A Thursday visit to NYC to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

For Teri's birthday, the girls and I gave her four tickets to Harry Potter and the cursed child. Back in February, Gabby at work told me Broadway was celebrating Broadway week for the month of February and she was going to see a play, I don't remember the name. She comes back the next day saying she had a great time. It reminded me how much I love Broadway. I used to go quite often. I hadn't bought tickets for a show for many years. THe last two shows I've seen, The book of Mormon and Jersey Boys, Teri bought. I purchased the tickets and thought March 3rd, a Thursday is a good night to go. After a few days, I decided to change the date of the tickets when I discovered that the tickets for April are ten dollars cheaper and I could give them to Teri for her birthday.

On Monday, the weather for Thursday is not looking very good. It is supposed to start raining on Wednesday,and rain on and off for the next two days. Wednesday, the rain clears late in the day, but comes back over night. Thursday morning is overcast, but dry, at least until about midday. The Yankees home opener has been canceled even before Thursday has dawned, but I remained hopeful. Teri has a doctor's appointment which would bring her home about four. I am getting out of work early and would be home by four. The girls have both taken the day off from work. Nastia has school and her boyfriend will drop her home around three.

The Curtain goes up at seven at the Lyric theater, plus we are a little short of money, so we will eat at home. Everyone is warned to eat at home. The girls and I have hot dogs, a sign of spring for me, and Teri has soup. we are ready to leave a few minutes after five. I'm thinking we'll end up standing in front of the theater for forty minutes waiting for it to open and someone will have to go. I'm determined it won't be me so I have stopped drinking anything as of three.

On a good day, you know March of 2020, high COVID you can get to the city in twenty minutes. I've gone to the city in an hour, hell, I used to be a salesman and occationally I worked in the city. I haven't been in the city much in the last eight years. Before this it was Christmas 2019, maybe when we went to see the tree. The weatherman's (or is it person in these thin skinned days) prediction for rain is, as the British would say, spot on. It's not cats and dogs, that will come later, but it is coming down. I have been married to Teri for twenty-seven years. When we talked about going to Hawaii for our twenty-fifth it seemed far away. Now it's in the past. In all of those years I've learned several things important about Teri. First and formost she is an awful passenger. I would rather let her drive if I could. II enjoy driving and I enjoy driving most of the time in the city. With all of that in mind, oh, yes Teri doesn't enjoy driving in the city or in the rain. The short of it is I'm driving, Teri is not, it's raining and she is not going to enjoy the trip, but I'll try.

I pull out driving Elena's car. She has a nice car, a Honda CRV. We are using it because there might be an extra charge for SUV's parked in garages. The gas tank is full and I'm taking it slow. The rain patters against the windshield, I'm a little tense, but life is good and we are on an adventure. I make a needless turn onto New Lake road in Valley Cottage because Teri doesn't like that hill on Storms road. I take Rt 303 all the way down into Orangeburg, then the on ramp for the Palisades, I'm driving the prefered route that Teri likes. We first hit traffic at the toll booths for the George Washington Bridge. All of us are a little shocked at the sixteen dollar price for the bridge. We inch our way toward the bridge. Traffic breaks a little on the bridge and we make a little time crossing. We have an hour to get to West forty-third. We'll park on forty-forth and walk around the block.

The West side is slow, but it moves. Rain continues to fall. I wait to make a left until I hit the forty-forth street exit. I remember when they were taking down the elevated expressway back in the 70-80's and what a mess it was. I'm driving into the city remembering it when Mike Bloomberg ran it. The last eight years and COVID have changed it. It feels like the 80's. Garbage piled on the sidewalks, cars blocking cross streets. I tell Teri this, she thinks I'm over reacting, I don't, it's not the same city. We get stuck at Tenth Avenue as car going down town will not leave an opening for the cross street (Where are the Police to keep it open??) I make a frustated turn to the right, the first rash decision and the first time Teri has seen my city driving. I dial it back down looking for a left to make to get back on course. A few streets late we are south of where we want to be and running out of time. I make a right onto fortieth street and we locate a parking garage. We are a few blocks south of the theater, it's in walking distance. Rain is light, but bearable

We arrive at the theater with fifteen minutes to spare, the rain has stopped. Well in time, I think. I forget about the COVID protocols the theater district is still using. We arrive at the theater looking at the head of the line. We start walking and wewalk and we walk. As we are waking I remember I read that the Lyric theater was build in something like 1904 and seats about 1600 people. I think 1550 people must already be in line. It does move pretty quickly. They have been praticing this seven days a week for a while. Vaccine card, license. bag check and finally ticket check.

Inside the theater, it is beautiful. We walk past the bar and the refreshment stand. The voice of Julie Andrews in in the backround telling us we only have two minutes until curtain. I hate being late for the curtain. A quick bathroom stop and we make our seats. We are two seats off the isle and twenty-two rows back. THey are good seats, but not great seats. Great seats would have cost alot more. I'm just happy to be here on this wet Thursday evening at seven O'clock. The curtain goes up. When there is a lul in the action on the stage people are let in to take their seats. Some are quit, other are noisy like the people of to the right of us, in front. Have a little respect people!!

The play used to run over two nights. Post COVID it as been shrunk down to one night, three and a half hours. The story is about the possibility that Voldamore had a child and the lives of Harry, Ron, Herminie and Ginny and their kids twenty years after the defeat of Voldamort. I can see what used to make up the first night of the play.It is the first years Albus and his friend spent at Hogworts. It is quickly high lighted and we are moved on to the second night quickly. It seems people are starting to believe Voldamort had a child and some believe Draco Malfoy who had trouble having a child used a time turner to go back in time and did something, maybe Voldamort is the father. Harry and his youngest son don't understand each other and Albus has made friends with Draco's son whos is as lost as Albus.

As much as I don't approve of JK Rawlings any more, she is still a very good writer. The stage craft where charactors go back in time and it looks like the whole stage vibrates and a sound wave makes the scenary move are amazing. I'd really like to know how they do it. At intermission one of the girls ask, "Is that it?" I say "no, it's just half time" Teri goes toward the bathroom. Nastia grabs my shirt at the arm and guides me toward where the bar and concessions are. Elena follows behind. They are both hungry. I warn them the concessions are going to be expensive. I point out the bar and get a no and then I point to the refreshment area. The three of us get on a short line and they are introduced to $12.00 popcorn and $6.00 bottles of water. Now neither of these items are huge. The water is maybe twelve ounces and th epopcorn is maybe a liter. But they are hungry. I pass, I don't want to spend the money. I head toward the rest rooms after guiding the girls back to the seats. I have to remember their only other time at the theater was the Lion King and that has to be ten years ago and I'm sure they don't remember it. I head toward the men's room with Julie Andrews in the backround telling everyone four minutes until curtin. I see Teri on line. She waves and asks if I can get her a water. I make a u turn and head toward the concession stand again. It was a quick trip and I'll also get her a white wine at teh bar I have so much time. Back at the concession stand, the line is long and slow and Julie Andrews is saying two minutes until curtain. People paying the cashiers are slow and not organized. I change plans and pick up a popcorn and a water for Teri, not wine. I'm at the cashier, Julie Andrews is telling me to hurry the F@$k up, it's almost curtain. I'm orgainized it takes only seconds and I'm off to my seat. I met Teri on my way to the seats. We disturbe the two people in the isle seats and are seated. Julie Andrews is saying it is about time, the curtain is going up.

In the dark past when I used to go to the theater alot, I'd enjoy walking down to the front of the theater to see the stage up close. This time I didn't get the chance. Curtain rises and the play continues. I look over at Elena and Nastia, both are glued to the stage and are really enjoying the play. I hope this starts something and they go to Broadway in the future. I also hope they can afford it. I forgot to say when looking for tickets I checked out the Musicman with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, tickets were $700.00 a seat mid orchestra. Tickets for tonight are lower and further back, but are still $240.00 a seat.

