The Times they are a-changin

The times they are a-changin
 a relationship is like a shark, it's got to keep movin, I think we have a dead shark on our hands.

Thank you to Bob Dylan and Woody Allen for putting into words the last few months of life. Amanda started living with us and about a month ago I started taking my daughters to the park and they convinced me to play basketball. They wanted to play games to twenty and play full court and I'd look at them and ask them if they were trying to kill me? I knew I was getting older, but I never felt as old as when I started taking jump shots from the top of the key and the ball would hit nothing. These were shots that in the past would at least bounce off the rim or slide up against the backboard, then fall off to one side or the other.

Time square february school project reading in the wildest places

Super Mario in Time Square

  We would play almost half court games, which means I would bring the ball out past the three point line and if the girls get the ball they would shot it up at the basket no matter what happened. The girls learned to cheat rather quickly. They would pull and lean on me and if I called a foul they would plead innocent. In most games I would pull ahead in the beginning as they fought who would get the ball and shot it. Every game I would point this out to them and as soon as they quit fighting they would pass the ball and I would loosen up on the defence and they would score and most of the time win. I think they have won half the time.
    Two big events happened this week. On Friday, my thirteen year old daughter, Nastia complained that she had a headache, but I made her go to school. About ten-thirty the school calls and says she is not feeling good and would like to come home. I pick her up and let her stay alone for a few hours. Teri thinks she might be getting migraine headaches. I'm a cold hearted bastard when it comes to pain. When I was sick, I still went to school. If someone attacked me with a meat clever and left it sticking out of my head, I'd still go to school. If asked about it I'd say I got a little headache, I'm OK. Now the flip side of this is when I was there I never did anything, go figure. Back to Nastia, she feels better about the time school is over, of course and enjoys the rest of the day.
   On Saturday, we have Nancy and Amanda down stairs doing something, I'm in the bedroom watching TV when Nastia calls out to me "Daddy" I go to the bathroom door and ask her what. She says " whats it mean when you get black stuff?"
  I say "What do you mean?"
   "You know"
   I say "No I don't, where's it coming from?"  The first hint I knew I was in trouble.
   "From my va-jin-ya"
give me credit I hang in there. "Is it really red or is it black" I ask.
   "well its really red."
   "Well you've just grown up." As I am saying that I hear giggles from down stairs. "Let me get your Aunt Nancy". I'm a little out of my realm, (you want to talk about wet dreams or shrinkage after swimming I'm you man) I know when to hand it over to the experts.
   Teri wasn't home, when she calls up later in a sad little voice she says " my baby's grown up"
The experts get Nastia all set up and she walk around saying " this things uncomfortable, do I have to wear it?"
   And of course I have to tell her I don't think they are supposed to be comfortable. Then the fun starts when Nastia asks me questions about getting her period and all my replies start with "I don't know I never had one, but..."
   On a lighter note, we went to see the three stooges on a Tuesday and used discount tickets, only spent ten dollars. The movie wasn't bad, it also didn't deviate much from their well known stick, which was most likely the best way to go. Nastia and Elena were in hysterics over the film. They also have this habit of talking to the screen and they need to work on there church whispers. So if you ever bring them to the movies bring plenty of  'shhhh's with you.
   Anyone  want to baby sit two adorable kids for the summer, boy is summer camp pricey.
 

When your daughters are bitches, should you tell them?

Before I had kids and had all the answers, I always admired the fact that my brother Karl never cursed in front of his daughter. I imagined it was easy and if I ever had kids I would do it. It would show how in control of my life I was and how superior of a parent I was. (I hope your laughing as much as I am.)
My favorite question back then was "Why don't they stop their kids from doing that?" Only now do I have the answer; it's I'm tired of them not listening and I'm willing to be thought a bad parent for a while just to keep my sanity and not be arrested for yelling at my child in public. Which all of those superior people, without children now demand.
  I now have two daughters and I have also rediscovered my bad temper. Long ago I thought I had slayed that dragon and anytime I lost my temper was for a good reason.

  Well, just like I no longer have all the answers to raising kids, I no longer feel everytime I lose my temper it is for a good reason and there are times where I will tell my daughters "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve to be yelled at like that." With the hope that they will not be as bad with their temper as their dear old dad.
  All this leads up to the day I called Elena a bitch to her face. It was a friday night and we went out to eat at a restaurant called Gilligan's. It has a low priced menu and a relaxed atmosphere. I don't remember all of the story, but Teri had gone to the bathroom and Elena was slouched down in her chair and I said something to her and she gave a wise answer, puberty you know. So I told her to sit up and quit being, I stopped for a moment before I gave myself the mental go ahead to call her a bitch. I don't know why I did. It just seemed to be the word that fit best and at the time I could not think of any word better. I also thought if she was being one she must of said it or at least of been one to someone else. I know I'm trying to justify using bad laungage to my daughter. I did preface this by saying I have a bad temper. Am I saying it is my temper that caused my to call Elena a bitch or that it was better to call her that then to yell at her, but most of all she was being a bitch.
  A couple of weeks later the three of us are in a car going home from a trip to the eye doctor. It is at least half an hour drive time to get there and an other half an hour to get back, plus all the can I have some bread from the platter and why do I have to sit right in the chair and I'm bored and why do you wish mommy had taken us? So with all that going on and I having forgotten the appointment, my daughters are being noisy and again Elena develops an attitude and again I call her a bitch. This time I am a little surprised when she asks me "what is a bitch"
 I resist the easy out by saying "You"  and I begin to tell her what a bitch is and why it is not nice.
  She says "Daddy, I'm not a bitch and that is not a nice thing to call your daughter."

  "but if your being one it's the truth." a said
  she starts to get angry and this is a girl who is starting to develop into someone who will not back down, which is a good thing...sometimes and she says "I'm not being a bitch."
I begin to see this conversation as a little absurd for some reason and I start to think it is funny and I laugh, this only servers to get her more angry, she now thinks I am laughing at her because she is being a bitch. I laugh more because they are both questioning me and using the word bitch.
  I stop them and tell them that the word bitch is not a word that is socially acceptable and even though daddy used it you should not say it. Lets see if daddy can resist the urge to say it as his daughters become older and get further into puberty and bigger b...... I became a bigger pain as I got older then thirteen.

Home sweet home and what do we do now...

 We did as many things as we could the night before we left. We had a six-twenty flight in the morning and we got to bed after midnight.
  The alarm went off at three-thirty and Teri got up a little later. I got up around four to get the girls up and they were so worn out that I carried Elena into the living room and put her on the couch, they slept in their clothes , but it must of been too hot because I had to retrieve Elena's pants. It didn't bother her sleeping on the couch with no pants on and no blanket, should I be worried?  Nastia I carried second and they slept a littler longer while I pupped off their sheets and made the beds. I collected garbage and we threw out all opened items that we felt the next group would not use. We left some soda in the cupboard in hopes the next group would use it. And at about five we left for the airport. The first sight we saw after dropping off the car was a long line at the check in that we did not anticipate. Who would figure anyone would be up at five AM to leave Orlando. Teri said " we're not going to make it" and I thought she was right, I said nothing.
  We got our first lucky break when an official guy comes out and asks if anyone is leaving on a six-twenty flight? So we went to the head of the line and used out pre-printed boarding passes and our pre-paid baggage passes and hustled off security.
  We went through, being familiar with how it is done from the earlier flight, shoes off, belts off, money, whats left in containers, computers out of bags etc. It all went off smoothly and we moved quickly to our tram to the boarding gates. I redressed on the tram and felt cheap, like I'd had a one  well lets not get into that.
  The tram pulls into the station with everyone fully dressed and ready to hurdle the last leg of the marathon, getting to gate 33 and passing all the food places that their was no time for. An executive decision is made, by Teri to stop in the bathrooms while half our group peels off to get some food. With minutes to spare we make the plane and jet off back to reality.
  Two and change hours later we are in the metro area and most of our bags are collected, Vasanti's bag will show up two days later. Our car service is right on time and we are rushed back home.
We get there before eleven AM and what do you do now? Everyone wandered around for several hours, some ate,are we hungry/ some slept. Reality was beginning to creep back upon us and no one wanted to face it. It is amazing how much stress there is in our daily lives and how we get used to it and ignore it until we get the chance to get away from it. I went to work the next day my head still in the clouds, when my boss called me and said nothing is going on today, go home and I was glad, I was next to useless. The girls were just getting up when I got back and there were several hour more left to our vacation.

