a clause or sentence to add an extra point.