Like any wonderful night the show has to end. It is a great show and I start to stand up to clap. I hear Nastia say me should leave now. I'm a little pissed that she doesn't want to show the cast some apprication, but I've also forgotten this is their first time at a play in ten years and don't know better. I struggle to stand up. My bad knee and seats designed for small people make it difficult. I clap as each group of cast members appear on the stage and bow. A single cast member appears on stage asking for donations to the Broadway cares. Elena is asking something and I can't hear. I tell her to shut up. I regret it as some as I say it and tell her I'm sorry. I feel real bad and don't want to ruin this night. It's about 10:45, Teri want to hit the rest rooms once more and I'm following with Nastia and Elena when Nastia realizes she has lost her boyfriends Atlanta Falcons hat. It's no big loss, it's still teh wrong team on the hat, but we go back for it. I tell Elena towait for her mom. Back at the seats there is no hat. Nastia gets down on hands and knees, still no hat. We leave the empty theater going to find lost and found when we hear someone talking about losing something and do they have it. We head to the small group and the hat is recovered.

We find each other at the stairs for the restrooms, work our way out the doors into the weather. It is raining again or is it still at this point. It's not too bad. We stop to take a few pictures and we head off in the direction of the parking garage. I'm in the lead. I pride myself on my sense of direction, it is usually very good. We arrived at the theater for a certain direction and are leaving in that direction, everything is good, but the stores don't look familar. We walk through Time Square and I remember it in the backround when we parked, so it should be good. I stop and ask for a picturewith the Hard Rock Cafe in teh backround. The rain is not bad and everyone complies. The rain starts to get harder and I'm having more doubt we are heading in the right direction. I start to get flash backs to when Teri and I went to Philadelphia for the day and spent a couple of hours getting to our car bacause I walked us in the wrong direction. I stop and check the ticket for the parking garage. I put the address into my phone and I realize we are heading in the slight wrong direction. The rain is getting heavier. We continu on, it rains even heavier, it finally reached cats and dogs heavy. We stop under a large portico and get out of the rain. Teri asks if we are heading in the right direction. I tell her yes. It's Nastia and I in the lead, Elena and Teri bring up the rear. We are soaked, so even if God is throwing buckets of water at us now we are going onward. We turn onto 40th and the end of our journey is in sight. Nastia and I have gotten ahead of Teri and Elena. I'm so focused on the garage that I am even out pacing Nastia. I don't care. I want to get to the car and pay for it so when everyone arrives the wait is short, or so I tell myself. I pay for the car. Nastia turns the corner into the garage. We wait for the guy to get our car. A few moments later Teri and Elena arrive. It is still pouring. We wait in an empty garage for our car. I have fifteen dollars in my hand to give the guy. After a while I take a five away. We are still waiting. An Uber driver on a bike comes in and a guy gets on the car lift with him and goes up, we are still waiting. I'm considering taking the ten away and giving the five when the lift show up with our car. I hand him the ten and we get in.

There is always a comfort getting into your car when you've been out in the city. Tonight, even more so. I slowly drive to the garage door and flick on my wipers as we hit the rain. I make three right hand turns and head toward the Westside Highway. I have trouble seeing the white lines and I resist saying this is 1980's New York. On the Westside the rain is still hard and we splash through the occational puddle. Across the G.W. Bridge all is well. It's almost midnight. I decide to get off at the 303 exit on the Palisades. Rt 303 seems more direct to home. The rain has cloesed Rt, 303, back on the Palisades. Teri said it would be better to go to the thruway and this time I listen to her. Back at home it's 12:30, maybe later and I'm the last one getting into bed. It's been a night of memories that I hope everyone will remember for a lifetime. /

A Day together with the family.

It was not planned, it just happened. Nastia's last weekend before she goes back to Stop and Shop over the weekends and Elena, for some reason had Sunday off. She keeps saying they are cutting hours because business is slow. So here we are all four of us off together on a Sunday. Teri buys pizza dough Saturday to make pizza fret Sunday morning. Teri and I bring down one of her special bowls. I've talked about them before, some of them she got from her mother and are precious and others she bought becausee they look like the ones she has. We drop the pizza dough into the cold bowl and I put the bowl on the stove far from the heat lamp so she won't acuse me of cooking the dough. So she complains that the bowl is on the edge of the stove vent and will fall over and break. Can't win sometimes. She takes the bowl and puts it off to the side of the heat lamp on the shelf over the stove. Later I notice it is not rising, so I move it closer to the light. By 11 that night it has risen beautifuly and I turn the light out. The next morning I take out the cast iron frying pan to make pizza fret. I've said it dozens of time, but I'll say it again. I love cast iron, there is something about it that I can connect to, something about the past, something about how once you get it seasoned, I don't know, I just love it. And I'm sure Teri and the girls just see some very heavy pans that daddy loves. I set up pizza fret and I use the cast iron. I know Teri likes to use the non stick 14 inch pan, but it is more like a gonna stick pan and it is on the list of things to be replaced. I hope I'm not on that list, well I know I'm not on my list, gotta check Teri's list. Sorry, thinking outloud. Teri will comment later that the pizza fret don't taste like Dad's and maybe it was because of the cast iron. I take a tiny bit of the dough to see if the oil is hot when Teri walks in asking if I'm making a test pizza fret (she makes test meatballs all the time when we have spaghetti and meatballs, italian thing, I guess. I could go on and on about the culatural shock I went through when I'd grown up on my mother's meatballs and then started dating italian girls and all they went through or their mother's went through to make meatballs. My mother's were just beef, egg, bread crumbs and some spices. I know italian meatballs are just adding pork, but there is so much more to it than that.) I let Teri take over and stand back to watch and assist. I go up stairs and wake both girls up telling them their mother is making pizza fret and to come help, you know mother/ daughter bonding thing. Elena is not a morning person. Alot of that has to do with tha fact she stays up to all hours of the night. I go to her first. I tickle her ear. I get the slits of her eyes opening, I know I'm in trouble, so I make it quick. "your mom is making pizza fret, why don't you go help." She reply is not nasty, but it is also not friendly, "I have my alarm set for eleven." I figure, what the hell and go to wake up Nastia. Nastia said to me one day years ago that she decided to be a happy person and that is why she is like she is. And yes she is a happy person. I walk into her room tickle her ear, then her nose, her elbow, she is in the deepest of sleeps. I check to make sure she is breathing, she begins to stir, stretch and I get some eye balls from the opening eye lids. I tell her her mother is making pizza fret and she should come down and join in. I will go up a second time to wake them up and I think it is the third time I go to wake them up when it's all cooked and ready to eat that I am cold and a little pissed that they did not get up to join in. We all sit down to breakfast. It sounds to me that Elena is being very pissy and I'm not happy that it took three time to wake them up, so I keep quiet. I don't want to ruin breakfast. Later I'm asked why I'm quiet and I say Elena is being miss cranky pants and all three disagree. Then the three 'ladies' talk about the length of their most recent crap, I kid you not. I'm done eating thank god. They are not talking about how long it took but how long it was. Women can be disgusting sometimes. I'm sorry this is a subject I never felt the desire to talk about. Breakfast is done and clean up is quick. I clean the last of the oil out of the large cast iron pan and Nastia wants to clean it. I tell her it doesn't need to be washed too much if nothing is sticking to it. I still can't just rub it clean. I need to lightly soap and water it. Then it must be dried over a flame to make sure it is completely dry and will not rust. I carry the pan to the sink, Nastia washes it. I then carry it to the stove and turn on the flame. Now why doesn't she like this pan? I think because it weighs almost as much as she does. We have tickets for Morbius at the movies at 3:30, all five of us, yes Nancy is coming too. We don't see her so much now that she has moved into the condo. /

Teri's birthday at Maggiano's and a visit to Nyack Hospital

Saturday March 26th was Teri's birthday. A week earlier she had a stomach problem and she was not able to eat for most of the week. Back in January, I'd asked Nancy to get me the phone numbers of Kimmie and Katie. One Sunday in February, I saw Teri's phone unattended on the kitchen table. I knew her password, just like I know Nastia's and Elena's

passwords,hehe, he (that's just a little evil laugh, I don't look at their phones, check out their texts, look at their pictures...that they know of, really I don't...really!) I check where she phone turns on to so I can go back there. Are there any pages she has open (really I don't go on anyones phones.), quickly I move over to her phone book. In my other hand I have my camera on my phone ready. (No, really I've never done this before.) I need, Kimmie, Katie, and Sallyann's phone numbers. I go in alphabetical order so its quicker. I take several pictures of each number to make sure they are not blurry. I click the pages I visited closed and make sure they are not open in the tabs. I turn the phone over as I place it down so if she comes looking for it before it goes blank, she won't know I've touched it. (NO, really now, I've never done this before.)