Saturday at the end of our vacation

Saturday we ran slower then we had all week. I guess the thing that slowed us down the most was Elena taking a fake shower. Her hair was wet and she looked for all intent as if she had. Except her hair  looked greasy. Under questioning she refused  to admit that she  that she only got in the shower and wet herself. She took a real shower and we finally got under way about an hour late. we got to Epcot around Eleven and then went by bus to the animal kingdom, we planned to go back to Epcot later.
Disney World was closed for the second time this week and it was a good thing we went on Friday. The crowds were massive.
  The first place we hit at Animal kingdom was the lion king experience. Teri loved it from the last time we were here. It was good. the next place was the safari and we finally got on a couple of rides about midday.I got a Margarita, even eight bucks it was good, it took the edge off a tiring week. I wanted a second one, but getting drunk at Disney, even if it was the animal kingdom didn't seem right.
  We finished most of the Animal kingdom and went over to Epcot to have Mexican food, big mistake. It was wall to wall people and it took us twenty minutes to get to the Mexican pavilion. We knew there was no open tables that night but we figured we'd try anyway. Worst that could happen I figured was I'd get a Margarita, one of the best I'd ever had back when Teri and I were on our honeymoon and we'd eat somewhere else. The place was jammed we threaded our way along narrow rows of people while watching the second best display of fireworks I'd ever seen. At the Pavilion I went inside and was not surprised when I was told there was not tables. the girls went on a ride inside the building and about thirty seconds after the fireworks ended about three hundred people came in and the line that was about six people stretched almost out the door. The room was difficult to walk in it was so crowded. I squeezed out the door when Teri called and said she was outside. We had seen the fireworks and there was only the overcrowded takeout area that I would of considered eating at, but we were all waited out and decided to go to a Chinese buffet we'd seen near the house.
  The Chinese food was good. I sat next to Amanda and she is at the age that the most important thing in her life is her cell phone to the point that she was on it so much that just about everyone in the group made a comment. I told Nancy that if she let me take care of the problem I would buy Amanda a new phone in about two weeks after I smashed her phone and we got back from vacation. Nancy for better or worse said no.
  Well as I said we were eating Chinese food and I was sitting next to Amanda and she had Pop pop's phone out, I guess her battery was dead, does anyone see where this is heading? No, I don't owe her a cell phone, but my frustration level had reached it maximum. It was a bad idea for us to sit next to each other and I opened my mouth. I told her in a calm voice that her biggest memory of this vacation was going to be a cell phone and her reply was yep or something like that. I got bothered by the flip response and went on about how she was being a child and some other things and I finished saying that by talking to her about this I was going to have trouble with Aunt Teri over this just as Teri saw asking me what was going on.
  As if on cue, Amanda gets up and storms out. I tell Nancy I'm sorry but I just could not take it any more and Nancy says it's her battle to deal with.
  Never having been an Adult before who had to deal with teenagers who were acting badly, I looked back to the time when I was being a snot and my Uncle had to deal with me. I tried to remember what it was like and how he acted, I drew a blank. So like all my life , I winged it and let it blow over and acted like nothing had happened the next morning.

It's Friday, tempers are short and the dogs are barking

Yesterday we stood in line for at least five hours, the day before it was about the same. Today was little different.
  We got up at the usual seven am, but there was not purpose in our movements, everyone was burned out. We ate left overs and English muffins for breakfast and got on the road about nine-thirty. It would of been earlier, but we had to send Elena back three times to properly dry her hair.
  At Disney World we headed over to tomorrow land. We wanted to get onto Space mountain and we intended to circle the park counter-clock wise to save time and steps. Well it sorta worked.
  We started at a ride called Stitches great escape, I think the girls rated it as just above a dud. These are the danger duo who always look interested, but not scared and maybe a little excited on all of those nasty roller coaster rides we have uncovered.
  The next ride was Space Mountain. The time clock said the wait was an hour. We got on at eleven and we got off after one pm. We then had lunch and went toward fantasy land and got side tracked at the Haunted House, which the girls said over and over again "this is not scary" . And it wasn't, it was just plain fun.

One of the Universal coasters, it's too sick

  We got out of the Haunted house and it was getting dark and we were still making our way toward fantasy land and it's a small world.
  We somehow detoured into Liberty square and got to see the hall of Presidents. I've seen this several time and I think the first time was at the nineteen-sixty-four worlds fair and either Johnson or Kennedy was the final speaker. Then I saw it on our honeymoon when Clinton was the president and now O'Bama is the final speaker. they still have Lincoln do the Gettysburg address and every time I hear it it means more and more as I get older. The whole show means more and more and makes me feel very lucky.
  By now it was dark and we were still heading toward it's a small world and we finally make it. This ride too I saw at the nineteen-sixty-four world's fair and it has changed. All the nations are pretty much still represented, but a few politically incorrect things have been removed and the song doesn't get sung over and over like it used to and at the end all the nations sing it together. In this version the music is all you hear and it is not sung. Also, the oriental children don't sing with an accent any more.
  We then decided to get something to eat and no one was really hungry so we got ice cream and ate it just off of Liberty square near Mickey's philharmagic. It was about eight I think and we got treated to the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen bar none. The fireworks lit up the sky. There were more of them they went higher and they were brighter and they were bigger and there was more of them. It was amazing.
  After that the girls went on a couple of kiddie rides and we went over to Pirates of the Caribbean and the we went to the run away train and we ended the day after eleven at night at Aladdin's magic carpet ride another kids ride. It was another long day with lots of miles and lots of waiting. I would not trade this night and the fireworks we saw for anything.

Thursday and it was another long one.

We had a long tough day and it was very crowded and the lines were long. We waited for two hours to get into Twister and about the same for Revenge of the Mummy and by then it was after three and we tried to find a way into Islands of Adventure and we managed to find it and were told the park had just reopened after being at capacity and we figured what was another line.

  their was no line to get into Islands, we went directly to the Wizarding world and waited on a line for three hours to get tickets, then we got into the wizarding world and waited over two hours to get on a ride simulator that everyone loved except for me, I get motion sickness on those types of rides. We then got some butter beer that was just cream soda with a little extra cream put on top. By then we were exhausted and we got some dinner at a place called Pasta more. It is now one -eighteen and we will be getting up in six hours to conquer Disney world. Watch out Uncle Walt the twisted sisters are coming.

A Very busy Disney MGM Studio Park

We got up at seven this morning and everyone's energy was a little low after the last two days. We ate breakfast at the house and got to the park around eleven. Not one of our stellar efforts. the problem is we are up late and get to bed late and don't move to quickly in the morning. We can't get out of the rut.

  The first place we hit at Hollywood Studio formerly Disney MGM was The Hollywood Tower of Terror it's a great ride. You go up in a large elevator after you hear a story about an elevator accident which killed four people. At the end you look out on the park just before the elevator drops several stories, then comes back up and drops a second time. It must drop about four times before the ride ends. It was great.
  The bad part of the ride was the seventy-five minutes we spent waiting on line.

Getting Lunch at Hollywood Studio

  It was afternoon so we went for lunch, which took twenty plus minutes to get, the park was alot more crowded then Sea World. Prices were about the same. Lunch was a small fortune. The weather was sunny and until the sun went down the tempature was bearable.
 Walking out at nine o'clock the tempature was about forty-four degrees. Congers was thirty-one.
  After Lunch we went to the aerosmith ride and spent two hours waiting for a very exciting minute or so of a roller coaster
 By then it was getting cold and the sun was starting to set and we figured we better explore the rest of the park.

Aerosmith ride

  We got to see muppetts three D, Indiana Jones action adventure among other things. We waited on line for ice cream about twenty minutes. It was a very quick day all we seemed to do is wait and freeze. Tomorrow is Universal and I think we will all bring exta jackets. Todays Jackets were not enough.