I wait until later in the evenings to make most of my texts. Usually Teri is asleep on the couch while we watch TV. I check to make sure my phone is on silent. I glance over at Teri and start my first text. I'm nervous, you know because I've never done this before. I remember back in the olden days when I wanted to throw Teri a birthday party how Sallyann and Nancy told me it needed to be done early, so people could make sure they had the time free. So here it is late on a week day night, six or so weeks before Teri's birthday I start. I pick one person to start with, I think I picked Katie because her name was on top of the list. I text her inviting her to dinner on March 26th for Teri's birthday. I forget to invite Art. I will circle back to him later when I realize that and invite him. Teri is in a place in her life where she needs the important people in her life around her to spend time with. So I invite Kimmy, Katie and Art, Sallyann and Kenny, Sallyann asks if Katie can come. I ask her to wait because I don't know how large this is going to get. I'm fearing more people will want to invite kids. When no one asks, I tell Sallyann yes, Katie can come. At one point we are a party of twelve. Then Amanda says she can't come, then Art says he would rather not go and finally a few days before the 26th Sallyann says Katie is sick and she will most likely not make it.

The party is in doubt up until the last few days even without all of the cancelations. About ten days before her birthday Teri is having severe stomach pains. It gets so bad that on Wednesday she goes to City MD in Jersey. They tell her she has spikes in her EKG and needs to be rushed by ambulance to Pascack Valley Hospital. She says no, she'll drive to Nyack Hospital. They warn her not to. She calls me at home, it is a little after seven, I've just finished making dinner.She tells me what is going on and I meet her at Nyack hospital. At Nyack Hospital they run tests, give Teri an I V to rehydrate her, run an EKG and then we sit, or I sit and she lays down in the bed. I'm not very good at doing hospitals. And yes I know everyone is saying no one is good at doing hospitals, but the difference is I can't hide it. There were times that night I wondered what life would be without her if this all went the wrong direction. I know we all die at some point, but it can't be tonight, please. Teri several times asks me what is wrong or tells me I can go home, but I can't. I remember back to her gallbladder surgery and how unfeeling she felt I was because I had planned to go back to work as soon as her surgery was over. My excuse then was I'd never been in that position before and I didn't know how to do it. This time I tried to be better. A few days later at Teri's birthday party I will joke that the only thing worse then the pain she was in that night was me being there to offer support. No one laughed, I guess you had to be there. The tests start to come back and it is looking better. She is given Maylox and some pills. It seems to be a severe case of acid in the stomach. She is told to follow up with a couple of doctors about somethings and a little after two in the morning we are told we can go.

Now I'm sure you are wondering what happened to the girls? I told Nastia I was meeting her mother in Nyack for some tests. I was very vague. She did call around ten or so and I told her we were waiting for the tests to come back, which we were. I think Elena is called or texted that her mom was in Nyack and we would be home late and that satisified her. I definately wouldn't call them uncaring, but like me back when Teri had her gallbladder surgery, they didn't know how to act and we kept them in the dark about it so they wouldn't worry. At Teri's birthday dinner they were told what happened, so next time will be more difficult. That was Wednesday, about ten days before her dinner at Maggianno's. She still couldn't eatas of th eMonday before her birthday on Friday so I texted everyone letting them know what was going on and that I might have to cancel. As the days went by Teri got better very slowly. The Tuesday before her Saturday birthday dinner she was supposed to go out to dinner with the work people and doesn't. I'm thinking this is not good. Finally, I think on Thursday Teri says she wants to go to Maggianno's for her birthday. I send the word out it is on. Friday Sallyann texts me that her daughter is sick and most likely won't be able to go. She is really sorry and, well what can you do. The once overly big party of twelve has shrunk to seven. I call and lower the reservation to seven. Friday night at three minutes after twelve, I wish Teri happy birthday, She reply is, "Oh Fuck , yeah"

The day of her birthday she goes out to grocery shop and I make sure the girls and I are ready to leave at four. We have a reservation for five I am hoping to meet Kimmie and Katie there at the reservation desk before we sit. We are in the car at maybe ten minutes after four, well too early, but early makes Teri happy. I go into a short speech about how after knowing Teri thirty years as of this November I have learned a few things about being on time and being prepared. Along about that time Nastia asks me if I have her mom's birthday card, I don't. Everyone laughs. Teri allows me to drive to Maggianno's. Teri is not a good passenger and it is her birthday. So half jokingly I ask her how she wants me to go. She says, "Thruway" On the Thruway I get in the middle lane and I am pacing the car in front of me. I am not speeding, I'm going maybe sixty. The space in front of me is quite large. After a while she thinks I'm messing with her and in a laugh says for me to pick up the pace. In New Jersey I'm in the left lane making a left turn on to a two lane road. I make it wide figuring to get into the right lane and cut in front of someone making the left from the lane next to me. He is in the right, I am wrong. After a little while I joke that one of her presents was a relaxing ride to the restaurant and I guess I'll need to get her another present.

We early to the restaurant. Kimmie and Katie are not there. I go the the front desk and tell them who we are and that all of our party is not yet here and to take their time. We wait and wait. No Katie and Kimmie. We are told our table is ready. Teri see it is set for seven and we are five. Elena asks aren't we going to wait? I give her a look. The server comes over and asks if we want drinks as we wait for the rest of our party. I give up and confess to Teri Kimmie and Katie are coming. Sallyann sends her regrets, Katie is sick. A little while later I wave Kimmie and Katie over to the table. Teri gets to pick what food we are to eat tonight, we are doing family style. There is a limited variety of food that is shared by everyone. Teri with consultation from the rest of the group orders a salad, two appetizers, two pastas, two meats and two desserts. Oh, at the meats I'm told to order the two meats I choose Chicken Marsala and Chicken parm. Teri says we can have parm at home choose picatta, which was my second choice. Course after course come and we eat. Nastia eats alot of bread. I remind her what is coming and leave her alone. She will eat a pretty good meal. Teri eats like she hasn't eaten in several weeks and she doesn't feel sick from it. Nastia goes off to teh bathroom and after she comes back the staff at Maggianno's comes over and anounces it's someones birthday and the y sing to her. Teri and I usually don't like that, but other times what are you going to do. The world is good and the food is good. Then we are done eating. I pay the bill. Teri, Kimmie, Katie and Nancy talk. The italian side. The rest of us mostly sit and listen or go on our phones. After an hour and a half they do stop. And decide it's time to go home. We arrived at five, started to eat around five-thirty and it id now after nine. It was a really good night with most of the important people in Teri's life that she needed to be around and talk with.I think she is happy. She does thank me later, no not in that way, but that would of been nice too. /

Bike riding or not, Drinking and talking

Nastia invited me to go bike riding with her on Sunday. I've wanted to bike ride to exercise for a while now. A few years ago I want to get a bike, but never did. The weather on Sunday, a very late Winter day, felt almostlike a spring day. The temperature was warm and bike riding seemed like a good idea. Nastia and I go out and uncover the bike. It's been two years since anyone went bike riding. Hard to believe COVID has stolen two years from everyones life. Little things you didn't realize had been taken. Comfort, a bike ride on a warm late winter day. Too much has been lost. A few things have changed over the last two years and some have not. Alot of things are like riding a bike, you just get on and pedal, except I've never been this old before. We clean off the bikes, put air in the tires and I adjust the seat and hand tighten the loose brake pads on the bike. It's time to go riding. Nastia asks if Elena's bike will be big enough for me. Always over confident when riding a bike (you know just get on and pedal) I say of course. I sit on the seat, then a strange thing happens, I have to jam my foot onto the upper pedal. I'm thinking, ok, all I have to do is push down and get going and all will be fine, no I'm pushing with my bad knee and biking is

over. I tell Nastia I'm sorry and go inside. Nastia calls Elena to invite her biking when she gets home.Some how when Elena gets home she goes bike riding without Nastia. She then in the dark and cold decides to wash the two years of dust and grime off her bike. It's early, the first day of Spring and it is cold outside at this hour. Nastia decides to go to a comedy club in Nyack with her friend JJ. She asks Elena if she wants to join them after her automotive class is over. She agrees. I'm asked to drive them there. It's ok, I enjoy listening to them talk, or if there is no talking, just being with them. Nastia was introduced to Nyack by Amanda. Nyack isn't the sweet, comfortable downtown I remember back when Teri and I lived there. Alot of people have discovered the town and ruined it. Even more builders have discovered it and have changed it forever. I'm thinking of you building on the corner of Midland and Main. It shades the street like never before and it's too close to the road. I wonder how much the pay off was? Elena gets home around 8:30, class was shortened because the teacher was not feeling well. Even now everyone's first thought is still is it COVID? Nastia is at JJ's in New City off of New Hempstead Road. I pick them up and miss the Palisades entrance, so again we go the long way. It's almost nine by the time I drop them off. On the ride over, Nastia is all goofy acting and as they get out of the car I tell Elena to keep an eye on the wasted one. I thought I could smell it on her. She says she will. Nastia has class at ten and JJ work at 9:30 the next day. I offer to pick them up, I don't remember if there was an answer. I'm home before 9:30, but it's late, Teri's tired and before I know it I'm watching repeats of Better call Saul, while anticipating the last season of it in April. Around quarter to eleven or so I text Elena and Nastia asking them if they have any opions about leaving. Elena says she'll ask. It goes back and forth for a little while and it looks like I'll get Elena, the other two are staying. Then suddenly all three are leaving with me. It turns out that Nastia's boyfriend, who works the late shift, this night, I think can't pick them up. So I go pick them up. Nastia gets in and says, " You told Elena to look after me, The way she was drinking, I should have been looking after her." Elena doesn't argue, I let it go. There's talk among th egirls about the comedians, one good, two bad, they saw. How one guy described by Elena and Nastia as I homeless guy who goes around begging for money wanted to take Elena to a motel room and how she shut it down immediately. I drop Nastia and JJ off at JJ's house and Elena gets in the fron seat. I don't remember how it started, but alcohol loosens lips and Elena goes and opens the book of Elena wide. The open book lands on her relationship with Matt and how she has trouble being in a relationship with anyone for more then a year. She talks about hte ups and downs of the relationship. How they met in school, were friends, dated, then were friends and finally they were dating again up until recently. She goes on into some more detail about their relationship and I feel I can't write it down. There was not big eye opening secrets revealed. It's just that I was allowed to see into her private world. I feel a little special, even if it was drunk talk and if I write about it, I'd be doing something wrong. We back into the new driveway and she comments how she hates how muddy it is and I tell her I'd meant to widen it and get more stone last summer, but I was working on her bedroom. I promised I'd take care of it this summer. We get out of the car quietly trying to not disturb the dogs.It's quarter to twelve, past curfew and Teri is asleep. We go in the back door, closing it very quietly. We are walking through the kitchen toward the dining room and the stairs near the front door when first one dog, Athena barks then a second dog, Misha start to bark. Teri's awake and not to happy. They quit down Elena goes to bed, I go to shower. Everyone is safe and I'm at peace. They went out drinking and have arived somewhere where they are safe. /

Everybody has a hickey except me, should I feel left out?

Well it's really just Elena and Nastia who have them, but should I feel left out? Elena broke up with Matt a while ago and before I found out about it she she had gotten a new hair cut. It was short, dyed red and she had it standing up. I commented that I liked the way it looked. When Teri saw it she told Elena it was too short. Then a day or so later, maybe more I find out from Teri that Elena and Matt have broken up. Over the weekend all four of us were helping Nancy move into the new condo, new to her, not new to the planet, in

Valley Cottage, when I noticed three hickeys on her neck,Elena's, not Nancy's. I start making jokes about them. I also notice they are lighter in color then previous ones, hummm. That lends a little creedence to her statements that they are old, but they weren't there before. Being the juvenile I am I make all the appropriate jokes, you know all the ones you heard in middle school. She went fishing and caught a sucker fish, she was hammering nails and the hammer bounced back and got her on the neck. There's lots more, but there all last century jokes...oh wait, I just remembered an other one...she was vacuuming and slipped. I commented later in the day to Teri about the closed book of Elena and Teri makes a surprise comment that she

know nothing about what is going on in Nastia's life and to give her this. I was very taken back (I just looked up 'taken back' and the Grammer Book defines it as a corruption of taken aback meaning to be taken by surprise, The snarky (we've talked about that word) Urban Dictionary cautions that taken back is used by semieducated morons who mean to say taken aback. I'm sorry taken aback sounds pompous, you know irritatingly grand, looked that up too.) Wait, where we're we? Oh yes, I was taken aback. Did I really use that? Well, I never considered that Teri had the in with Elena, whatever that means and she didn't have a channel to Nastia.Nastia talks to me and tells me things and I never considered that Teri didn't know them or atleast most of them. Nastia, I noticed had a small hickey on her neck on Sunday. I pointed it out and was surprised to hear that her boyfriend's family, specifically his mother didn't like seeing them on Nastia because she was afraid of what we would think. I was taken aback, damn, will I be able to stop using that phrase now!! I really didn't think they gave a damn about what we thought. I was going to write somethings and I even started to when I thought better of it. I'm not there and I don't know his parents, hell, I don't even know him, so I'm stopping. /

Saturday morning, Nastia makes Pizza fret

I was trying to spell pizza fret when Google or maybe it was the spit of Teri's mother gave a spelling suggestion. I was intrigued so I copied and pasted (boy, I'm so computer literate) and actually found a recipe for it. As the women who posted it said, it is not a recipe, but more like directions on how to do it. I'm going to take a moment to write down how Teri wants all of her decendants to make pizza fret and then I'll tell you how Nastia and I make it. Firsta, you getta the pizza dough..yeah, I'm the only one who finds that funny. You putta...ok, I'll stop, but it is funny. The pizza dough is in the freezer section at the grocery. At home you put the dough in a large bowl, Teri uses a glass bowl she has from her mother. The dough come out of the bags and is put in the bowl. It is best if it has been defrosted first. A towel is put over the bowl and the bowl is placed in a warm spot in the kitchen. Now back in the dark ages, you know, the 60's all stoves had pilot lights. A pilot light is a small flame, in the oven that always burned, that helped to light the oven when you turned it on. It is about a quarter of an inch tall and yes a waste of gas, but it kept the stove warm enough that dough would raise if you put it in the stove. Modern stoves are cold and indifferent, while older stover are warm and inviting and make the kitchen a place to hang out in. yeah, that is a little over board. Old stoves, with pilot lights were good, but just like The Sopranos, they were good, but there time has passed. Now the trick is to find a warm place in the kitchen, away from drafts and any animals, thinking dogs here, not mice or coyotes, where the dough can rise, leave it over night. If it rises you punch it down in the morning and get things together to make the pizza fret. If it doesn't rise, well go get things together to make pizza fret. I like using the giant cast iron pan I got at a barn sale several years ago. I think I've told the story several times. The night before, remember you are supposed to take the dough out of the freezer to let it defrost. Since this is Nastia's deal we are letting her do it all. She'd wanted to take the dough out of the freezer earlier, but forgot.