Tuesday in the park

We all stayed up late doing all those parent things that kids just take for granted and always ask why can't I stay up too?

  Teri and her sister and niece and Visanta and Tharsha all piled into the car around midnight and went shopping for food for this morning. We lacked nothing this morning. Of course they were out until two in the morning and we all didn't get to sleep early and we tried to get up early, managing seven am
  We went to Sea world because it was going to rain and it would be an easier park to cover. We got there around ten-thirty and managed to cover most of the park before it rained and started to get cold. Amanda had a bad reaction to some medicine and spent the better part of the morning in the first aid tent. I went on the sickest roller coaster today, The Manta. The girls wanted to go on it and I almost chickened out but I went .

The Manta roller coaster sea world

   We waited on line for almost an hour and when we got to the top we got on another line. This one was short and we sat down in out seats. An attendant came by to bring down the shoulder harness and he gave it a little shake before he left. Then the seats tilted back. The top stayed where it was and the bottom tilted back so you looked at the ground. You then started to move forward. At this point I realized I'd made a mistake. Could I starting screaming like a little girl now and would they stop the ride and let me off or should I just grit my teeth and hope lunch and breakfast would stay where they belong. I'm the silent type so I grit my teeth.
  We went up the long incline looking down about three stories. At the top we did the usual swoosh down. This roller coaster left you feeling weightless for a moment, loved the feeling. then you felt like you were falling, like in one of those dreams. Then you swooshed up from the bottom and I'm going oh god, oh god, I hear my daughters screaming and having a good time and I realize as you get older you just realize that thrill rides are not any scarier you just realize it does happen rides do fail, kids don't.
  We do a loop  and a twist and we are coming into the home stretch and I'm thinking god don't go around again don't go around again and my girls are going Is that all? can we go again? that's not fair, lets go again.
  I get off all rubber legged glad that I survived and remembering that if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger and I felt, or would later feel stronger. My stomach would not recover and when it came to the Kracken later, which was not half as insane as the Manta, I would pass for fear of re3funding my recently purchased ice cream.

  It rained about mid day for about an hour and it got chilly and we left our jackets in the car and we got rid of our passes into the park figuring we didn't need them again, but to get out and get back in you needed a hand stamp and a ticket so we were S. O. L.
 We toughed it out until about seven when we all found some hoodies for around thirty dollars, which in any theme park is reasonable.
  We hung around for shamou at eight o'clock and the hoodies were money well spent, it got cold.
  Sea World did up Christmas in a big way and it was nice. I realized that sometimes I go around apologising for my holiday, no ones fault, but here it was christmas and it was Christs birthday and it was all over the park.
  We left the park at nine went looking for Cracker Barrel and either took a wrong turn or it was closed and the lights were out cause we could not find it. We ate at Applebees and it was good.

It's happened again

Well Intrepid blogger fans after a two year hiatus, the terrible twosome, the twisted sister from Birobidjan have hit the road again. For some reason Santa Claus saw fit to leave two packed bags of our girls clothes and two invitations to visit Disney World the day after Christmas and here it is the day after Christmas and it is eleven pm and a small group of eight sit comfortably just south of Disney World  ready to assault the most revered of all vacation locations in America and it will never be the same again so get down here quick if you want to see what it was like before the 'Sistas', who think they got booty get done with it. I'm sorry for that last sentence I had to listen to rap music today and even the whitest among us (me) think they got rhythm and can get up and dance with the best of them. Hey I'm sorry I was born a  T.A. white boy whose idea of dancing goes no further then the box set and can't seem to find anything to do with his arms but that is all for another time.
  Christmas morning, the girls are whispering in their room somewhere about three-thirty so I go in and tell them it is too early to get up and to go back to sleep. It always amazes me when they listen to met and sometime about six or seven Teri gets up and I turn on the radio figuring I'll get up soon about eight the girls again ask to get up I tell them in a few minutes and I get dressed. I set up the camera and Teri and I call them down. It always cheers me up when I see their childish innocents. And I also remember that they are two very split people. They are at some points very much younger then their ages and at others when you talk to them you realize alot of their childhood was stolen from them by their past.
  They come running down the stairs full of excitement and anticipation about the holiday, yelling wow and oh my god and this is the best day ever. And every year you think this is the last one they will believe in Santa Claus and it's sad because we just got them and they are already changing and they are not the same kids we first saw that July night who would not go to bed or even the ones who we bought home a little over two years ago, they are both becoming young women. And yes one day hopefully young ladies.

Surveying the fruits of Christmas

  When the excitement was done and the present were all unwrapped, all bought by Teri because I let myself get caught up in my job and have just enough time to buy my wife a few gifts mostly because I would feel bad if I made her pick her own out. there is a feeling of contentment, I hope Teri feels it too, because it is fleeting, but it is there and it is nice. After that you start to ruin it by telling the girls to help clean up the wrapping paper or you feel that they are pigs because it was left all over and they need to get their little back sides down here to help clean up and the world is back to normal except this year the barely used gifts will sit unused for a week as the dogs feel abandoned at Sallyann's we will enjoy a well deserved break from every day and that means stories everyday for a little while I hope you enjoy it

Another busy prechristmas weekend, again

Friday night I was supposed to make a delivery to a customer in Putnam Valley about an hour away from everywhere. I got side tracked going to the office and didn't pick up the milk until almost six. It was an hour from the office to Putnam Valley and an hour from Putnam Valley to home. So being me, I cut the middleman out and went home.
  That meant I would have to go and do it on Saturday. Teri decided to go to work on Saturday, because she is over whelmed and there is not enough time with her working fifty to sixty hours a week.
  I get the girls up at eight, Teri had left an hour earlier and would not be home until six or so. We dressed and left on our field trip to Putnam Valley.
  We made our delivery of three cases half and half quarts and a case of pints of half and half. I treat the girls to breakfast. Nastia rediscovers she likes bacon, lettuce and tomato on a roll without mayo. Elena goes with a simple bagel with butter. I get a sausage, egg and cheese.
  You'd think after all this fun and adventure the girls would not want to take another ride for an hour to see a cow at the opening of a new store in Danbury.
  An hour later the girls are petting a year old calf and don't want to leave when it is time to go to karate. We arrive at karate a little late and they find out it is wood breaking day. They start with one piece of wood each. When they see another kid who has move experience do four they suddenly start digging into their bags to get more wood. The instructor lets them try and they succeed in busting one of three and on their second attempt they break the remaining two. They were thrilled and brought their broken wood home to show their mother. She will be properly thrilled. Then she will yell at them when they leave the bags in the living room.
  After karate, I again treat them to a meal out, McDonald's (big spender) and I get a sandwich from a pizza parlor.
  The day is starting to wind down, it's three-thirty, I've read some, I've eaten, I'm tired. Then to my horror, I realize it is three-thirty and the house is not clean and Teri will be home soon!! I don't clean the house often and Teri rarely asks me to and she didn't this time, but can you imagine a very tired Teri coming home to a dirty house after working a full day on a Saturday. I was paralyzed with terror. What should I do first. I debated packing a bag and running for it. But I manned up and got out the dust mop. My wife hates the dust mop, says it just pushes around the dirt. I find it is quick and does a good job on our wood floors. She calls and says she is going to the store and will be home a little late. I breath a sigh of relief while telling her she has been away for so long, but on second thought, you did have a hard day at work, so take you time. no sense pushing your luck.
  House was clean  when she got home and dinner was about ready when she walked in. She purchased half of it. Life is good. Now if I could just get some time to go Christmas shopping, put up the light outside and decorate the tree we'd be set.

Christmas House cookies

It is year three of the great experiment. The girls are thriving and are developing into right little american teenagers. The younger one is being hit hard by puberty and has the attitude to show for it. The older one is developing as the younger one in to fine american teenagers. Why I repeated myself is the wife came and distracted me telling me healthy children need three meals a day and if they were not hungry when we offered them food we should offer them food at what would be a normal dinner time. I feel we are catering a little too much to them and they should eat when it is time, not when they want to. Maybe I'm being mean and not stating the problem as it really is. I'm sure my wife would have another opinion. But you know what they say about opinions.