It's like 9 PM and she remembers. I walk in doing something and she comments she forgot to take the dough out and it's still frozen solid so she's put it in warm water. I have my hands full of something so I tell her to immediately take it out of the water. She is in the process of doing that when Teri walks in and tells her the same thing. Teri gets involved helping her to dry off the dough. I think in all the commotion no one tells her why you can't put the dough in water. One of Teri's prized bowls, some are from her mother, some she found in a store and had to have, are taken carefully down and the bread raising bowl selected. It's just the one we always use to raise the dough. It's put on the rack over the stove. I put on the heat lamp, but Teri says it will cook the dough. Recently Teri and I had a rough 'talk' about how to make pork chops so I let it go. Dough needs warmth to rise. In February, in our house at night, in the kitchen with poor heat, it ain't gonna rise. The next morning, Teri isn't feeling well so Nastia, with my oversight makes pizza fret. I tell Nastia, her mother likes the big formerly non-stick pan (time for a new one), but I like the cast iron. I take the cast iron out and she pours some oil in it. It takes a few minutes to warm. Nastia checks the oil by flicking with her fingers some water into it. I pull some dough off and start to make pizza fret. I make the first and soon Nastia is doing it all.

I step back against the sink and watch her made pizza fret. At certain times Nasti's arms are just not long enough. She's always been sensative to pain. So she over reacts, in my opinion to bees and the possibility of getting stung, see her Ford Escape for details back two, three years ago. So when she has to put the dough in the hot oil her arms are not long enough and her sleeves are too short to cover her arms and hands even though she tries. I watch, take pictures but do not interfer. This is growing up. Cooking and accepting that sometimes the oil is going to get you. Teri comes in, feeling a little better, I guess and says, You're doing it all wrong, they're too thick. Nastia tells the truth saying, this is the way daddy told me to make them. Teri says, "americano" which translates into, all together, "AMERICAN!!" really, (tongue in cheek) what the hell is she?? But, also she is right, they are too thick. She and Nastia work together making the last half or so of the pizza fret, a nice mother daughter moment. They don't get along as well as they should. They remind me of my brother Karl and my dad how they'd fight all the time. But for now there is peace and it is nice. I wonder if they noticed? I woke Elena before we started making pizza fret, inviting her to join us. She politely declined and went back to sleep reminding me to wake her when breakfast is ready. Yeah, I know, but she is such a pleasant person when forced to get up early and it's about that time of the month. So put them together and let her roll over and go back to sleep so we'll all be happier. Teri yells from the bottom of the stairs and Elena comes down. She is in an extra snarky* mood and it is mostly directed toward her sister. Nastia reacts like any sister would to her little sister being mean. The four of us sit down at the table. A plate of pizza frets are surrounded by butter, cinnanon and sugar and a large selection of jellys and jams. Elena and I dig in first. Nastia is off making tea and Teri is just sitting down. We eat, talk, sometime look at our phones, until Teri gets mad and makes a snarky* comment. It's nice eating with everybody, even with all of the comments between Nastia and Elena, and occationally Teri. I eat mostly quietly, savoring the morning. snark*y- critical or mocking in an indirect or sarcastic way snarky remarks * bad tempered or irritable. Bobby's always a bit snarky before his nap. /

Elena and Matt break up??

Several days ago, maybe as many as ten days ago Elena says she and Matt are going to join a gym. Right down the street from her job is a Planet Fitness. In New City, near both of them is a Planet Fitness. Planet Fitness from what I hear is a cheap gym to join, unlike the gym, New York Sports club, I joined back in 2001 or so at the Palisade's Center that cost a hundred or so dollars a month. And you had to join for a year. I used it for a little over a year

and ended it after about eighteen months. The gym they choose to join is in Spring Valley and maybe all the future people who are reading this are asking, "whats wrong with that, Spring Valleys nice." Well Spring Valley has been going down hill for about the entirety of my life. It was the commerical capital of the county in the fifties. My mom and Dad went there when my brother and I were both born. It had everything. Then it started going down hill. I don't know what happened. It could have been the Nanuet Mall opening in 1969 or it could have been one of those things. It wasn't too bad in the 70's when I delivered milk there. And now I'm sorry to say it is not a place to go. But my daughter and Matt decided to join a gym there. I just looked up where it is and I am very familar with the area. I used to have several stops there when I was a

salesman for different milk companies. It's just off the corner of Rt 45 and Rt 59. It's not as bad as I was making it out to be so you can forget everything you just read. The bad parts of Spring Valley are more around, well lets just say I'd rather they don't go there at night. Well this long windy introduction brings me to the closed book of Elena. I'd really like to get to read a few pages of that book one day. I only get glimpse of words and phrases from it every so often. And recently I got a short phrase. Teri comes up to me and says that Elena and Matt have broken up. My reaction is a "Whatt??!!" She'd talked about having a dinosaur wedding when she marries him and he,...except for recently had been over every so often... but there were not fights that I'd heard or saw. Last time they had a fight she came home and went to bed. There was none of that. There was no saddness in her that is new. I felt like I'd missed something, maybe I'd not been looking close enough, I didn't know. In the days that follow I did look closer and I still saw nothing. We invited her to a movie that she would have found boring, but we did want her to be alone at home. She didn't go and when we got home she is fine. Then, I don't know maybe four or five days after they'd broken up Elena says she is heading for the gym. Ah, the

gym, I'd forgotten about the gym. Immediately I tell her she can't go alone. She in an off handed way says, "oh, Matt'll be there." The book of Elena opened for one brief fraction of a second, then slams shut. And all I can think of is...what???? /

My delayed Birthday Dinner, a week late.

I adore spending time with the girls. It's a rare thing these days and I understand that. I don't like it, but I understand it. There is just something that feels really great just being around them. So when it snowed last weekend and we didn't go to Monroe Outback I was disappointed. The storm predicted was

depending where you were anywhere from a few inches to two feet, coming up the coast. The stormt blew a little off the coast and we received about three inches. Long Island received about two feet. The worst part was the winds blowing the snow around, knocking down trees. Dinner was rescheaduled for this past weekend for about 5 PM. Nastia wanted to know what time we were going to be done so she could go see her boyfriend. I told her about 8. Her reply was, "that late?" We were on the road a little late. Teri and Nancy finished shopping a little late. THe reservation scheduled for five was pushed to 5:30. Leaving slowly, we pushed it to 6:00. Traffic on the Thruway is light and we sail stright up the Thruway. Now you might be asking why Monroe? There are plenty of steak houses in Rockland. Yes there are, but have you tried Monroe's Outback? It's steaks are the way steaks from Outback in Rockland used to be, buttery soft. You know like when you leave the butter on the counter soft. We tried an unknown steak place for Elena's birthday a few years ago, COVID year 1, I believe and it was poor. It is cold in January and this was a little bit extra of a January early evening, in other words it was colder then normal. The walk is mercifully short. We pass the outdoor dining area that was full last time we were here, the brown tables and chairs stacked and waiting for warmer weather.Inside it is warm and inviting and we are ushered to our table. After Nastia trying to sit on the outside. You can't because I'm left handed and I will elbow you all night, plus get in first please. It's my birthday dinner, so when the girls are chastized for eating to much bread, I tell Teri to let it go. It takes a little effort until she does. A long time ago Elena would eat bread and the appetizers and not be hungry when dinner came. I'd get angry and it solved nothing. So I can't say I don't care, but I don't say anything anymore. Beer,the one disappointment of the night. The taps are broken and I try a can of Foster's Lagar, I figure why not. We

order two appetizers, a Blooming Onion and cheese something or others. Salads come a little too quickly and the steaks follow shortly after. Again I used to complain, but Teri never liked me to. Even when I'd ask them to hold the steaks in a warm place for a few minutes, Teri would feel we shouldn't do it. I finish my salad and start on the reason I came here, my steak. It's done well and the Foster