   It is before Christmas and it is time for Christmas cookie houses. Starting several years ago Grammy decided making Christmas cookies like we did when we were kids was too complex and needed to change. Too many types of cookies and too many people, so she figured she would build cookie houses from sugar cookie recipe and everyone could decorate them.

   One year I thought a light house would be a good idea and Grammy and I built one. This year it got a little out of hand. Billy got a castle, Denis got a house with a heliport and I got a version of our house that Teri decorated.

   The girls got regular houses and everyone had a great time

Nastia fest 2011 or how to turn thirteen in style

The Day was fully booked and everyone was excited, except me. My wife feels I'm a nature born stick in the mud. I make eeyore look happy. That maybe the truth, but I need down time, my own time. With that aside, I was pleased to do what I could.
  The day started simply enough, Nastia wanted bagels for breakfast and I had to go out to the store and run a few errands. Teri said don't she had to go to the grocery, which was one of my stops, I forgot about the others, I got CRS. It's getting worse as I get older, I think, cause I got CRS and can't remember.
  I go to get bagels adding a quick trip to my mother's in which on a good day would be a twenty minute trip. Of course I go the way they have been tearing up the road for the last three years and don't remember it's a bad way to go until I'm stuck in traffic. I also get behind that guy, the only guy on the road who decides to go five miles per hour under the speed limit. He turns off and his brother turns in front of me doing the same thing. The quick trip takes over an hour and Teri is calling me asking me if everything is OK, I've been gone so long.
  The next event is Karate, where Nastia tries to act more responsible. In karate, you are supposed to answer the sensi when he says something. She goes over board and answers him every time he opens his mouth, it was sweet to watch.
  The next adventure was our trip to bounce, the trampoline amusement place. It was empty when we got there, by the time we left it was full. I sent two hours watching the girls bounce on trampolines and thinking about Christopher Reeves and his horse riding accident. Then some big kids, I guess you could call them guys, they were old enough, I don't know any more. They were all about six foot tall well muscled and all between 160 and 200 lbs. I told the girls to stay away from them. If they fell on you they would never know it. They were not idiots, they were doing double flips and trying for triples. But again they were careful and considerate.
  This two hours of enjoyment tires me out and I have a little fight with Teri and we go home.
I cook Kutletta ( Russian meatballs, sorta) with pierogies and a vegetable, it was a good dinner. At around seven in the evening a few people come over for cake, Amanda made and Ice Cream cake, Teri picked up. It was good.
  The next day, Sunday we go out to dinner at the hard wok, Nastia's restaurant of choice. About eight thirty on Sunday Nastia fest ends. Agood time was had by all. Seems like I said that before.

Another I can't believe I heard that story

Two quick stories. the first one happened over the weekend. Nastia was dressed and she was going to go outside in a tee shirt. She is getting to that age where she really shouldn't. So I tell her to put on a bra. Most likely not the last time I will say that. Her reply, Daddy, it's the weekend my boobs need to be free.
  Next story, We were all watching TV a few nights ago and it was time to go to bed and I tell Elena to hurry up and go to bed. So what does she do she gets up and moons me right there in the living room. I try to ignore it so she starts shaking it at me. I really didn't need to see that.

Fun was had by all

I was going to call this the long pee to home or the first time I heard my daughter say s..t, but when I walked in and Teri asked how was it I said fun was had by all and that seemed more appropriate.
The day started with the girls asking to go bike riding and I had to do some work. I told them that after I come back we could go. I got back about 3pm and they still remembered that I had promised. So we put some air in the tires and off we went. It was the first time I let the girls ride their bikes on the road and then on the sidewalk to the new walkway around Conger's lake. They biked and I walked the about two miles to the park. I figured they would ride around the park and we would come home. No such luck. they wanted to play on the swings, talk to Sally Ann who was in the park. Then finally play basketball with some stranger and his daughter.
  I told them it was time to leave, the sun was going down and the air was getting a chill in it and I figured by the time we got home it would be dark. We start bike riding and walking and about a third of the way home
  Nastia informs me she has to pee.
   I say  "I'm sorry there is no place to go until we get home."
  She says  "Well I can go in the bushes."
  No You have to wait until we go home."
  She then informs me she is tired and hungry. I give her a push to get her going in the right direction and we push on. We get to the new wooden walkway around the lake and she trips as she tries to push the bike. As she tries to stop going a over it I hear her go "Ah sh.t"
  I know they curse, and when they spoke Russian only, they spoke like truck drivers, but this still surprised me, I don't know why, but it did. I tell her it is in my parent contract that if I ever hear her talk like that again I must beat her, she smiles and says "whatever" for that I smack her.
   During all this good old Elena is riding her bike like she is taking a tour and taking in all the sites. She stops and waits and I push Nastia to keep her going. When she gets on to wooden walkway, about halfway and she hears that Nastia has to pee and she is tired and hungry, well I'm sure you can guess that suddenly I had two kids with the same problems. We struggle up the hill on Lake road and Nastia shows me the bar that was giving her cherries earlier in the school term and the same place she will never stop into again until she has passed her twenty-first birthda and then hopefully not.
  Finally we get home and I tell the girls to go inside and finally pee. And much fun was had by all.

From the more then I really wanted to know file

This is a quick one and it is one I will be hearing about when Elena is in her twenties and she is reading this for the first time and she will come to me and say " did you really have to write that down? and I would never say that."
  The other day ( Elena, it came from your mother, so we all know it is true, because she never forgets nothin!)Elena goes to her mother, Mom, I want to wear a shirt that show my boobs are getting bigger.
  Sorry that's the funny story. I'm sure all women can relate to that story, it's just coming too quickly. Next it will be the other stuff and she is already a cranky little b...h and her and her sister fight sometimes over the stupidest things and their mother is having hot flashes and the dog is a female and she is chewing up every piece of furniture in the house in sympathy. Someone quick, come and save me, please!!

Going Russian via Nyack

It is Sunday night in November. Tony has been gone just a few weeks and we are all still a bit of a mess. Teri booked the Disney trip. We leave the day after Christmas and return New Years day. it should be grand.
  There was a small Russian festival today at the Russian church in Nyack. It is the same one I took the girls to when they first came over. They got a big kick out of it then.This time we told them we were going out and again we refused to tell them where we were going. What's wrong with us? As Nastia said,  "Why can't you just tell us where we are going?" I guess, because IT'S MORE FUN. I told them we were going for a walk in Nyack. they said as long as we are not going to church. I of course said we were going and I thought you liked church? Their answer was yes we do, but not today.
  We got to the Church about one in the afternoon and stayed about two hours. we walked around and kept telling the girls to touch nothing. One or two vendors were dumb enough to say it was OK for them to touch, that their wares were not breakable. That sounded like a challenge and I hoped the girls did not rise to it. They kept touching stuff and then Elena started walking around saying "I want to buy something, I want to buy something." I asked her how much money she had , she said none because we did not tell them where we were going. I think I just hit on why we don't tell them where we are going.
  We ended up buying a variety of food, spending forty dollars and having a good time. We ate dumplings, cabbage rolls filled with meat . We tried getting some Kutleta, Russian meatballs, but they were out. I would like to compare mine to their's so I can improve mine.
  We got back around two and Teri, that brave soul took the girls and a friend Jennifier ice skating and then she took the girls, our two to the grocery, I expected her to come back crazy. I had a nice quiet afternoon. Teri came back surprisingly sane.

Halloween 2011

This Halloween was not as good as last years. We tried, but when you get several inches of snow a day or two before and there are downed power lines all around and streets are still without lights it is a little difficult to top or even match going down to Broadway in Nyack when it is one of the places you might find these downed power lines. Sooo we went to the Palisades center mall like a thousand or two other parents and their kid to go trick or treating. I must admit some places are trying to come up with alternatives that are imaginative as much as they are not fun. Like trick or trunking where parents gather with their brood and let their kids go from car to car in a parking lot to get stuff. When I was a kid that was called breaking into a car, I guess if the parents are still at the car handing out candy it is legal. Another brainstorm was postponing Halloween for a few days. I’m sorry that just doesn’t work for me either. I was going to compare it to having Christmas in January, but Russians and Greeks already beat me to that one.