Lagar beer id good. Everyone enjoys their food and near the end of dinner I go off to the bathroom. When I return there is a guy hanging out at our table. I think I know him ,but you know how it is when your not sure if you know someone how you act a little warily and standoffish.He has a bushy beard and dark hair. He is talking to Nastia. He mentions it was his mother's birthday last week. I tell him it was mine also. I slide into the bench seat so Nastia can sit next to him. He starts talking about his writing, I think it's a scifi comic or something like that. He goes into great detail about what it is about. I really hope he goes forward with it. He has obviously put a great amount of time and thought into it. I start to get bored and the meal is paid for so I say well, I guess it's time to get going. We all get up, so I guess I wasn't the only one. He walks out to the car with Nastia. He's parked right next to our car. We all get into the car and Teri leaves. I might have been the first one to say it, but it to me is painfully obvious. This kid, I think his name is Andrew, is in love with Nastia. She's been told this before and when she hangs out with him to be careful and considerate of his feeling. Nastia questions this, but to Teri and I he has a big time crush on her. And she has no interest in him.She says they are just friends. (being a guy, that always hurt when I heard that) Haven't we all been there before, done that before. I hope he finds someone who feel toward him the way he wants. Out of the parking lot we take a wrong turn and after a little while find ourselves back where we started, but heading in the right direction. We get home about 8:15 a little later then I told Nastia. She decides to not go out after dinner. /

Nastia trying to grow up

As we all remember back when we were teenagers or even worse twenty somethings, we thought we knew it all and the older generation was at the very least out of it. What 'it' was no one ever knew. Nastia under these circumstances trying to grow up and be responsable.Some days like the day she made dinner and cleaned up afterwards, it was a great relief not to have to come home and make dinner. I was able to sit down and relax. Then there are times like yesterday. I'm at work when I get a call for Nastia. She is walking into the house and she says something like this, "I want to ask you somethings..." she stops for a moment and continues, "oh, I didn't know mom was home, let me get past her." This conversation, at this point makes me feel special, she wants to talk to me. She goes upstairs into her room and continues, "I saw thia add on facebook for a baby sitter and I wat to call him." I think I haven't heard her correctly and ask her what she said, and she repeats it, "I saw this ad on facebook a guy needs a baby sitter for tonight and I want to do it." I ask her, "Do you know this guy?" Her response is, "no.", "Nastia" I go, ""you can't dp this, you don't know this guy, you don't know if you can trust him or even if he has kids or how old they are or even where this job is." I go on to debat this back and forth with her. She tells me I'm don't trust anybody and I tell her in todays world, I'm sorry, you can't there are too many bad people out there. I think I tell her to call Jeffrey Dommer and ask him about trust. I think her reply was he is dead or something like that and I say, "because he killed all of those girls that trusted him." She gets me so worked up that I am yelling at my phone to her while at work. I'm yelling, "You are five foot tall, one hundred pounds and I refuse to identify youre body in the morgue!" I realize later that the bosse's son is in his office. He doesn't saY anything to me, he never does, but it was not a good thing. Nastia and I continue talking. I talk in a more subdued voice and we keep going around in circles I know I've won, or at least it's over when she says can she ask her mother. I know Teri will not be as nice as I have been. Twenty minutes later I text Teri, asking "Having fun with Nastia?" She replys,"Why, I'm in a meeting, What's happened?" My reply, "She wants to babysit for someone who advertised off Facebook for a babysitter tonight"

She replys, and I could, no I did predict it, "No" " I told her to call Jeffrey Dommerto babysit for him." That was at 11:44 AM, Ten minutes later I get this from Teri, "I a as m fucking livid with this girl" My reply, compassionate, if unhelpful, "Me tooo!!!" Teri talks about it looking like it's in New Square, she is still really angry, "unfucking believable", " I told her to check with Brandon if he approves" I try to be a little more helpful with, "It's typical Nastia, Trust first, ask questions later." To my surprise Teri writes, "And of course Elena siding with her." "That's a surprise I thought she had common sense." I text back. The final entry from Teri, "She's thinking money." She quit her job at Stop and Shop a few weeks back and I told her she shouild have told them she was willing to work a day or two over the weekends. Nastia said, the weekends were for home work. I can still smell the bullshit from when she said that all those weeks ago. She is a lazy person and wanted the weekends off. Now she is paying for it. I'd like to find an uplifting way to end this post and the only thing I can think of is that at twenty-three when she is told she can't do something, I thank God that she did listen and didn't go off to babysit. Everytime an event like this happens I remember a scene for a TV show that went off the air several years ago called Life in Pieces. The scene happening has a group of kids pretending they have been kidnapped and they call their father. He hears what is happening and calls out to his wife, "Honey, you know that thing you said would probably never happen, I think it has." And thast is how I feel about all those bad things that happen to other people, they'll probably never happen to us. Two last thouights, one to other people we are those other people and why court disaster when it is not necessary. I'm sorry thast is as uplifting as I can get.

The Girls go to school and other fun stuff you do as careless twenty somethings

Nastia stopped going to college around a year, maybe two ago when classes at RCC classes went on line. She kept saying that she needed to be in the class room to learn. I can understand. I took a course on line to learn Microsoft Office years ago and I sat on a couch leaning over my computer on a coffee table. In a few minutes I'd be falling asleep. I had a year to finish the course, never was able to. So the end of January arrives and Nastia has jumped through all of the requisite hoops and put in all of her paperwork. It doesn't feel like it but according to the State of New York and SUNY,the State University of New York we made too much money. So Nastia will not get grants like she did the last time from ACCESS-VR. So some more hoops are jumped through and a loan is taken out for college. I am impressed, she did it all by herself. A week or so into school, Nastia announces her classes for the first two weeks are on line. She is not happy. On the morning of her first class on line, I'm sitting at the table in the dining room. Teri calls and says to get Nastia up early so she can get set up before class and be ready for it's start. I open the door to her room. Amanda has recently departed the room, but the affects or is it effects of her

presents in the room is still ominpresent (defination: widely or constanantly encountered common or widespread, "the omnipresent threat of natural disasters..)I had to put the defination right next to the word because the example is so descriptive of the affects (effects?) of Amanda. If Amanda was a hurricane, they'd retire the name because of how big the mess is. I don't think former boyfriends and her broke up, I think a pile of her clothes fell on them and they are buried underneath. I slide my feet between the beds in the half light of Nastia's room and tickle the edge of Nastia's nose. She rubs her nose and continues to sleep. I rub it again. This time she rubs it a little more violently. A third time and her eyes open as a groan escapes her lips. I tell her she needs to get up and set up the computer for her online class. She tells methere is three hours until class. I sy she can go back to bed after the computer is set up. She reluctantly throws off her covers, the 16 degree weather outside has slowed the warming of the house. Heavy steps for a hundred pound girl hit the stairs, that creak menacingly as she decends them, she is not happy to be up so early. Out comes her computer. I offer her my computer and or a larger screen.She says "no" The larger screen won't connect to her computer anyway. With little or no problem she connects to the zoom class set up and is ready for class. I'm happy and