  At the mall we picked up a list of stores that were giving out candy and to avoid the crowds we decided to start on the fourth floor. We did avoid crowds, but by the time we got to the third floor there were already signs up saying they were out of candy. The girls were unhappy and not having a lot of fun, so I tried to bribe them with ten dollars. It worked for about ten minutes, a dollar a minute. Next I let them go on the kiddie rides that they always ask to go on. Me, mister sixties, give them both a quarter, I then look at the coin slot and hand them both three more quarters. So much for nickel candy bars.

  We hit a string of store on the second floor that were out of candy and decide to call it a night. We tell the girls that they can eat anywhere they want to and when they pick McDonalds we tell them that we will take them to see puss in boots next week if we can go to outback. They said ok. They said ok, they were bought cheap. More so when it turns out there is little that the girls will eat at the outback. Will all have dinner and get home around nine or so. It wasn’t too bad of an evening that was until I open up the mail and see a ticket from a red light traffic camera from Yonkers. Don’t get me started on how much I hate them and how it is a bad way to enforce traffic rules. There should be signs up telling you where they are to give you a chance to be a little more careful. Look sees what you’ve gone and done now you got me all worked up over this ripe off crap….

pop-pop

It was a Wednesday afternoon I was driving to Danbury to go to the office and I get a phone call from Teri that her dad is having trouble talking and he is refusing to allow Amanda to call an ambulance. So she called her mother and Teri was called and I was called. I don’t think it mattered in retrospect. Tony stopped breathing and an ambulance was called. His pace maker kept him alive until paramedic got to the house and restarted his heart. He was taken to the hospital in Nyack where he stayed for about a week, giving people who loved him time to make peace with the fact that he was going to join his wife June for some stuffed peppers and have a big family dinner that Sunday like the Laudiero clan has not been able to muster here down on earth for a good many years. He will be sorely missed.

The end of Summer and the first day of school

It was Labor Day, the last day of summer vacation, 2011. We decided to go to the movies that day and everyone except for Teri had trouble moving their ass to get out of the house early. We ended up going to see ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ a movie I thought might be too intense for the girls. I didn’t even check to see what it is rated until we were at the theatre and I couldn’t find the rating. I didn’t want to be one of those parents that take their children to totally inappropriate movies and people like I used to be would shake their totally uninformed heads at and think, ‘What were they thinking when they bought those kids tickets?’ Well now I know, “wow! A movie that is not a cartoon, that I can relate to and the high point is not the snacks”


During the scene on the bridge when the apes are trying to cross it and the cops are trying to stop them, a bomb could have gone off next to the girls and they would have not noticed. They were so involved in the film they stopped eating their candy.

In earlier films, ‘Super eight’, the girls decided to crawl into our laps and after a large soda a fifty odd pound girl doesn’t fit in your lap very well. I expected that to happen again. Gladly, it didn’t.

Weighted the girls and took measure of their heights, both are about the same fifty-eight inches and about fifty-five pounds.

First day of school was on the sixth, Nastia’s first day of middle school and first time taking a bus. We had gone to the school sponsored event and gotten her schedule and we spent time walking around the school going to different classes. This was going to be different.

On Labor Day we got Nastia a cell phone, well in reality I got a new cell phone and she got a new phone number. We gave her lots of rules on cell phone use and told her the school rules were cell phone off and put away during school hours and the cell phone was to be off during her bus ride home. Remember that.

Teri’s alarm went off at a few minutes to six in the morning. I was awake before that because of work stress and had let the dogs out thirty minutes earlier. Teri got up the second time the alarm went off at six-ten. I turned the radio on and began to listen to it waiting for the time to get the girls up. Last year I got them up at six-forty, and then switched it to six-fifty. I planned to bring it to six-forty so they would not be late on their first day. I always hated being late on my first day of school, missing meeting the teacher and it was scary for some reason missing that. I got them up at six-forty and went back to bed to listen to the radio. I am not a good parent; I don’t make them their cereal. I remember my mom doing that and when she was down to the last kid she was asked why she still did it and her answer was I did it for everyone else she wanted to be fair.

At twenty minutes to eight Nastia and I walked Elena to school. We hung around the school for a few minutes to make sure Elena was ok being there by herself and then Nastia and I walked home. That was weird as well as the next half an hour. After the girls were off at elementary school, I had the house to myself, it was quiet and I did what I wanted. I would listen to the radio and quietly eat my oatmeal. L of that changed. She talked all the way home, she talked while I turned the radio on, she talked and made sounds telling me what she thought of my oatmeal. I feel the same way; she didn’t need to remind me. She even talked during the eight o’clock news on cbs. Finally I did tell her ‘shh!’

When it was quarter after we left for the bus down at the end of the street, one minute away, a whole new life away and it was raining. We started down to the stop when Nastia says why you didn’t tell me it was raining; I could have bought my Umbrella. I don’t like umbrella’s too many kids use them as toys, but this time I told her to run back and get one. It was a good thing soon after it started to rain pretty hard and the bus was late. A neighbor from the other side of Lake showed up with her daughter named Amanda and the four of us waited in the rain. When the bus finally came Nastia had her panic attack. She kept saying "I'm notgoing, I'm not going, I'm not goimg" as i pushed her towards the door of the bus. she didn't fight me, but she was scared. I told her it would be ok and everything would be so easy next week. She got on the bus, Amanda followed her and the bus took off.
   Everything was done and it was time for work and I went.
  About four in the afternoon I get a phone call from teri and I let it go to voice mail, I was talking to a customer and he had a problem that needed to be fixed now. After the call, I get a second call from Teri and a call from Amanda, that I pick up. She says that Nastia has not come home yet and no one knows where she is. I try to find the school's number, then I call my mother to see if she can go over when Teri calls me up asking why I haven't called the school yet. I can't find the schools number so I call Nastia's number, remember I told you this would come up. Well guess what, her phone is off so she can't answer it. I finally get through to the school and they say because it is the first day everything is running late, she will be home in a half hour which she was. It was very frustrating to not be in a position to do anything about finding your daughter.

Everybody's growing up too quickly

  Nastia goes to middle school starting this year. We had orintation today. Nastia was nervous, and didn’t want to leave us to sit in the auditorium to listen to the teachers. I guess this girl who lost her first family in Russia, lived in an orphanage and came to America not speaking the language still can find things that make her nervous. And I guess through her life, except when she went to the orphanage she was always with her sister or had someone with her. We left her and went to sit in the cafeteria to listen to other teachers talk about the school and answer questions.


After, we met up with Nastia and went over her schedule and went to some of her classes, making her go to the class as we followed. A first she seemed a little lost and wasn't trying. "Nastia where is class A204 if on the first floor all classes are A 100? I don't know." By the end she was moving around the school like she had been there weeks instead of two hours. Asked afterwards if she was still nervous she gave a big yes. In a few weeks she will love it. Right now she is afraid of bullies and lockers not opening.

After that Teri wanted a salad and soup, so we went to Charlie Browns in Jersey and ran into Nancy having lunch with some friends. It was one of the friend’s birthday.

After lunch, Elena had a gift card for game stop burning a hole in her pocket. Where have we heard that before? We went to game stop in Livingston NJ and finally got home around 4pm. Teri and I went upstairs and went to sleep until after six. We were exhausted for some reason.

Goin' up the Country

Everyone had Wednesday off and Thursday and Friday were looking poorly. So it took a little while, but we finally decided to go to the Dutchess Co. fair.
  It’s an hour and a half trip, and we didn’t tell the girls where we were going. We just said bring ten dollars of your own money, go to the bathroom and get in the car. They bought their games and for the first forty-five minutes of the trip they were good and quiet. Somewhere around Fishkill they started acting up. It was time for a pit-stop. Loyal readers will shutter at the mention of the name Pit-stop.
  Teri loves the Cracker Barrel, so we stopped in there to use the bathroom and to stretch our legs. Both girls wanted to spend their money on a claw hand that grips things and looked real cool. I told them no and said to Elena that she would thank me later. After prying them away from the toys several times I went outside and left it up to their mother.

A few moments later they get into the car empty handed and off we go up route 9. Past the lovely city of Poughkeepsie and the garden like Culinary Institute, we arrive at the town of Hyde Park, home to President Roosevelt. We slide past his home and a little while later we follow a sign for fair parking.

The girls didn’t see the sign and their first inkling of what we were doing was when they saw this ride towering above the tree line. It was a ride that swung in a giant loop high above the fair, more about that later. Suddenly the girls are all happy and excited and listening to us. We park and walk into the fair grounds for a reasonable 15 dollars per person over twelve, plus $5.00 parking. We walk into the middle of the midway, Teri and I are hungry and the girls are no longer thinking about food, just rides and that monster that towers over the fair grounds, whose name I’ve forgotten. We bought twenty dollars worth of tickets, about twenty –four tickets.

They run directly for the big whirly thing, which turns out to be from France. At eight tickets per ride they must have been trying to get their money back for the statue of liberty. Teri explains how many tickets that will require. To add to it I take away the sixteen tickets it will cost. It left eight, they decide to look around. At every ride the girls are told to choose carefully because once they are gone, they are gone. They end up going on three rides and we then start to wander around the fair. We are looking for the animal barns and are having trouble finding them. When I think I know where we are everything moves. We get a good tour of the fair and Teri and I eat so fair gumbo and the girls eat some chicken and fries, we have had better. We find the bans a little after dark (we left at 2:30 got to the fair around 4:30; it’s now about 7:45.) I feel the wind start to pick up and the clouds in the west are coming if fast I point this out to Teri and say we should go because it looks like a bad storm is coming. Teri wasn’t concerned and it was a good thing we didn’t leave because the best was yet to come. We found the Dutchess County hunt clubs animal exhibit. It was filled with live animals. Alligators, bobcats, monkeys, tigers and with some of them you could get your picture with them. The girls got their picture taken with a fennec fox, it’s got big ears and they both fell in love with it. After that they got to pet cows, goats and sheep before we left to find the horses, which we could not pet because they might bit. The girls were impressed with the weight and the size of the horses. After the horses we watched pig races and then found another petting zoo.

Now you would thing the girls were angels the whole evening. Well I saved all the fun for the end. After eating the girls each had ten bucks burning a hole in their pocket and they decided that they wanted to play games with it. They were warned to choose wisely. They sat down at several water games and a couple of games to throw darts at balloons near the end of their wad of cash they did start to look at the prices of the games and to choose a little wiser. They won a fish because the fish game guy let Elena win a fish after her sister won. Once out of money the phrase ‘do you have any money?’ was uttered a few times.

At the end of the night we all had a snack of ice cream for me, an Icee for each of the girls, and then Teri asks if I want to try fried Oreo cookies? I of course say yes. They were amazingly good. The outside was soft and crispy and the cookie was soft and sweet, really good.

We leave the fair at 10:30, the GPS takes us north to the Kingston-Rheincliff bridge in the opposite direction of all the traffic. I thought it was a mistake, but then I thought about the traffic and kept going. We stopped at a rest stop around 11:30 and got something to eat and drink. We got home around 12:30, my head hit the pillow around 1am and sleep finally hit after 1:30. All in all a very good day, a much needed family time.

Bachelor father

Tonights episode will be in living color...
In tonight’s episode, bachelor father has stayed late at work and his baby-sitter went to the movies and bachelor father is once again imposing on his father in law, who thank god doesn’t mind.  Bachelor father has had a rough week and has had his boss chewing  on his ass, what’s left of it all week, but have no fear bachelor father will rise to the occasion and yell at his kids and make them unhappy, he will come home and even before he steps into the home have a fight with his wife(long distant telephone fights are always ratings grabbers) Then as a topper, the dogs will have messed in the house, someone will step in it and not notice( some scenes may be added, dramatized or time maybe be condensed to fit into the half hour formula required for sitcoms) Bachelor father will leave the air after a fun filled weekend where he doesn’t cook a thing for his little darlings, sends them to bed at their bedtime on a non-school night and worst of all misses his wife. This sitcom will end Monday when their flight  lands at Newark sometime in the evening coming from Vegas.

The good life

Sometimes you have to just look at life and be amazed at how full it is and how lucky you are. Things can hit you one way and then you look at them and hit you another.
  Alot happened today. After I stopped talking about the trip to Russia, I went out to mow Tony's lawn. Teri was not pleased that I waited until 11:30 to do it, she wanted to go out and shop for Elena's birthday. I got back in time and Teri left for the store. the strange things, I guess that is not a proper word, but it will have to do until I can think of a better one. The strange things started to happen when it started to rain and the girls asked if they could come in from outside and go watch TV. I would not let them inside on such a beautiful day. It started to rain about four and Elena wanted to take a bath instead of a shower, fine I said. I finished up making chili and let it simmer on the stove at a very low temp. I think this makes for the best chili, and I went to see how hard it was raining and it wasn't, so I started mowing the lawn. About half way into the lawn it starts to rain and it gets harder and I think I've done enough for the day. I come in and check the chili, as I stir it I hear water running as if a pipe is broken and I did most of the plumbing on the house so I figure it has to be a pipe. I run to the cellar and listen and I hear nothing. I realize the sound is coming from the hallway. Elena had started to run a bath for herself and the tub had filled up and the shower curtain had caught in the upper drain and the water had begun to pour out of the tub and seep between the cracks in the floor and to drip down the stairs and out the holes in the archway. Now hours later it is a little funny. then it was "What the hell is going on up there?" I race upstairs and I see the tub over flowing and one daughter, Elena going into the bathroom saying "I'm sorry daddy, I didn't mean to do it."
  The thing that bothers me the most is I have hit her, but not a lot and only once in the recent past when she picked up something from near a garbage can and it looked like she put it in her mouth. She said she was smelling it. I don't know I caught her in a lie two days later when I came into the house and see her drinking soda straight out of the bottle and when she was confronted by me said she was just looking at it, and she wasn't. But my point is I don't hit her, I yell and she saw me at the top of the stairs and the tub was over flowing and she shys away from me as if I was going to give her the back of my hand in anger. I don't know what I've done to her for her to think I would hit her like that. If she wasn't so afraid, I'd say I was hurt by her reaction. I have to talk to her about it.
  The water got sopped up and the house dried out quickly some how and I talked to Teri and told her what happened and not to get angry. We all talked about it over dinner and I don't know if she will get to take a bath anytime soon. She let the tub run over because she was watching TV. That TV will be turned off when showers are taken for now on.
  The other thing that happened was Athena got sprayed by a skunk and we used tomato juice we used on kodi when we first moved here and it had gone out of date in 2007. It looked like tomato sauce, but it smelled ok, better then Athena. I miss Kodi and Mo.

Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody....