relieved. Teri will be too when I text her. I tell Nastia she can go back to bed now. Elena has started her automotive class again. Her work at ShopRite has adjusted her hours to more towards mornings. And then they throw her some 1 in the afternoon to 9 at night. She really is enjoying her classes. For my birthday I was given new head lights for my car. She wants to bring my car to class and put them in. I'm all for it, it's still 16 degrees outside and my hands just don't work like they used to even in the best of times.(sucks turning 64, I'm sure it will get better as I get older, or at least I won't remember.) My Birthday 1/29/22 I was born at the end of January in 1958. I've never really liked my birthday, but that's a story for another time. My birthday is on a Saturday this year. We really haven't had too much winter yet this year. It's been cold, but very little snow. So when the weather forcaster calls for a major snow storm on my birthday, it's a go figure moment. Merriam-Webster defines 'go figure' as something surprising or hard to understand. Of course, I'm using it sarcastically. Things just seem to happen around my birthday, but that's a story for another time. A day before my birthday, Teri,Nasita and I order chinese food. That night Teri begins to feel sick to her

stomach. She spends the next three day at home feeling very poorly. People get sick around my birthday, but that's a story for an other time. On Saturday morning Teri had planned to make fried pizza dough. Yeah, it sounds real bad when you call it that, it's real good though and when you change it's name to pizzafret, it becomes exotic and historic, really an old

world thing. Spread some butter on a warm one add a little cinnamon and sugar and your set. Jelly is good too. Needless to say with the storm coming in on the 29th and Teri feeling sick, our planned birthday trip to the Outback in Monroe, which by the way has the very best steaks I've tasted in a long time is not going to happen. It's a trip, but well worth it. Teri says she'll make me up a lasagna, which I thought was really a good idea., but on Saturday, she really doesn't feel that good, so the girls and I make tacos together, which for me is the best treat I could have gotten on my birthday. It is a very rare day when I get to cook with the both of them and they stay for the entire time. There was no call me if you need me. Sunday Teri wants to make up for Saturday. No not that way, but it would have been nice. So she make the lasagna. I didn't know until we sat down for dinner that neither of the girls like lasagna. So I over ate by eating a six inch by one and a half inch piece of lasagna. The girls had lasagna noodles and meatballs. It was a really nice weekend. Oh and the snow storm is blown south of us. We got a lot of wind, but only about three inches. Long Island got two feet. /

New Years Eve, day and about a week or so into January and a COVID break through

I've forgotten most of the intimate details for the first week of January, but I'll make some stuff up that will be interesting then what happened during this latest CoVID Omacron surge.Teri and I declined an invitation to Eric and Lynn's for a small New Years Eve gathering (that's true). The latest incantation of Covid, Omacron has put most everyone back on their heals as far as comfort going out and about (that's also true). Of course the girls still go on as if life is all the same(yes, stil very true).

Nastia worked New Years day, so she was around New Years eve, but up in her room most likely taking to her boyfriend (yes, true). Elena, on the other hand saw the New Year in at her boyfriend's Matt's house. It was not a large gathering, maybe his mother was there(most likely true). Teri and I watched movies, slept some up until 11, then put on the news(sadly true). Nastia comes down sometime during the evening and at midnight I kissed Teri and she kissed me and Nastia, it's 2022. This year I did say 22 will be better then 21. I stopped saying it in 2019 when I thought 2018 wasn't better then 2017. Well I learned my leason about how bad things can get. But I must be positive. And I am positive, I know things will get worse, I'm positive about that, no, that is just a joke. I'm hoping that the worst is behind us as far as COVID is concerned. We have been very lucky and no one has gotten sderiously sick from it. Let's kind on hoping our luck continues. I always thought on New Years day we had a dinner of ham. I kept talking about having ham for dinner, but no one wanted to have anything special. Teri said and was right that we buy a large ham and the majority of it will be wasted. She did find a small ham in Costco we had it I believe the following weekend and it was excellent. Elena's New Year's eve was spent over Matt's and like usual she didn't offer up much about what she did there. She was told to be home by 1 in the morning and she was. It was a very boring COVID New Year's eve. Everyone I know as far as I know has had all of their shots and gotten their booster. I was reflecting the other day how fortunate we have all been. There was a time early in this pandemic when everytime you turned around someone was saying they had lost someone to COVID. My family and friends seemed to have been spared. In my immediate family Nastia and Elena working in grocery stores, looking back it is a mircle that neither of them contracted COVID. Late last week on maybe a Thursday Elena said she felt like she had a cold. Teri said to go get tested. I'd have told her to take cold medicine. She gets tested and there is a couple of days waiting peroid. She goes to work on Saturday and Sunday, She also goes to see Matt. Her result came back yesterday, Monday, she has COVID. So now she has to isolate for the next five days, it used to be ten. For her this is the ultimate vacation, do nothing, sleep as late as she wants and get served her meals at her door and even eat in her room. I'm sure she is wondering why she didn't get COVID before this. I wouldn't be this light hearted about it if she didn't have all of her shots and she most likely has Omicron which is highly contagious, but in most people who have their shots it's not at all that bad. I don't think she is even taking any medicine. /

December 26th

I'd promised to get Elena into her new room by Christmas. We seemed on schedule until I ran into a number of road blocks. The first and the worst were the fumes from the stain for the floor.

Earlier in the month Elena and I sanded, maybe even over sanded the floor to a smooth, clean, new wood looking surface.I choose a morning of an unusually warm December day to stain the floor. About 8 in the morning, just before I left to go visit my mom, and then go to work, I stained the floor. I opened the windows and put a fan in one.Starting from the furthest corner so I wouldn't'paint myself into a corner' I stained the floor. I'd cleaned out the spaces between the boards and realized that now, I'd have to stain thoses places. I was told by a very well informed lady in the Nanuet Home Depot what stain, varnish and brushes to use. She recommended using a lambs wool brush. It soaks up the paint and doesn't let it go until you touch it to the floor. I was able to soak the areas between the boards. Covering the floor with stain, I've come to really love the lambs wool pads. It took just a few moments to cover the floor. The final two foot by two foot area near the door and the heat vent ended up not getting covered. I'd run out of stain. Home Depot only had pint cans and Elena said to buy two. I didn't want extra unopened cans around after finishing the floor, so I only bought a pint. It said it'd cover the floor and then some, it didn't. So I left the area and closed the door. On the way home, I went to Home Depot and bought a second can of stain. That night, I closed the windows and immediately the fumes invaded the house. They started by overwhelming the kitchen, then the dinning room. The next morning when I put the second coat on the weather was still unusually warm. I opened all the windows and put two fans in the windows. That night I left the windows open and the fans on. The following evening the fumes were still too much and temperatures were going back to normal. The next morning, I stained the area I'd skipped and I restained other parts of the floor. I opened the window and left two fans going. The floor didn't look right so the next day I go and buy a third can and stained it for a third and final time the fans still going and the windows still open. After a few days, the floor seemed dry. I closed the windows and the fumes were still bad, At that point a decision was made to put off polyurethaning the floor until spring. THe day after Christmas, a Sunday Eric says he is available to get Lynn's mother, Tina's bedroom set out of her apartment and move it to Elena's room. I head over and we work together to get it out of the ground floor apartment in Nanuet.

Now the words, ground floor are important here. Eric has had a rough life. Car accidents, broken bones at work, all kinds of things that just seem to happened. So he doesn't get around like he used to. And me, even though I still act like I'm a kid, getting up out of chairs is an adventure, walking up stairs with my bad knee can seem like a crap shot. Of forget me trying to get up from my knees. In other words, the both of us have long passed our days of moving furniture, but we are going to move the bed set anyway. We put the box spring, and mattress in his trailer.A night stand and some odds and ends in his pick up truck. A very nice black truck. We try very hard not to scratch the furniture or the truck. A dresser mirror is placed gently on the mattress and strapped down. A short trip from Nanuet to Congers and a we're ready to start bringing it up the stone and cement front stairs, through the front door and then up the narrow stairs to the second floor.Flipping the mattress and box spring seperately over the railing and into her old room, the future former office. I walk backwards, because Eric can't. He takes the weight of the objects causing me to try and take some of that off him. He has a strain in his stomach, the doctor is going to look at in the near future. After it is done and Eric leaves he calls me to make sure I'm okay. I was, but I was concerned about him. Two old men should not do this crap. Like Danny Glover said in Lethal Weapon- "I'm getting to old for this shit."