Well, it's not Saturday night  it is only Saturday morning and we are in the middle of a typical Saturday. I got up early, usually Teri does, I thought it would be nice to get up and have a little quiet time and read the paper. We have Pop-pop over this weekend and he is asleep in the back bedroom as are the girls in their room.
  I got the paper and sat down at the table with my morning beverage,soda, never got the coffee habit. ask my wife to tell you the story, she likes to add sarcasism and it's a lot mre interesting to hear from her then when I tell it.
  My quiet time lasted until my wife came down and turned on the tv, because Lucy turned 100 today and she needed to see some Lucy.
  I put the girls to bed early last night because they had not been to bed on time all week and I really couldn't stand them any more last night. They didn't do anything, I was just tired.
  Teri and Nastia did get into a play fight about Teri not being her mother and if that was so then Nastia could go. That might of started my bad mood, I didn't think it was funny. Later Teri said it hurt.
  Since the girls were put to bed early they got up early and for a little while anyway they stayed up stairs. But like all good plans they didn't stay there. So now I am writing this at 10 am Teri and her father are reading the paper, the TV is on and no one is watching Lucy, the dog is barking at something from the upstairs window, the girls are playing Nintendo and I stop writing every so often to tell them to turn down the sound on the games. And now the phone is ringing.
  What started the idea to write this was the girls got out cereal and again didn't close up the boxes. Teri goes into the cabinet and don't you just know it the cereal, which is balanced on top of two cans of condensed soup falls and turns over spilling out it contents all over the box of oatmeal, I should be eating, the jars of sauce and other assorted groceries. Teri yells, and who wouldn't, she asks them who didn't close the cereal box ? Of course no one left it open and it was my sister who was the last one to use it. Both are told to clean up this mess and how many times has your father told you to close the cereal box up? It's nice to know someone does listen to what I say. No the girls and my wife only listens when it can be used against me.
  So life goes on in this strange world we have created and for the life of me I never could of imagined.
  I've thought alot about the last few years and written about a lot of it. Some memories; The day we left for Moscow was warm and sunny. It was I think a Saturday and the car service driver had the Yankee game on. I was a little tired,but happy. I slept sort of on the way to the airport, the driver had bottles of water for us to drink, a nice touch.
  At the airport we get on line for the Russian airliner and I hear someone speaking Russian, it hits me that we are going to a place that doesn't speak English, I am still calm, I don't know why. Maybe it's the big adventure of it all.
  We get on the plane, it takes off and the TV have airplanes on a map of North America showing us where we are. Then the movies come on. I remember wanting to see Ireland and England and Germany and the rest of Europe as we passed over it and being disappointed because it was all covered with clouds.
  The day has become night and the night passes quickly, we fly towards the sun.
  We land in Moscow and our first flicker of doubt appears. We are the last ones off the plane and the last ones through customs. We stop and use the rest room and finally find our driver. He puts on what might be a soft rock station. Some is in English, some is in Russian. The car is Japanese, but is right side drive. some cars in Russia are left some are right side. We head out of town and arrive at a villa sort of place surrounded by houses, it seemed odd. We order a meal and go to bed in Russia, amazing.
  The next day we take off and after several cloud filled hours later we land in the far east of Russia, Harabosk.
  My wife has politely informed me that the day is wasting and my chores will not do themselves. So I'll finish later.

Summer Bridge of Hope Party

We attended our third Bridge of Hope party. Every year the same wonderful people open up their home to a bunch of people and their kids and make you feel very welcome. This year the weather was very warm and we reconnected with a bunch of people who have gone on the same adventure as us, some were crazy enough to do it twice. I am still amazed that I did it once.


We met Howard and Marty in the parking lot and their son Vanya. They were in the same group as we were and they went over in the winter and early spring, when we didn’t get there until late summer. I’d still rather be in Birobidzan in summer after seeing their pictures. Snow and cold vs. ravenous mosquitoes, I’ll take the mosquitoes.
  We also saw Fran and CJ, with their sons. Sat and talked to both and made plans to get together, now the trick is to get the time to do it.

I was surprised when a couple of people commented about my blog. I thought I was down to one loyal reader, Elaine. I will try to post a little more often, life does get in the way sometimes and you know.

Some people asked me how we are doing with the girls and for some reason I dug a little deeper into just how we are doing. Like any family we have our good days and then we have the days were you are screaming at the girls and you feel that you are lost and you are the worst parent in the world and it was a big mistake and the girls would have been better off with someone else and how different life would be and how smug I could of remained in my opinions about the right way to raise children. I have gotten an answer to that age old question that I’ve asked “Why do parents let their children do that?” And the answer is we’re just too damn tired to stop them for the forty-seventh time and if it doesn’t kill them maybe this time it can be over looked.

Yesterday, I saw a mom talked to her two children and the kids were no responding, at all. I saw another quietly yelling at her son (I know, you can’t quietly yell at someone, unless you’re a parent.) who was told to leave the chair alone and continued to move it anyway. I’ve been there and done that. I sorry, but it was nice to see I’m not the only one who has these problems with their kids.

I talked to a women whose daughter has some rather large issues and she was very open about it. I don’t have issues like hers and I thank god so far my wife and I don’t. Raising two kids, I knew was going to be expensive, but I didn’t expect it to be this expensive and the demands from our respective jobs increased and a lot of our supports disappear due to the same demands. I think my biggest disappointment is the lack of time we have to spend with the girls. You would like to arrange play dates with other kids and it can’t be during the week, because you are working and on the weekend they are doing something with their family and can’t.

On a lighter note, Howard comes up to me and says he was up at the snack table when Nastia comes up and picks up a cupcake. A woman says to her in Russia something and a girl next to her says she said there is paper on the cupcake. Nastia says I know I’ve been here two years.

An explanation on the opening inside joke from the last posting. We have very gassy girls. On the way home last night Nastia says to Elena, I’ve got gas so bad, I am going fart on you and your grandchild will smell.



We did get some information about Elena having a half sister. She is in Chicago with a host family who are trying to see if they can handle her and adopt her.

Waiting for the summer

    At the end of our last chapter, we left Nastia hanging from the cliff while Elena was facing down Dr. Death in an effort to get the medicine to cure an out break of excess flatulence.
   I wrote that line on May 30th 2011 and Iv'e laughed so long at how funny it is that it is now July 8th 2011.
 The girls have finished school for the year and are in camp somewhere deep in the heart of Elmwood park. So if anyone one would like to go and pick them up one day all you have to say is "I'm Aunt or Uncle So" and so and they are yours for the taking. Just remember finders keepers.
  Memorial day I suffered a severe case of C.R.S. (for all of you uninformed that's Can't remember sh*t) yea no little kid will figure that one out. Well we had a barbecue, one of those last minute things that Muller's are famous for at my mothers house. Cory and Ryan were not there and we didn't play wiffle ball for the first time in years. I'm not saying there is a connection, because Billy and Dennis weren't there either.
  Time flew very fast and it was suddenly it was the end of the school year and Nastia was graduating elementary school. It seems like it was only a few years ago that I dropped this non-English speaking little girl off with her sister and hoped they would survive until the end of the day.
   July 4th we barbecued in the backyard and walked down to the new park at the lake to get a close up look at the fireworks.Come to think of it, it was the twenty-sixth or seventh the week before and we spent the afternoon at the fire department's carnival. The girls went on several rides and met some friends and walked off without telling anyone and got yelled at so everyone had fun.
   Now it's just camp, dinner, fall asleep at the table or in front of the tv, get up go to bed and wake up and do it all again. Should anyone be allowed to have this much fun and not be arrested?!
  There will be more soon, again I'm laughing at  how funny that opening line is....

The Winter is almost over

It 's been sometime  since I've written and very little has happened. Well very little if you exclude the girls going to their first New Years and staying up until two in the morning then telling me they were going to watch the sun come up from the back bedroom and almost as quickly as I said ok as long as you are in bed they were asleep.
   We had my birthday dinner at El Bandido and I promised the girls five dollars each if they did not say it was my birthday. Nastia said ok, Elena said twenty dollars. after I quit laughing we settled on six. They didn't collect on the promise. Five minutes after we sat down the traveling band is singing happy birthday to me.
   And yesterday Teri brings the girls ice skating while I stayed home to make dinner. I get a call about five telling me they are heading to the emergency room Nastia fell on her wrist and is crying saying it hurts.
  I am very sorry about what I am about to write. I have fallen, tripped, and whatever else and never gone to the emergency room to have it looked at. I twisted my ankle so badly that I couldn't walk on it yet I still went to school. Yea, and right about now your telling me stories about how I most of had to walk to school five miles in blizzards three feet high up hill both ways. Well in my school we used to joke that the superintendent used to look out his window before he'd call off school, the catch was he was wintering in Florida at the time.
   Well surprise, surprise Nastia comes home with a honkin big cast on her arm and is told to see a doctor next week to put a hard cast on it. Again I'm sure it hurts and I'm sure there is a fracture, but when I was growing up... I know, shut up. This is a Laudiero thing and the only advantage I can see in going to the emergency room all the time like Teri does is her family happens to out live my family on average. Not really a significant thing (yea, I know, I'm making a joke and Teri doesn't find any humor in it) .
   The girls have also gone sleigh riding over in Orangeburg a couple of times and they did real well on their snow boards for the few times they tried them.
   The girls want to learn karate and we are trying to find a place that is close and has lessons that are at a time we can get them there. With both of us working it is difficult and we don't have many options. We will find someplace to take them and we will also get them to try out for the jr high swim team if there is such a thing.