Earlier in the day I'd unrolled a rug in Elena's room. I'd gotten for free at a come and take stuff from this house for free or we'll throw it out. I'd found a dead mouse in it, that I kicked aside and told no one about. I unroll it and except for some missing fringe, it is nice. Too small, but nice. I set up the bed, night stand, Elena later adds a mirror and she moves in a day late to an unfinished room. Now all I have to do is finish the room. /

Christmas 2021

These last few years I've whined about how the girls have replaced their believe in Santa Claus with a believe in sleeping late on Christmas mornings.

This Christmas they were true to form. Amanda got up at 6:15 to catch her 6:30 ride to Good Sam Hospital for work. Teri picked Nancy up sometime in the late morning. The girls were up before noon and when Amanda texted asking for ride it was suggested she ask her father who was joining us for dinner sometime around four. She was able to catch a ride from a friend.

Around two in the afternoon, when Amanda was back from work we opened presents. Mesha needed to be in the middle of everything and was in the way until she was let up on the couch in the front living room, between Teri and I. It was difficult to ge to the tree in the corner because of the excess of presents. Teri was concerned tht we were being cheap only giving the girls four presents each. Elena received a new Apple watch, her last one, the face falling off a few weeks earlier. Nastia received a new Apple watch for her birthday. After all presents were opened, a quick clean up and we all took our treasures to put them away.

When I was a kid, I'd store my new gifts under the tree until the tree was taken down two weeks later. It always seemed that was where they belonged. In the present there is just not enough room to do something like that even if Teri would allow the clutter. Dinner was prime rib and it was served around five, so it was Muller four PM light, or in other words we were eating early, Muller time runs about two hours later than real time. there were eight of us in this late COVID omicron environment surrounding our dinner table. Teri and I debated weither to add a second leaf in the table. Teri pointed out it'd make the room too small and space at the table would be fine, happy wife, happy life.

I carved the prime rib into thin medium slices. It cut like butter and tasted as sweet. Potatoes and asparagus accompanied the meat. I was again allowed to cook the asparagus. This time I cooked them closer to the time we were serving and I avoided having dried out and stringy asparagus. If it wasn't for the perfection of the meat, the asparagus would have been the best thing on the table. A little writer's hyperbole(exaggerations not meant to be taken seriously) there, but they were good.The eight of us gathered around the table were Teri, myself, Nastia, Elena, Nancy, Amanda, Donald and Matt. It was a nice gathering and the evening wound down rather quickly after dessert and Teri and I ended falling asleep in front of the TV. /

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas morning and Christmas Eve is already a blur. I had the day off. I could have gone into work, but they were closing two hours after I got there.

Nastia and Elena worked Christmas Eve. Nastia started when the store opened at six AM. Teri and I woke up to the click, click of Bandi's nails on the wood floor at 5:15. He is really old and I believe well along his trip to senility. On top of that he is mostly blind. He ronds out the trifecta by alsopeeing anywhere in the house that is absolutely convient. Captain Senile was well in charge of the bus this morning and trying to get Bandi down the stairs when all he wanted to do was make left turns down the hallway towards Nastia's room. And yes he did take the opportunity to randomly drop bombs in the brown paint of the dimly lit hallway. Misha for some reason didn't want to go down stairs either. Maybe she was concerned about Bandi. They have always had an odd relationship. I give up on Bandi, Teri's advise and amid mounting disorder as if the beginning of a poor comedy movie opening, I head downstairs. Finally Misha follows, but she is not following me outside. She heads into the living room back toward the stairs through the front living room. I chase her back through the family room, around the table. Finally I corner her and grab her not too gently by the collar and explain to her I'm not really in the mood for this, well you know.She's outside, Athena soon follows and finally Bandi. He goes outside and paces the deck. When Teri brings out the dog treats, he suddenly knows what that is and he's back. The dusting of snow outside and Nastia's refusal to wear contacts when it is dark outside prompts me to drive her to work. I promise to pick her up at 1:30. It's now 6 AM. I tell her I love her as I drop her off at work. It's Christmas Eve a light covering of snow and few tracks have been made in it. To me this has always been what I picture as Christmas. It'll all be gone by noon they say, but right now I'm glad to be up. I stop going up the hill near my house. I left in the other direction and no one has made tracks in the snow. For some reason I am reminded of the poem by Robert Frost 'Stopping by the woods on a Snowy Evening". Back when I was in therapy, I started memorizing the words, It caused my therapist some concern.I didn't know it was about suicide. Whose woods these are I do not know....

I just looked up the poem and I don't remember it as well as I thought. I've stopped for a precious few moments to look at the wonder of the world and then it's time to put tire tracks in the snow. Inside the house, Teri is up still getting herself some coffee. I'm really not ready to face the day, so I head back to bed. I get up around 9:30 with the idea to get a bagel. It devolves in an Egg McMuffin. Nastia asked me for a tea several hours ago, so I combine the two. I make her a tea and and head to Stop and Shop and McDonalds. I ask her if she wants anything, she asks for pancakes. I then head to Tractor Supply for bird seed for my mother. It's Christmas Eve and I've given Nastia breakfast. I text Elena, asking her if she'd like Taco Bell for Lunch. She replys, yes.

At home, I wrap presents. Sometime around 11:15 my alarm goes off and I head toward Pearl River for Elena's Taco Bell. She texts me telling me she is taking her lunch exactly at 12:00. I arrive at Taco Bell a little early, get her her favorite 2 Chalupas and a taco. And of course a Baja Blast Mountain Dew. Shop Rite is packed. I park in one of the most distant spots over near Shop Rite liquors. I avoid people going out the in door and snug my mask around my face. Yes we are back to masks, COVID has mutated and the mutation is called Omicron. Before this there was Delta and before that there were British and American versions. This one spreads very easly, but symptoms, if you have your shots are mild to almost nothing. They say you get super protection at that point. I head past all the slow moving people and I thank God I was able to do all my shopping on line this year. I feel there are too many people in Rockland and I long for the 1970's at times like this. Back at the Seafood counter, it takes me a moment to find my daughter, the fish monger. She is cleaning up and emptying a box that once held seafood. She piles boxes on boxes and comes out from behind the counter and I watch waiting for the boxes to fall off and they do. She picks them up and disposes them. In a flash it's lunch time and Taco Bell for her. I wander around the store for a few moments and leave. At home, I'm back to wrapping. Nastia needs to be picked up at 1:30 and wants to do lunch. I ask her if she wants to go to Costco. I want to pick up a few things. Costco on Christmas Eve is not the mad house I thought it would be. It isn't even Saturday busy. People getting gas are out to the street, but the store isn't too bad. We're in and spend $130.00. I don't even remeber on what. I got Teri some nuts for Christmas. Nastia got some chips. She wanted to buy a case of crap legs. It was maybe a fifteen by six by six box. I laughed when I read the price $389.00. Back at home, Nastia and I decide to watch the second season of 'THe Witcher'. I was given the day off (Friday) and was going to do nothing all day. It's around four and for the first time I'm doing nothing, well until Teri gets home. Dinner on Christmas Eve back in the 80's, you know pre-COVID used to be a family thing. I'd make Manicotti and homemade meatballs. I loved doing it. Sometime in the 90's it faded away. Elena is heading out to have dinner with Matt. He is also coming over for Christmas morning. Dinner is just Nastia, Teri and I and I don't remember what it was, it was that special, but tomorrow will be Prime Rib which has become a recent tradition, which I've come to love. The night fades to black with Nasita, Teri and I watching TV. Nothing special, but it's nice. / Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. /