Christmas Fables

As we all know parents lie. And yes we all know salesmen lie. Being both I’m just better at it, my wife may disagree, but I think I’m pretty good at it. Not that I am really proud about it, it is just a fact of my life. Sometimes I can put it to good use.


Last week I was telling the girls a story about when I was a little kid I had wanted to sneak out of my bed and hide behind the biggest chair in the living room and see Santa Claus leave present. That is the truth. The girls thought that was a wonderful idea and wanted to do it this year. I told them they couldn’t and I had once met Santa Claus, somehow the following story came out, sort of remember I’m a salesman and a father.

A few years ago while we were still in the house in Nyack on Christmas Eve it was late and I was in the recliner falling asleep, you know the one that is now in the bed room upstairs. Your mother had said to come to bed, it’s late. I said I would come to bed in just a minute. I fell back to sleep. I hear a rustling of material against material and think it’s your mother coming out to get me to bed. I open an eye half way and see someone bending over the still lit Christmas tree humming quietly to them self and old song that I had remembered hearing on an old Christmas movie. I turn on my side and the song stops and I start to drift back to sleep when a deep voice chuckles. I slowly open my eye again and this time a bearded face is turned towards me. His white beard hangs down and just touches his red coat. His face is creased and his cheeks are red, his smile never leaves his face as he puts a single finger to his lips and quietly says sleep, it’s the lord’s birthday. My eyes close and I go back to sleep. I wake up the next morning having forgotten the story until just now.

The above story is the way it only happens in fairy tales and the movies. The real way I told it was we were living in Nyack several years ago, it was Christmas Eve and I had fallen asleep in the brown chair in the living room. I was awakened by a sound and I looked up to see Santa Claus putting presents under our tree. He put a single finger to his lips telling me to be quiet and he went about his business as I feel back asleep.

The girls got a big kick out of the fact that I have met Santa Claus.

Thanksgiving, twelve birthday candles on her cake and putting up the christmas tree.

2010 is the first year that we had Thanksgiving over our house. Teri insisted on it. I had my doubts on the idea mainly because we had never been able to cook a turkey and have it cooked on the inside and the outside. This year I guess god was cutting use a break because the Turkey came out very good. It was browned on the outside and cooked and moist on the inside. We had planned on a two pm dinner which in Muller time is three, three-thirty, so we were right on time.


Teri’s family came over for dinner and the girls and I and Tony went over to Eric’s after dinner to socialize with my family. It is a shame that I get to see less and less of them as time gets shorter and shorter. Life becomes more and more filled with have tos and got tos and I feel everything that matters gets lost or wrapped up in the doing and after it is over has lost the impact on me or my family that it was intended to. We do too much of what is expected and far less of what we need to do. And if you don’t understand that it’s ok, neither do I.

Nastia’s birthday was on Friday and she did a count-down for the last week or so saying there is only three days, two days… until my birthday. Then she would give that smile.

Well the four of us went out to dinner on Friday; I got out of work early. And we went to the hard wok, the Chinese buffet, that has crab legs that Nastia loves and she feasted on them.

Saturday, we had Tacos and invited all the rest of the family over and to my surprise everyone came. Thank you all for coming. Ruth didn’t come because she was in Florida and had a note from her doctor.

Today we set up the Christmas tree. After about four days of when are we going to put up the Christmas tree and how come not tonight? Teri and I finally decided to put it up. It was raining and there were blizzards in Buffalo (3’ to 4’ in 24hrs) and the roof of the metrodome in Minnesota fell in (it had 17” of snow on it again in 24hrs) so it was a good idea to stay inside and put up the tree.

We have a fake tree that we bought several years ago while still in the Nyack house. It is fake, but it is low maintance and familiar, so even though Teri said when we originally got it we would go back and forth between real and fake, I haven’t. Putting up the tree is a little involved. The main trunk is divided into three pieces and fits nicely together. The top piece has the upper third of the branches and is a pain to straighten it out each year, but putting it together is a breeze. The lower two-thirds have branches with letters on them, some of them. Over the years the branches began to unravel and I tried to tape them and on some the letters are missing or unreadable. There is also letters missing between the groups, so it is a little confusing. Each group has five or six branches that need to have the individual branches straightened. Then the branch is put in its proper place. Some years I have spent two days putting this damn tree together. Today it only took a couple of hours, not too bad. Then the lights went on. Usually on day three I would be putting on the lights and on the forth the ornaments would go on.

I have been collecting ornaments for my Christmas tree since just after my dad died and I moved out of my mother’s house( yea, I moved out late. I just didn’t know what I was missing.) so I have a nice little collection of ornaments some I got from my mother and are real old, one silver one is from when my dad was a kid in the thirties or there about. Others are one I remember from when I was a child and even though they are really junky I have begun to cherish them more and more with each passing year. And yes the girls have no idea how much I cherish them and how it kills me when they are miss treated and occasionally broken. So the ornaments are bought down and they both go tearing into them and the bubble wrap that has been protecting some for twenty years is threatened with being popped and the clear plastic that holds the ornaments in place is left out and in danger of being crushed beyond use. Do I lack Christmas spirit when I tell them to be careful and to not pop the bubble wrap and to be careful with the ornaments? I must admit from their view point it must seem strange, I can see it in their eyes, it’s only pieces of paper or bubble wrap, why can’t I pop the bubble wrap, you can get more. I guess I don’t say enough to them to make them understand the importance of these things. I stay silent until it gets me angry and I go off on them and they are left wondering what type of jerk their father is.

Well Christmas is a little less than two weeks away and I hope you all have gotten your Christmas shopping done, because I still need to get finished and I don’t want you getting in my way. Merry Christmas.
   Lastly w

Lastly we had the annual Cookie house decorating Saturday. Again Ruth was the only family to miss out on it this year. She was in Florida and yes she had a doctor’s note. About twenty-two people showed up and it was a crowded good time for all. The kids are getting a little older and it is a little tougher to send them outside so the adults can do their own thing, but they also don’t need supervision either as much.

Happy Halloween it's the lions again

I’m writing this two weeks after the fact so you will have to excuse me if I don’t remember a lot of things that happened and begin to make things up to fill in the blanks.

Camp Halloween 2010

The girl this summer went to camp and had a Halloween day where they went as devils. They loved the costumes and wanted to use the costumes in October. Well they could not find them for the school parade and went as lions.

On Halloween their costumers were found buried on the floor of the closet. My isn’t that a surprise.

The plan for this year was all different from last year. Last year we got together with everyone else and the girls went out with Billy, Dennis, Cory and Ryan. This year we were going to go to a haunted house in upper Nyack, then trick or treat on Broadway.

I had decided to make Cajun meatloaf for dinner during the week and to make fajitas for dinner that night. I started on the meatloaf at three-thirty and figured I had enough time to make both. I did but we were still an hour late, because I didn’t leave enough time to make both. Meaning there wasn’t enough time but I still make them and we ate dinner before we left.

We got down to Nyack and the Haunted house fifteen minutes after it had closed. Not a good start to the night for me. We then joined the flow of people on the street and went to several houses.

Trick or treating in Upper Nyack is like I think I remember it being as a kid. Thousands of kids out on the street and it's safe and fun.


Yea, Lions again at the Halloween parade.


Elena did almost get hit by a car. I walked between two cars and was in the process of telling the two of them to wait when Elena decides I was going to say run real fast and she darts out into the road. What saved her was the driver was going very slow and maybe my yelling stop at her. If she had hit the car she would have glanced off the passenger side door and should have been ok. Luckily we did not have to find out. She stopped in time and I then reached her and pulled her into my arms for safe keeping. Some people thought I pulled her out from near the car. I didn’t, I wasn’t close enough. It was scary. She will forget the incident as soon as she feels the need to rush out into traffic without looking.

The night ended early for them and late for us. They both got too little candy (them) and it is still early. And they had enough candy (Us) and it is getting late. It is another memorable Halloween. I just wish I could remember what they went as. When I add the pictures I’ll remember. It sucks getting old. The only thing good about it is you can raid their candy after they have gone to sleep.

One last beach picture before we go into Winter.